flashfs

Clear, display, or downgrade filesystem information. (Configuration mode.)

flashfs downgrade {4.x | 5.0 | 5.1}

clear flashfs

show flashfs

Syntax

downgrade 4.x Clear the filesystem information from Flash memory before downgrading to version 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, or 4.4.
downgrade 5.x Write the filesystem to Flash memory before downgrading to the appropriate version 5.0 or higher.

Usage Guidelines

The clear flashfs and the flashfs downgrade 4.x commands clear the filesystem part of Flash memory in the firewall. Versions 4.n cannot use the information in the filesystem; it needs to be cleared to let the earlier version operate correctly.

The flashfs downgrade 5.x command reorganizes the filesystem part of Flash memory so that information stored in the filesystem can be accessed by the earlier version. The firewall maintains a filesystem in Flash memory to store system information, IPSec private keys, certificates, and CRL. It is crucial that you clear or reformat the filesystem before downgrading to a previous firewall version. Otherwise, the filesystem will get out of sync with the actual contents of the Flash memory and cause problems when the unit is later upgraded.

You only need to use the flashfs downgrade 5.x command if the firewall has 16 MB of Flash memory, if you have IPSec private keys, certificates, or CRLs stored in Flash memory, and you used the ca save all command to save these items in Flash memory. The flashfs downgrade 5.x command fails if the filesystem indicates that any part of the image, configuration, or private data in the Flash memory device is unusable.

The clear flashfs and flashfs downgrade commands do not affect the configuration stored in Flash memory.

The clear flashfs command is the same as the flashfs downgrade 4.x command.

The show flashfs command displays the size in bytes of each filesystem sector and the current state of the filesystem. The data in each sector is as follows:

  • file 0—firewall binary image, where the .bin file is stored.

  • file 1—firewall configuration data that you can view with the show config command.

  • file 2—firewall datafile that stores IPSec key and certificate information.

  • file 3—flashfs downgrade information for the show flashfs command.

Examples

Use the following command to write the filesystem to Flash memory before downgrading to a lower version of software:

flashfs downgrade 5.3

The following commands display the filesystem sector sizes:

show flashfs

flash file system:version:1magic:0x12345679
file 0: origin:0 length:1794104
file 1: origin: 2095104 length:1496
file 2: origin:0 length:0
file 3: origin: 2096640 length:140
flashfs downgrade 5.3

show flashfs

flash file system:version:0magic:0x0
file 0: origin:0 length:0
file 1: origin:0 length:0
file 2: origin:0 length:0
file 3: origin:0 length:0

The origin values are integer multiples of the underlying filesystem sector size.