CS-MARS Upgrade

The thought of upgrading the CS-MARS software is a pain for most MARS Administrators, mainly because of the time it consumes to upgrade to the latest version. The upgrading of the MARS software can only be done sequentially, version by version. The recommended method of upgrading a CS-MARS device is through the CLI using the pnupgrade command. The most reliable and easiest pnupgrade method is using a CD-ROM. The software can be downloaded from the Cisco site and burned on to a CD.

pnupgrade cdrom://csmars-6.1.1.3445.zip

Other pnupgrade methods are ftp, http & https. MARS requires that the upgrade server enforces user authentication.

pnupgrade -u username:password ftp://ftpserver/csmars-version.zip

Most people prefer GUI for doing the upgradation, but could end up facing lot of issues. One of the most common errors GUI users face is, Upgrade csmars-6.1.1.3445.zip failed. Failed to pass the version dependency test. Chances are the data versions do not match even though you upgrade the software, version by version. The MARS appliance can screw up the data version numbers giving you this error. You can check this via CLI by typing in the commands.

[pnadmin]$ version

6.0.8 (3428) 36

[pnadmin]$ pnupgrade

CSMARS Upgrade...........[14033]

------------------------------------------------

Package Name Type Version URL

------------------------------------------------

csmars-6.1.1.3445.zip BD 6.1.1.3445.38 N/A

csmars-6.0.8.3428.zip BD 6.0.8.3428.37 N/A

csmars-6.0.7.3404.zip BD 6.0.7.3404.36 N/A

csmars-6.0.6.3368.zip BD 6.0.6.3368.35 N/A

csmars-6.0.5.3358.zip BD 6.0.5.3358.34 N/A

csmars-6.0.4.3229.zip BD 6.0.4.3229.33 N/A

csmars-6.0.3.3190.zip B 6.0.3.3190 N/A

csmars-6.0.3.3188.zip BD 6.0.3.3188.32 N/A

csmars-6.0.2.3102.zip BD 6.0.2.3102.31 N/A

(data version number is highlighted), CS-MARS obtains this upgrade order from the MARSCatalog.xml file embedded in the zip file.

In the above case, 6.1.1 will not get installed because the data version of the previous upgraded software version 6.0.8.3428.36 does not match with the MARSCatalog version 6/0/8/3428/37. To get 6.0.8 (3428) 37, again install 6.0.8 via CLI (It wouldn't run from the GUI). This should resolve the issue.

If your CS-MARS has connectivity to internet, the upgradation could be done directly from the Cisco Website. But you will have to have a valid CCO ID with to ability to download software.