N5K Stuck in Boot Mode

Another trivial post. The upcoming posts following this one will take a more in-depth look at the Nexus technologies.

So you do an non-ISSU NX-OS upgrade on a Nexus 5000 switch and something goes wrong. After reload you get the following prompt:

...Loader Version pr-1.3
loader>

The switch did not successfully boot from the images it was suppose to. How to go about restoring it?

To correct this, find the name of the kickstart image available on bootflash:

loader> dir
bootflash:
  lost+found
  assoc_mgr_cnv.log
  mts.log
  vfc_cnv.log
  vlan.dat
  admin.rc.cli
  n5000-uk9.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
  n5000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.2.N2.1.bin

Then load the kickstart image to have the mini NX-OS loaded.
Quick history snippet while it loads, have a look at the ‘sprom_drv_init_platform’ field. It lists the name “Nuova”. That is the company who designed the original Nexus platform, that Cisco bought out.

loader> boot n5000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
Booting kickstart image: n5000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.2.N2.1.bin....
...............................................................................
...Image verification OK

Starting kernel...
Usage: init 0123456SsQqAaBbCcUu
INIT: version 2.85 booting
platform_type cmdline parameter not found. Asssuming Oregon.
I2C - Mezz absent
sprom_drv_init_platform: nuova_i2c_register_get_card_index
blogger: /var/log/isan.log: No such file or directory (2).
Starting Nexus5010 POST...
  Executing Mod 1 1 SEEPROM Test......done
  Executing Mod 1 1 GigE Port Test.......^@done
  Executing Mod 1 1 Inband GigE Test.....done
  Executing Mod 1 1 NVRAM Test....done
  Executing Mod 1 1 PCIE Test...............................done
  Mod 1 1 Post Completed Successfully
POST is completed
autoneg unmodified, ignoring
autoneg unmodified, ignoring
Checking all filesystems..... done.
.
Loading system software
No system exporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...done.
INIT: Sending processes the KILL signal
Cisco Nexus Operating System (NX-OS) Software
TAC support: http://www.cisco.com/tac
Copyright (c) 2002-2010, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
The copyrights to certain works contained in this software are
owned by other third parties and used and distributed under
license. Certain components of this software are licensed under
the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.0 or the GNU
Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Version 2.1. A copy of each
such license is available at
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php and
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.php
switch(boot)#

Once that is done find the system image and boot it from the bootdisk, or the USB slot0:

switch(boot)# dir
         47  Nov 03 2010 15:21:20  ..tmp-kickstart
         37  Nov 03 2010 15:21:21  ..tmp-system
   20816384  Nov 03 2010 15:21:20  .tmp-kickstart
  182863950  Nov 03 2010 15:21:21  .tmp-system
          0  Nov 11 2010 10:44:25  admin.rc.cli
        362  Mar 08 2011 16:09:26  assoc_mgr_cnv.log
      49152  Mar 08 2011 15:15:41  lost+found/
       7986  Mar 16 2011 13:59:36  mts.log
   25164288  Dec 30 2010 11:42:38  n5000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
  156932426  Dec 30 2010 11:41:52  n5000-uk9.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
        362  Dec 30 2010 12:18:25  vfc_cnv.log
        508  Jun 05 2011 13:24:58  vlan.dat

           Usage for bootflash: filesystem
                  450199552 bytes total used
                  433152000 bytes free
                  883351552 bytes available

switch(boot)# load bootflash:n5000-uk9.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
  Uncompressing system image: bootflash:/n5000-uk9.5.0.2.N2.1.bin
...
System booting up.

That simple, hth :)