Manual Chapter : Upgrading the Secondary BIG-IQ

Applies To:

  • BIG-IQ Centralized Management

    7.0.0

Updated Date: 07/07/2026

Upgrading the Secondary BIG-IQ

Before you can upload the software image to the standby BIG-IQ, you must have first downloaded it from the F5 Downloads site.

You upload the BIG-IQ version software image to the standby BIG-IQ system to make it available for this upgrade.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT > IMAGES.

  3. Click the Upload Image button.

  4. Click the Choose File button and go to the location to which you downloaded the image, and click the Open button to upload it to BIG-IQ.

  5. Click the Upload button.

    The screen refreshes to display the progress of the upload.

Before you can upgrade the standby BIG-IQ system, you must have uploaded the software to it.

The active BIG-IQ is upgraded automatically, directly after the devices in the DCD cluster are finished upgrading, but you have to manually upgrade the standby BIG-IQ system.

CAUTION:

Use the following command only in very specific circumstances, such as this one, since it clears the majority of a BIG-IQ system’s configuration. Before you run the command, be sure you are on the standby BIG-IQ system. This command removes all stored data. If you run this command from the active BIG-IQ system, you’ll permanently lose all of your saved data.

  1. Log in to the standby BIG-IQ system’s command line as root and type the following command: /usr/bin/clear-rest-storage.

    While this step is not required, it clears the database storage on the system so the upgrade goes more quickly. After you upgrade both peer systems and re-establish the HA pair, the peer BIG-IQ will synchronize its database with this BIG-IQ system and repopulate the database.

  2. Log in to the system that you are going to establish as the standby BIG-IQ system’s user interface.

  3. At the top of the screen, click System.

  4. On the left click SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT > Software Installations.

  5. Click the Upgrade button.

  6. For the Software Image, select the image you want to install.

  7. From the Target Volume list, select the volume you want to install the image on.

    You can either choose an existing (inactive) volume, or create a new volume. If the Target Volume list is empty, the machine you are upgrading does not have a second volume available for you to install the upgrade. You must create one to proceed.

    • To install to an existing volume, select Target Volume and select the volume for the upgrade.
    • To install to a new volume, select New Volume, and type the new volume name.

  8. To back up the BIG-IQ device, select Backup the BIG-IQ System before upgrade.

  9. Click the Install button at the bottom of the screen.

Wait while the BIG-IQ standby device upgrade process completes. During this time, it is important that you not interrupt the installation process by restarting services or the server. When the BIG-IQ upgrades, it becomes inaccessible briefly. When you can log in to the BIG-IQ again, the process is complete.