I used the CUCM 11.5 ova to build the VM for it. I need the 11.5 iso file to mount so it will install on startup. At first, I was under the impression I needed to use the Cisco PUT in order to receive a link to download everything I need for the installation. But we ran in to issues with my cisco ID and the contracts associated with it. Cucm 11.5 To save time during the upgrade window, the day before I preloaded the 11.5 ISO on my remote ESXi datastores so that it wouldn’t take forever for the ISO to SFTP over to the remote offices (they have limited bandwidth), then I attached those ISOs as virtual DVDs to the CUCM servers via vShpere and then launched those upgrades as. I am going to run through a quick procedure to make the downloadable Cisco CUCM ISO images bootable. When you download them they are non-bootable for some reason. Use this at your own risk, and you must have a support contract to use any Cisco products. I am not liable for anything you do or mess up! Cisco is nice enough to include the boot options and ISOLINUX files and configuration.
For whatever reason, Cisco only post 'non-bootable' ISO images on CCO for download. In some urgent situations, you might need a bootable disc to recover the system (or your client/boss would shoot you in the head). Here's the procedure to make a non-bootable ISO image bootable.Before you continue, be aware that this procedure is NOT approved by Cisco. Neither Cisco nor I will be responsible for any loss caused by this.
Any bootable disc has to follow 'El Torito' specification. No exception for Cisco discs. The only difference between a bootable disc and non-bootable disc is the 'boot sector'. Thus the solution is very simple - extract the boot sector from a bootable disc and inject it into a non-bootable disc.
The boot sector is a very small file (usually less than 10k). And the boot sector is usually content independent (i.e. you may extract the boot sector from CUCM 7.1.3 and inject it into 7.1.5). You may save the boot sector on your USB thumb drive and keep it handy.
To extract/inject the boot sector, you need some disc image tools like UltraISO. (You may also use other ISO tools with similar features)
Step 1: Get the boot file
There are two ways to get a boot file - extract from the DVD's file system (regardless bootable or not) or extract from a bootable DVD's boot sector.
Option 1: Extract from DVD's file system (regardless bootable or not)
This option is preferred as you don't have to find another bootable disc or ISO file.
The boot file should be available on any CUCM DVD, regardless bootable or not. It is located in the 'isolinux' folder. File name is isolinux.bin
.Cucm 11.5 Serial Number
Extract and save the isolinux.bin file to your hard drive. We'll need to use that later.
Option 2: Extract the boot sector from a bootable DVD
If for some reason, you were not able to find/extract the isolinux.bin file, you may extract the boot file from a bootable disc (or ISO image).
Put a bootable CUCM disc into the DVD drive and launch UltraISO. Go to menu 'Bootable > Extract Boot File from CD/DVD...'
Save the file to your hard drive as a 'boot info file' (bif). In our example, we call it 'boot.bif'
Step 2: Inject the boot file
Open the non-bootable image in UltraISO. Go to menu 'Bootable'. Make sure 'Generate Bootinfotable' was checked (it will NOT work without this option). Then choose 'Load Boot File...'.
Choose the boot file we saved before (isolinux.bin or boot.bif).
Note that the image type changed to 'Bootable'.
Now, you may go to 'File > Save As' to save the bootable image to an ISO file. Then you may burn the ISO to a disc with your favorite disc burner software.
Helped a customer upgrade from 11.0 to CSR 11.5, CUCM 11.5(1)SU1; IM&P 11.5(1)SU1; CUC 11.5(1)SU1.
Unity Connection 11.5
You must apply ciscocm.cuc_11.5SU1_pre_upgrade.cop.sgn before you upgrade to 11.5 because of bugid CSCvb02774. The install of the patch is straightfoward and does not require a reboot. I also ran a utils iothrottle disable to make the upgrade run faster (since it was being done after hours.)
If you’re upgrading from 10.x or earlier it is CRITICAL to increase your VM RAM to 6GB. (This was something I ran into when going to 11.0. If you leave it at 4GB it will not function properly at all.)
The upgrade ran normally and took a quite a while for the switch-version to complete.
Cucm 11.5 Su7
On a site note, I noticed that the new Unity Connection (CUC) 11.5 .ova files define a 200GB HDD for the bigger VM. I investigated increasing my HDD from 160 to 200GB, but found out that CUC does NOT support dynamic resize of the HDD. This will cause the partition to be unaligned and you’ll get to rebuild CUC from scratch. So leave it at it’s current size.
CUCM 11.5
To save time during the upgrade window, the day before I preloaded the 11.5 ISO on my remote ESXi datastores so that it wouldn’t take forever for the ISO to SFTP over to the remote offices (they have limited bandwidth) , then I attached those ISOs as virtual DVDs to the CUCM servers via vShpere and then launched those upgrades as though they were coming from DVD instead of a remote file server.
The first attempt to launch the upgrade on the Pub failed with the old “common parition doesn’t have enough space” business. I used RTMT to decrease the Low and High logging watermark to 45 and 40 respectively (and restarted the log partition monitoring service) to create room.
Purge Log Files by Changing the Log Partition Watermarks
Bootable Cucm 11.5 Iso
- Another way to create additional disk space is by changing the high and low watermarks on the system. This informs Unified CM of the numbers of log files to purge once the watermark is reached. Use RTMT as follows:
- Launch RTMT and log in to the desired cluster.
- From the left pane, select Alert Central.
- On the right pane, double-click LogPartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded. Change the threshold value to 40.
- On the right pane, double-click LogPartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded. Change the threshold value to 45.
- This data is polled every five minutes. Allow five to 10 minutes and then check the drive partitions for additional disk space by using one of the methods described above.
As usual, I ran the Pub first (without switching version), when it completed, I ran the Subs (also without switching versions).
If you’re coming from 11.0, the utils iothrottle disable command is not necessary. (You can try to run it but CUCM 11.0 tells you it is unneeded.)
I rebooted the Pub and then Subs as normal.
IM&P 11.5
Cucm 11.5 Sftp
This was also a typical upgrade. The switch-version took a LONG time for services to come up on the reboot.