too small flash to upload a new software

In my previous post I wrote about upgrade of Huawei S5300 switch. The question is, what to do if flash memory is too small to fit more than one software. As it was mentioned last time, you can format flash from bootrom menu and download a new software using FTP, from bootrom menu. In this post I will show you how to deal with this problem more smoothly. You can come up against this problem in Huawei S3328TP-SI switch, where flash capacity is 15MB. Let’s take it as an example.

<S3328>display version
Huawei Versatile Routing Platform Software
VRP (R) Software, Version 5.30 (S3328 V100R003C00SPC301)
Copyright (C) 2008-2009 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Quidway S3328TP-SI uptime is 0 day, 0 hour, 4 minutes

As you can see flash capacity is 15MB:

<S3328>dir
Directory of flash:/

   0   -rw-        61  Jan 01 2008 00:22:13   private-data.txt
   1   -rw-       660  Jan 01 2008 00:16:23   vrpcfg.zip
   2   -rw-       396  Jan 01 2008 00:12:06   hostkey
   3   -rw-   7068108  Jan 01 2008 00:20:12   s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
   4   -rw-       540  Jan 01 2008 00:12:11   serverkey
   5   -rw-    343712  Jan 01 2008 00:04:49   bootrom330.bin
   6  -rw-        60  Jan 01 2008 00:00:53   $_patchstate_a
   7  -rw-         4  Jan 01 2008 00:01:37   notilogindex.txt

14632 KB total (6268 KB free)

Now we want to upgrade the switch to S3328-V100R005C00SPC100 software version. Evidently the flash is too small to fit this software. So we are trying to delete the old software:

<S3328>delete /unreserved /s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
Error: Invalid operation, this is system startup file.

As we expected this is not possible to delete system startup file:

<S3328>display startup
[Unit 0]:
MainBoard:
  Configed startup system software:          flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
  Startup system software:                       flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
  Next startup system software:                flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
  Startup saved-configuration file:              flash:/vrpcfg.zip
  Next startup saved-configuration file:       flash:/vrpcfg.zip
  Startup license file:                               NULL
  Next startup license file:                        NULL
  Startup patch package:                         NULL
  Next startup patch package:                  NULL

How can we manage with it? Go to hidden mode of S3300 and type the following command:

[S3328]_hide
Password:
Now you enter a hidden command view for developer's testing, some commands may
affect operation by wrong use, please carefully use it with engineer's
direction.
[S3328-hidecmd]undo startup system-software

This command causes that system software file is not set as startup file, what then makes it possible to delete it from flash:

<S3328>display startup
[Unit 0]:
MainBoard:
  Configed startup system software:          NULL
  Startup system software:
  Next startup system software:                NULL
  Startup saved-configuration file:             flash:/vrpcfg.zip
  Next startup saved-configuration file:      flash:/vrpcfg.zip
  Startup license file:                               NULL
  Next startup license file:                        NULL
  Startup patch package:                         NULL
  Next startup patch package:                  NULL

<S3328>delete /unreserved s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
The contents cannot be recycled!!! Delete flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc?[Y/N]:y
%Deleting file flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc...
Jan  1 2008 00:28:14 Quidway %%01VFS/4/DEL_UNRSV(l): When deciding whether to permanently delete file flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc, the user chose Y.
Deleting file permanently from flash will take a long time if needed...............................................Done!

Then follow upgrade procedure, described in my previous post to download the new software and upgrade the switch.