This section provides minimal instructions for updating the system image on your Layer 3 switch router. This procedure assumes that you are manually booting the switch router from a system image on the boot flash memory SIMM. You can also configure the switch router to boot automatically from a system image specified in the BOOT environment variable. For additional information on booting options and maintaining system images, refer to the Cisco IOS Configuration Fundamentals Configuration Guide.

To update the system software, use the following steps:

Step 1 Download the system image from CCO.

Step 2 Copy the system image to the switch router.

Step 3 Reload the switch router with the new image.

Downloading System Images from CCO
Cisco IOS system images, along with other software, are available from the Software Center on Cisco Connection Online (CCO) at http://www.cisco.com. You can download system images from CCO using your browser's FTP capability, using conventional FTP, or using CCO's asynchronous dial-up interface.

For instructions on accessing and downloading software from CCO, refer to the Software Downloading from CCO via World Wide Web publication at the Software Center on CCO.

Copying the System Image to the Switch Router
You can copy the system image to the switch router using TFTP, FTP, or RCP. If the system you used to download the image from CCO does not function as a TFTP, FTP, or RCP server, you must first copy the file to an intermediate server that provides those services to your switch router.

Note - Before copying the system image from the server to the switch router, check the size of the file to make sure you will have enough room for it in your switch router's boot flash memory. On UNIX file systems, use the ls -la command from the directory where the file is stored to display the file size.