We have a large lot of 411GL boards that just arrived with v5.11 on them. We wanted to automate the configuration process to upgrade them to v5.21 and to put v2.41 of RouterBoot on them using FlashFig and FTP with scripts.

It seems that FlashFig in Netinstall v5.21 will not respond to bootp requests from the boards. Wireshark sees the bootp requests coming from the boards, but there is no reply. However, if we enable Net Booting then Netinstall does reply. With hundreds of boards to configure, we need to automate the process and doing boards one by one is just not practical.

Second issue is scripting of passwords and confirmations. If we write a simple script to do something like /system routerboard upgrade, the script fails because it wants a "Y" to confirm. We have tried all sorts of tricks to bypass it and you just can't. Also, if you want to do auto-upgrade then the system asks for password and stalls the script as well. Why can't scripts bypass these prompts? Is there a way to automate response for confirmations and passwords? This is again important for automatic configurations. We would not store permanent operating passwords in scripts, obviously.

Seems like maintenance functions like upgrade of firmware and auto-upgrade should be fully scriptable.
Suggestions?

Further...with brand new, never powered on boards, FlashFig gives a "No TFTP request" error for all 411GL boards with 5.11 on them. We are trying to upgrade to 5.21 and we are running FlashFig on a windows 7 Pro 32 bit machine with no firewall.

Again, if we enable bootp net booting on NetInstall instead of FlashFig then it boots and tftp transfer starts. So there is an issue with 5.11 and FlashFig. Telling us this was fixed in later ROS versions doesn't help because the brand new boards direct from Microtik come with 5.11 on them. So it should be fixed. We have about 350 more boards to configure for this order and another 1000 coming.

Really don't want to touch every board just to get the software image built.

Suggestions?

We determined that the problem with FlashFig is that with ROS 5.11 boards (all brand new RB411GL that we received) there are problems with the TFTP/bootp implementation.

We traced the session using Wireshark and found that the boards make a request to boot from flashfig.
The flashfig server gives them an address
From the client board, the TFTP request is made to the flashfig server
The flashfig sends the boot image to the boards
But wireshark shows that there is an ethernet frame sequence error for the transfer of the boot image.
The flashfig server says in it's log that the client was flashfigged, but the boards give off a three beep error tone and hangs. Seems like at some point they time out and then boot from NAND with no update occurring.

Any ideas on what the problem is? Is it the 2.39 bootloader?

Ya, This is absolutely the worst process I have ever seen for mass provisioning. It is a shame that they don't get it. I have hit and miss luck with this. They fail also to document that you must be connected port one on a 750GL for this to work. Why wouldn't it attempt to do the update from any port if we have set "/system routerboard settings set boot-device=flash-boot-once-then-nand" ince it is a tftp broadcast.