Image Maintenance Using ONIE

ONIE is an “open compute” Open Network Install Environment for bare metal network switches. ONIE enables a bare metal network switch ecosystem where end-users have a choice among different network operating systems.

NVIDIA Onyx is distributed in way that allows installation on an ONIE environment. Certain switch models come pre-installed with ONIE and NVIDIA Onyx and support changing to a different operating system (OS).

To change the switch system’s operating OS:

1. Reboot the switch and wait for it to reach the GRUB menu:

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                                   GNU GRUB version 2.02
    
   X86_64 3.4.1932 2015-04-24 18:04:12 x86_64 1
   X86_64 3.4.1932 2015-04-24 18:04:12 x86_64 2
   ONIE
           

2. Select the ONIE option using the arrow keys. The following message appears:

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   Due to security constraints, this option will uninstall your current MLNX OS system.
   Are you sure ?
           

3. Type YES to continue.
   Since NVIDIA Onyx is being uninstalled and deleted from the hard drive, the process takes a few hours. After this is finished, the system reboots into the ONIE shell and auto discovery begins.

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   Info: Fetching tftp://<ip-address>/7C-FE-90-5E-6A-4A/onie-installer-x86_64-mlnx_x86-r5.0.1400 ...
   Failure: Unable to find installer: /installer
   Info: Fetching tftp://<ip-address>/0AE016FB/onie-installer-x86_64-mlnx_x86-r5.0.1400 ...
   Failure: Unable to find installer: /installer
   Info: Fetching tftp://<ip-address>/0AE016F/onie-installer-x86_64-mlnx_x86-r5.0.1400 ...
   ...
           

4. In order to manually insert an install URL, press Enter and insert the command “onie-nos-install < http> / <tftp> <url> <image name .bin>”. For example:

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   onie-nos-install http://<ip_address>//sx_mlnx_os-3.5.1000-21/X86_64/X86_64-3.5.1000-21-installer.bin
           

   Once you hit Enter, you have about 4 second to insert the command so it is recommended to prepare the command in advance and simply pasting it in. At this stage, the OS installation begins.

5. Wait for the installation to end and reboot this switch to boot into the OS.

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   ONIE:/ # onie-nos-install http://<ip_address>//sx_mlnx_os-3.5.1000-21/X86_
   64/X86_64-3.5.1000-21-installer.bin
   Stopping: discover... done.
   down.
   ONIE: eth1: link down.  Skipping configuration.
   ONIE: Failed to configure eth1 interface
   Info: Fetching http://<ip_address>//sx_mlnx_os-3.5.1000-21/X86_64/X86_64-3.5.1000-21-installer.bin ...
   Connecting to <ip_address>
   installer            100% |*******************************|   392M  0:00:00 ETA
   ONIE: Executing installer: http://<ip_address>//sx_mlnx_os-3.5.1000-21/X86_64/X86_64-3.5.1000-21-installer.bin