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(ASCEND) Max TNT upgrade from 1.2ap12 to 1.3Ap6


I just thought I'd inform those that haven't upgraded to 1.3 yet to be
aware of problems/issues/concerns that I had to address when upgrading
from old to new code.

We loaded the boot-sr [.bin] file.  No problems.  We then tried to load
the tntrel.tar.  Heh.  Good luck.  It kept stopping during the load and
saying "load aborted: invalid image unsupported by load tar command" or
some words to that effect.

So, I try again, thinking that I might have ftp'd the file in the wrong
mode, ascii instead of binary.  I redownload the file.  I test it yet
again - zip.  Thank the stars above my connection was on the ethernet
controller and a serial cable that I could tip to from unix.

Well, after calling tech support and waiting for a few seconds on hold
(that was actually short compared to most times I call in), I spoke to a
"Gary", I think.  He went round and round on it, telling me that I needed
to format the flash card.  Ok, I do that.  Nope.  Still has problems
loading the code.  Next.  He puts me on hold and asks a few techs what
they think it could be and also tries it on a TNT near him.  While I'm on
hold, I get the sudden notion to reboot the TNT.  And I do.  The devices
didn't boot or post because the versions were different... And I was able
to successfully install the .tar file. I'm in the middle of my next reboot
as the tech comes back on the line.

He tells me that it gave him the same error to and apparently his solution
was to turn off the slots and install the .tar file.  In my actions, I had
inadvertently done the very same thing, and it took less time. ;)
So, we hang up thinking we solved this problem.

Well, I thought that was the end.  Guess again.  It turns out that our
routing table turns to clay and washes away.  Apparently, the
configuration didn't completely save.  So, I call tech support again.  For
some odd reason I got Gary again, I think.  We go on for hours about how
subnetting doesn't work the way we're doing it [yet, it worked very much
well just before this upgrade (do we see a troubleshooting problem
here?)].  While he gets back on the phone, I have the most perverse idea
-- check to see if we have RIP enabled because we do network updates via
rip.  Sometimes, I feel like I have ideas while the tech is not on the
phone and that I have to let them bounce the wrong ideas off me to put me
in the right direction.  [I really would have loved to talk to Atif
instead.  He's always one step ahead.] It turns out that RIP wasn't
enabled.  That solved a lot of problems.  What it didn't solve was how to
fix the NT machine that was still plaguing us.  For some strange reason,
our routing was still screwy since our connections had some how started
doing "set proxy = Always" instead of "set proxy = Active". [Another
configuration item that was not picked up by Gary in the beginning and
eventually another tech called us later that day, Robert, I think].
Robert didn't finally think of proxy until 20 minutes after I and another
guy here had a flash of insight and checked that.  Do you realize how long
this took to narrow down as 4 people looked at this server [2 ascend techs
and 2 people here] after this "upgrade"? Forever and a year.  And it
didn't make our customers too happy. Btw, we've been using RIP for 12
months now and I don't really appreciate it too much when Ascend guys try
to redesign our network everytime we call and ask about IPs when RIP does
it quite beautifully.

Btw, saving the config didn't help.  The older version of config file
isn't compatible with the newer one in all aspects especially
IP-INTERFACE. I also noted in the IP-INTERFACE section that
"2nd-ip-address" disappeared too which also caused us problems as we had
an address listed there. Ok... so I started looking around and noted that
logical ip actually works now.  I correct that, restart the TNT and it
works right as rain.  

The moral to this story is that the upgrade was absolute hell.  We hadn't
intended on going through this much grief to get K56 modems installed [the
Max4000 that we have had a similar problem with it's config when we moved
it from V.34 to K56].  I guess the stupid question to ask here is why make
the versions incompatible? That's kinda absurd. ;)

Otherwise, we've not had any problems since then.

--
Joseph Hickman
  Director of Network Operations
  josephh@psn.net / iconia@psn.net


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