Can someone explain the IOS upgrading policy.

Say you have cisco 2600 router and a Cisco 2950 Switch and both have old IOS's and you want to upgrade them.
The Cisco 2600 router has IOS 12.1 and the Cisco 2950 switch has the original IOS from the date of manufacture.
What is the process to upgrade them. I tried to google the answer but I get the Technical answer of how to upgrade them vs the straight answer I am looking for.

1.Does it cost anything to upgrade a cisco IOS. I know Cisco IOS 15.1 is a different ball game but I am interested in 12.4 IOS and Switch IOS upgrade to 12.1.22.

Software Upgrade Procedure - Cisco Systems <--This is the link I got that shows me how to upgrade a switch or a router but does not say if it costs anything to upgrade them.

I know this might be a newbie question but in my defense I am a newbie on this subject. Up until recently I have been using packet tracer and never gave any thought to this question until I decided to buy my own equipment.

Please advise.

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Comments

EdTheLad

Is this for your personal use or for commercial? If commercial you would have contact details for a sales person within Cisco to find out your options. But i'm guessing this is personal use. The equipment you have is no longer under warranty, legally you are not supposed to upgrade it to any IOS without consent from Cisco. But for a home lab learning environment nobody cares.Just look at the release notes for the IOS you are interested in and verify your hardware supports it, i.e. bootprom level, ram, flash. Search the web, their areplenty of these old ios versions floating around.

Matro

May occure problems during an update? If there is a black out, the router/switch is dead? (I think to smartphones, where update can be dangerous).

Thanks

theodoxa

For older routers, there is technically no allowable [per Cisco] way to upgrade. Cisco only allows Router IOS downloads if you have Smartnet for that router and they won't sell Smartnet for a seriously EOL router like the 2600 series. BTW, the 2600 (non-XM) series only runs up to 12.3. The 2600XM will run up to 12.4T.

For Switches, you can download the IOS from Cisco with the exception of the IP Services (EMI Image) for the 3560/3750 series.

Cisco Systems

theodoxa

Matro wrote: »

May occure problems during an update? If there is a black out, the router/switch is dead? (I think to smartphones, where update can be dangerous).

Thanks

If something happens during the update, you should be able to restore the IOS in ROMMON. The ROMMON method is a bit of a PITA, but it will work.

mgmguy1

EdTheLad wrote: »

Is this for your personal use or for commercial? If commercial you would have contact details for a sales person within Cisco to find out your options. But i'm guessing this is personal use. The equipment you have is no longer under warranty, legally you are not supposed to upgrade it to any IOS without consent from Cisco. But for a home lab learning environment nobody cares.Just look at the release notes for the IOS you are interested in and verify your hardware supports it, i.e. bootprom level, ram, flash. Search the web, their areplenty of these old ios versions floating around.

Thanks EdTheLad,
This is for personal use as I am trying to build a home study lab.