Software updating method and system of network equipment

The invention discloses a method and a system used for software upgrading of network equipment, wherein, the method comprises the following steps that: when the software of the network equipment is needed to be upgraded, an IGMP protocol requesting message is sent to a multicast router, and a multicast routing list is established in the multicast router for joining the multicast; the network equipment receives and stores upgrading data packages contained in the multicast message; the network equipment examines the effectiveness of the data of the received data packages; after receiving all the upgrading data packages, the network equipment recombines the data packages, extracts the upgrading data and upgrades the software after successfully proving the CRC-efficacy of the upgrading data. The method and the system of the invention realize the efficient data transmitting from one point to multipoint in an IP network by utilizing the multicast, thus fast and effectively realizing the remote upgrading of the software of the network equipment and solving the technical problems of high cost, inconvenient operation and relatively low efficiency in the remote upgrading of the software of the existing network equipment.