Cisco 3850 Reload Slot Command

You can use the reload at command to schedule a reboot of the whole stack but there is no way that I'm aware of to reload an individual stack member at a specific time, without resorting to third-party tools to issue the reload slot command at a specific time. Edit 1: To set your stack member priorities, you can use the command switch priority. Not everyone knows that the reload command permits to schedule a reboot system; for instance, to plan a night router restart or during a critical configuration (AAA, vty, and so on). There are two ways to schedule a reload system: at: at a specific time/date in: after a time interval The ‘at’ keyword permits to. Solved: Hi, Is it possible to upgrade the IOS on a cisco 3850 stack in a non disruptive way? Reloading 1 switch at a time? Or do you need to reload the entire stack at once, like a 3750 stack? Solved: Hi Experts, I would like to know if, lets say, we have 5 or 6 switches in a stack, but I want to reload all the devices at once, which command should I use? I have seen the reload slot i d command, but the slot is referencing the switch.

The Cisco “reload” command is used on almost all IOS Cisco networking devices (routers, switches etc) to restart (or reboot) the appliance.

This command might seem very basic but it has some interesting practical applications that we will see later in this article.

Basic Command Usage

As we have said above, the basic usage of this command is to reload the IOS operating system of the router or switch. Its the same as rebooting a computer.

If the current running configuration is modified and not saved to flash, the device prompts you to save the configuration.

The following example shows how to immediately reload a Cisco device:

CiscoRouter# reload

Another useful trick to know is to verify first the stored IOS image on the device before reloading:

CiscoRouter# reload /verify

The above will first perform a signature verification and file integrity check on the stored bootflash image file before reloading the appliance. After the verification is done the system will ask you again if you want to reboot the device.

CiscoRouter# reload [text specifying the reason]

e.g CiscoRouter# reload testing of Access Control List

The above specifies the reason of reloading the system.

How to schedule a reload

Now this is the useful practical application of the reload command we have mentioned at the beginning.

By scheduling a reload at some specified time in the future allows the administrator to make critical changes to the configuration that might drop connectivity or have some other traffic implications.

If something unexpected happens after the configuration change, the device will reboot by itself in let’s say 2 minutes from now thus restoring the previous state of the network.

Let’s see how reload scheduling works:

There are two keywords that you can specify for reload scheduling:

reload at [specific date and time]
reload in [minutes]

Examples:

CiscoRouter# reload at 14:00

The above will reload the router at 2:00pm in the current date.

CiscoRouter# reload at 14:00 jan 10

The above will reload the router at 2:00pm on January 10.

Both of the above commands assume that you have correct clock settings configured on the device (NTP or manual system clock setting).

CiscoRouter# reload in 2

The above will reload the router in 2 minutes from now. Very useful as we will see in the special case below.

CiscoRouter# show reload

The above shows the current state of the reload command. If you have scheduled a reload operation after some time from now, the above command will show the exact time when the device will reboot.

CiscoRouter# reload cancel

The above will abort any scheduled reload operation.

Practical Use Case of Scheduling a Reload

Assume you are connected remotely to a router on the other side of the world and you are configuring some “dangerous” commands such as changing an IP address on an interface, applying Access Control Lists, making changes to a dynamic routing protocol etc.

The above configuration modifications can kill your connection to the appliance, interrupt traffic communication, lock you out of the device etc. By scheduling a reload will provide a “safety net” for the above unexpected situations.

Let’s see what to do if you are working remotely on a Cisco device:

Step 1:

First save the current working configuration before making any changes:

CiscoRouter# wr mem