ASA 5505 firmware I am running 3 ASA5505s with firmware version 8.2(3) and ASDM version 6.3(4)53. I have a bonded T1 in location and single T1s in the other two locations. Jul 16, 2021 ASA 9.2(x) was the final version for the ASA 5505. Later ASDM versions continue to support the ASA 5505. ASDM versions are backwards compatible with all previous ASA versions, unless otherwise stated. The information in this document is based on these software and hardware versions: Cisco ASA 5500 and ASA5500-X 9.1(2) and later. Cisco ASDM 7.1 and later.
- Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware Versions
- How To Setup Cisco Asa 5505
- Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware Update
- Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware
There’s a 128 MB Compact Flash card that came pre-installed on my Cisco ASA 5505. I’ve swapped it out for a 8GB Kingston card. Completely blank, FAT32 filesystem.
I power on the ASA and it cycles endlessly through the boot process because it cannot find a boot image. I hook up my laptop to the Ethernet0/1 port of the ASA. Laptop has an IP address of 10.0.0.1 and I’ve enabled the TFTP server on that interface.
In the console session, I hit the ESCAPE key to get into ROMMON mode. So, what can you do in ROMMON mode if you do not have a boot image on flash?
You can erase the flash memory using the erase command. Although the Command Reference says that you can use the flash: argument, I found that the ASA 5505 only allowed me to use the disk0: argument or the all argument.
Fair warning, this will erase everything on the flash card; all your images, configs and license files, so back these up if you can. Also, the time required to erase an 8 GB flash drive is not inconsiderable. (Took about an hour for me.) As the console output starts writing dots on screen to denote progress, you foolishly expect it to be done in a couple of minutes, but no, the entire screen is soon full of dots. If you keep staring at the screen, you quickly lose any point of reference because previous commands are pushed offscreen by the cursor toddling from left to right, leaving dots in its wake. Like a reverse PacMan. Computer progress bars: the postmodern lava lamps of our generation. This one is so Lo Tek, it’s the sort of thing that keyboard cowboys in an early William Gibson novel would have onscreen on their Ono-Sendais as they break into some appropriately-sinister construct.
The help command will show you all the commands that are available in ROMMON mode, but you are probably gonna want to do just one thing: boot from an image that resides on a TFTP server.
So, you configure an IP address for an interface on the ASA and tell it what the TFTP server’s IP address is and where to find the boot image.
The set command displays all configured variable settings.
Do a test ping to check if you can reach the TFTP server.
And now we load the image using the tftp command.
Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware Versions
Now you are in the ASA prompt. There is no password because there is no config. If you reload at this point, you are back in the neverending boot cycle because no boot image has been copied onto the flash drive. As soon as the ASA reloads, it is back to square one. The ASA is Guy Pearce in Memento, but with fewer tattoos.
How To Setup Cisco Asa 5505
Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware Update
A dir /recursive command shows that a log file and 3 directories have been generated but there is no boot image saved on the flash drive. Now that you have an ASA with nothing configured on it, you can configure IP addresses and other settings and copy a boot image from the TFTP server to the local flash drive.