Cisco Mobility Services Engine Software Downgrade to 8.0

Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE) 8.0 is a wireless mobility and security services engine. It works in conjunction with Cisco Prime Infrastructure instance to deliver these services. After initial build and minimal configuration, most of the other configuration tasks can be carried out through Cisco Prime Infrastructure server.

Cisco Connected Mobile Experience (CMX) is a software package that runs as an application on top of Cisco MSE. In older versions, it is one of the many services offered by the MSE. In the release after Cisco MSE 8.0, the MSE and CMX relationship can be thought of as an underlying hardware platform and a software application running on top respectively.

Enterprise can choose to install a physical MSE appliance and running CMX on top, or CMX can be deployed as VM on a supported virtualization platform. However, if wIPS feature is needed, the older model of MSE acting both as hardware (physical or virtual) and wIPS as a one of the services on top is still needed.

Recently, A pair of MSE 3365 were delivered with CMX 10.4.1 software, while the requirement was to have it use for location services and wIPS. This needed a downgrade to version 8.0 – the latest available as of this writing is 8.0.150.0.

Downgrading to 8.0.130.0

Raise a Cisco TAC case to get a special download link to an ISO file for the 8.0 version. We got 8.0.130.0 with the recommendation to upgrade it further to 8.0.150.0. The ISO is not available on the Cisco download portal for any of the physical platforms

The process goes like this:

• Configure CIMC for remote SSH / Web access

• Login to the CIMC web interface, and Launch KVM
  • With HTML Based KVM selection, Chrome browser would later disconnect the Virtual Media while the Installer was running. Switched to Firefox and the issue didn’t come up

• Activate the “Virtual Media”, and map the ISO to the CD/DVD option

• Power cycle the server (menu option). While booting, F6 takes you to the boot options menu

• Select Cisco vKVM-Mapped vDVD menu option

• The install process begins, but due to a bug (CSCuw32543) will become stuck at “Running anaconda 13.21.229, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System installer – please wait”
  • The anaconda installer is just awaiting a simple “Enter” key press at this point, which the KVM is unable to deliver
  • To rectify, SSH to the CIMC, connect to the console using “connect host” command, and press enter. The installation will resume

• Configure the MSE using post-install script. Save and Apply changes choosing ’24’

• Login to MSE using ‘root / <new-pass>.

• Restart network service for new IP settings to take effect, using command ‘/etc/init.d/network restart’

• Verify remote access SSH to the system

Upgrading to 8.0.150.0

!!!! SSH to MSE
cd /opt/installers

!!!! FTP the software upgrade files to MSE
ftp <ftp-server>
  binary
  get CISCO-MSE-L-K9-8-0-150-0-64bit.bin.tar.gz
  get enc-upgrade-patch_8-0-150-0.tar.gz
  exit

!!!! Extract the main upgrade file. Change file permissions. Make the package file executable.
tar xvzf CISCO-MSE-L-K9-8-0-150-0-64bit.bin.tar.gz 
chown nobody:nobody CISCO-MSE-L-K9-8-0-150-0-64bit.bin signhash.bin 
chown nobody:nobody Database_Installer.11.2.0.4.tar.gz
chmod +x CISCO-MSE-L-K9-8-0-150-0-64bit.bin

!!!! Extract encryption patch
tar xvzf enc-upgrade-patch_8-0-150-0.tar.gz

!!!! Stop MSE servcies
 /etc/init.d/msed stop

!!!! Navigate to sub-directory. Install encryption patch first
cd enc-upgrade-patch
./apply-patch.sh 

!!!! Install main binary upgrade package next, using its absolute path name
 /opt/installers/CISCO-MSE-L-K9-8-0-150-0-64bit.bin
  'Enter' to accept the 'Introduction'
  '2-Continue' to overwrite existing MSE installation (this is a new system)
  '1-Yes' to confirm a manual backup was generated before (didn't do it, this is new system)
  '1-Now' to reboot now

!!!! Check upgraded MSE status
getserverinfo