Upgrading the license on a Cisco 3560/3750

With the new switches like 3560-X it is possible to run a universal IOS image with support for different feature sets like LAN Base, IP Base and IP Services where IP services is the most feature rich version. I did an upgrade from LAN Base to IP Base and thought it would be a good idea to show how it’s done.

The universal image has a name like this: c3560e-universalk9-mz.122-53.SE2.bin. To get the licenses you need to register your Product Activation Key (PAK) that you receive after ordering the license. You also need to now the productnumber and the serial number for the device that the license is for. The product number can be WS-C3560X-24T-L and the serial number is a string of letters and numbers, the same goes for the PAK number.

When the registration is done you will receive a .lic file whic is a combination of the PAK number, a date and some other numbers. You will need to upload this file to the switch. I used FTP to upload the file:

copy ftp://user:[email protected]/filename.lic flash:
Accessing ftp://user:[email protected]/filename.lic…
Loading filename.lic !
[OK – 1152/4096 bytes]
1152 bytes copied in 0.092 secs (12522 bytes/sec)

The file is now copied to flash. After that we need to install the license, the syntax is license install:

Switch#license install flash:filename.lic
Installing licenses from “flash:filename.lic”
Installing…Feature:ipbase…Successful:Supported
1/1 licenses were successfully installed
0/1 licenses were existing licenses
0/1 licenses were failed to install

The license is now installed but we need to reboot the switch before it goes active. We will also get a message logged to the console that looks like this:

*Mar 1 00:07:42.279: %IOS_LICENSE_IMAGE_APPLICATION-6-LICENSE_LEVEL: Module name = c3560x Next reboot level = ipbase and License = ipbase
*Mar 1 00:07:42.539: %LICENSE-6-INSTALL: Feature ipbase 1.0 was installed in this device. UDI=WS-C3560X-24T-L:$PAKNR StoreIndex=1:Primary License Storage

After the reboot we can use show license to see what licenses are installed:

Switch#sh license
Index 1 Feature: ipservices
Period left: 8 weeks 4 days
License Type: Evaluation
License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted
License Priority: None
License Count: Non-Counted
Index 2 Feature: ipbase
Period left: Life time
License Type: Permanent
License State: Active, In Use
License Priority: Medium
License Count: Non-Counted
Index 3 Feature: lanbase
Period left: Life time
License Type: Permanent
License State: Active, Not in Use
License Priority: Medium
License Count: Non-Counted

We can see here that there is an IP Services license available for evaluation if we need to do that. And that is how licensing works.