We have a 6.49.19 hEX running capsman. We have approx 30 cAP’s, cAP ac, wAP ac and a couple cAP ax? (Not sure). We uploaded latest 7.20.1 to all AP’s It looks like they all show up in capsman. I want to now load the upgrade code 7.20.1 to the hEX. What should I expect? Should this all just work? Can anyone let me know what we may run into? Any pointers and gotchas?
At the end you'll need two packages (at least) on your hEX (RB750Gr3 I presume): routeros (base package) and wireless (which contains legacy CAPsMAN, compatible with CAPsMAN you're currently running).
Depending on the way you want to perform the upgrade, package dependency might be resolved automatically (but you'll have to first upgrade to 7.12.1 by setting channel=upgrade and after that to 7.20.1) or you'll have to do it manually (if installing either by uploading package files to hEX and hitting upgrade button or by using netinstall).
It seems like you might be stuck with using legacy wireless drivers on your fleet because your wAP ac devices (RBwAPG-5HacT2HnD) are not ARM-based and thus can't run new wifi-qcom-ac drivers ... which do enhance performance on devices that can run them (your cAP ac devices could run it). The problem is that CAPsMAN for legacy wireless driver and CAPsMAN for new wifi-qcom(-ac) driver are not compatible.
OTOH you could "split" your AP fleet into two parts: one controlled by legacy CAPsMAN and one controlled by new CAPsMAN ... and incidentally both CAPsMANs can run on your hEX (new CAPsMAN is part of base ROS package). Since legacy CAPsMAN doesn't do any mobility functions, running two CAPsMANs wouldn't change anything about mobility between both parts of APs, However, new CAPsMAN does support mobility functions (802.11 r/k/v) between APs controlled by that CAPsMAN instance. However, new CAPsMAN doesn't support capsman-forwarding (yet), so if you're using it, you'd loose that part of functionality (but I'm guessing you're not using it, single hEX would struggle a lot if forwarding traffic of this many APs). New wifi-qcom-ac also don't support VLAN on wifi config, another thing to be aware of if your current setup does use VLANs.
Given your Hex currently is running ROS6, I have some doubts there are any cap AX in your capsman environment.
It would simply not work.
What would be the reason to move to ROS7 for that Hex ?
Make no mistake, ROS7 works just fine on that device but if ROS6 also works for you, why change ?
There are AX units in our future. Is it a requirement for Ver 7?
The other way around.
AX devices only run on ROS7.
Same for the related capsman version to control AX devices.
And that already has been explained by mkx above.
OK, Back on to this.
I was looking at this so you are telling me I “have” to go to 7.12.1, and same firmware before anything else?
”Depending on the way you want to perform the upgrade, package dependency might be resolved automatically (but you'll have to first upgrade to 7.12.1 by setting channel=upgrade and after that to 7.20.1)”
If I just click upgrade, it only offers latest version.
Is this the wireless package? I have extracted the all_packages zip form MT website. Am I missing something? I don’t see a “wireless”
Since upgrade is offering you to go directly to 7.20.2, you could try that as well. Just be prepared for the (highly probable IMO) possibility that wireless package will be missing (and thus CAPsMAN for legacy APs won't work). It should be fairly simple to add the package afterwards, recent versions (since 7.18 IIRC) show full list of available packages right in the ROS upgrader and you simply select optional package for installation (manual download of all packages archive and uploading a single package to device is no longer necessary). Configuration related to wireless (including CSPsMAN) should re-appear after installation of wireless package.
Standard disclaimer applies: before performing upgrade, create both binary backup and text export of device configuration and copy both files off device so you'll have them if things go wrong.