Network boot Brocade 3800

[Jeff_Traigle]

We recently received two Brocade 3800s. They are used and the previous owners (whoever that was) did not set all of the passwords to factory default. As a result, one of them can only be logged into as "user", which is still at factory default.

Since it requires a significant firmware revision update (3.0.2j to 3.2.1b), I figured I might be able to do the upgrade by booting it over the network and have it force the rest of all accounts as a similarly large upgrade on the Brocade 2800s I upgraded last year did. (I know the procedure in the FOS upgrade doc doesn't say you can do this, but I figured it was worth a shot since we don't have them under support yet and can't get a reset password firmware to boot from.)

Unfortunately, this tactic is not working and the diagnostics are nil. The interface is assigned the IP address, but keeps saying the host where the firmware file exists is not active. I've verified access and all seems well on the ftp server side when testing from a laptop.

Any ideas what kinds of things would cause this vague failure message?

[Frantisek Kysela · Accepted solution]

Hi Jeff,
unfortunately there isn't a simple password recovery procedure.
You can try:
factory:password
root:password
root:fibranne
If none passwords works, you need contact Brocade for password recovery firmware. It's based on switch wwn.

Frantisek

[Amar_Joshi]

Once you can login as "root" user, you are set to go, run #passwddefault command and it will reset your passwords.

To get a root login without password, follow:

1. Connect serial cable to switch (test it before you reboot your switch).
2. reboot the switch and press ESC key within 4 seconds at boot message "press ESC key within 4 sec...."
3. Menu will appear, go to Command Prompt shell (mostly option 3)
4. Enter the command:
#mount -o remount,rw,noatime /
5. Enter the command:
mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
6. Enter the command:
#passwddefault
or
#passwd admin (to reset admin password only)
7. #reboot -f


*** If you fail at step 5, Enter the command:
#printenv
and look for "OSRootPartition" param, the second partition should be mounted (usually hda2)



That's it... so simple. :)

[Jeff_Traigle]

I wish it was that simple. I think those directions aren't for the SilkWorm 2800 or 3800. No menu appears when I interrupt the boot process on the 3800.

[Jeff_Traigle]

While the responses didn't answer the specific question about booting from the firmware file over the network, they did get me into the SilkWorms as root so I could reset the passwords for all accounts.

The one switch I could login to as root with "password" I was able to use the passwddefault command to reset all four accounts. That was indeed very simple.

The other switch I was able to login to with "fibranne" (where the heck is that documented?), but the passwddefault command was not recognized. However, since I was logged in above the "user" privilege, I was able to upgrade the firmware. As I expected, the big jump in revisions forced me to set the passwords on all four accounts. (After this, the passwddefault command was recognized and worked.)