US 8,752,039 B1Granted

Dynamic upgrade of operating system in a network device

AssigneeJuniper Networks, Inc.

InventorVinay Bapat

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Abstract

An upgrade procedure may be executed at a network device to allow the network device to automatically upgrade an operating system to a new operating system. The upgrade procedure may include receiving a bootable image file of an upgrade operating system that is different from an operating system being run by the network device and which uses a file system format that is different from the file system format of the operating system being run by the network device. The bootable image file includes a binary file format that conforms to the file system format used by the upgrade operating system. The network device allocates contiguous space on a drive of the network device and copies the bootable image file to the contiguous space. The network device also modifies a master boot record of the drive such that the contiguous space on the drive is reflected in the master boot record as a bootable partition of the drive.

Claims22

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving, by a network device, a bootable image file of a first operating system that is different from a second operating system being run by the network device,
a first file system format of the first operating system being different from a second file system format of the second operating system, and
the bootable image file including a binary file format that conforms to the first file system format;
allocating, by the network device, contiguous space on a drive of the network device,
the contiguous space having a size at least equal to a size of the bootable image file, and
the drive being formatted according to the second file system format;
copying, by the network device, the bootable image file to the contiguous space on the drive of the network device;
modifying, by the network device, a master boot record of the drive of the network device to indicate, in the master boot record, that the contiguous space on the drive of the network device is a bootable partition of the drive of the network device;
placing, by the network device, hardware of the network device into a pass-through mode that allows traffic to pass through the network device without direction from the second operating system;
and
causing, by the network device, the network device to reboot to load the first operating system.

8 more elements

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:

one or more instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a network device, cause the at least one processor to:
receive a bootable image file of a first operating system that is different from a second operating system being run by the network device,
a first file system format used by the first operating system being different from a second file system format used by the second operating system, and
the bootable image file including a binary file format that conforms to the first file system format;
allocate contiguous space on a drive of the network device,
the contiguous space having a size at least equal to a size of the bootable image file, and
the drive being formatted according to the second file system format;
copy the bootable image file to the contiguous space on the drive of the network device;
modify a master boot record of the drive of the network device to indicate, in the master boot record, that the contiguous space on the drive of the network device is a bootable partition of the drive of the network device;
place hardware of the network device into a pass-through mode that allows traffic to pass through the network device without direction from the second operating system;
and
cause the network device to load the first operating system based on the master boot record.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.