Maintenance intents

A maintenance intent identifies a change you want to deploy to a node.

The Fabric Services System supports two types of maintenance intent:

• Software changes, which upgrade or downgrade the SR Linux software version running on one or more nodes within a single fabric.
• Node replacement, which updates the hardware association for an existing node within a fabric to a new piece of matching hardware with a different serial number. The intent also causes the system to download the necessary configuration files to the new node so that it can fully resume the role of the hardware it replaced.

When a deployed maintenance intent is in progress, whether for a software update or node replacement, the system locks the affected fabric intent. No other operations can be carried out on the locked fabric until the maintenance activity is finished.

Unlike fabric intents and workload VPN intents, a maintenance intent is a one-time operation. You cannot make new versions of a maintenance intent or otherwise maintain it successively over time. Each new maintenance operation requires a new maintenance intent.