Cisco 8000#

Cisco 8000 platform emulator is identified with c8000 or cisco_c8000 kind in the topology file.

The 8000 emulator is an enhanced KVM hypervisor that emulates Cisco boards and chassis. The 8000 emulator VM is launched inside a container for ease of integration with ContainerLab.

Getting Cisco 8000 ContainerLab docker images#

Cisco customers can contact their Cisco account team to get access to Cisco 8000 ContainerLab docker images.

The obtained image archive can be loaded to local docker image store with (example):

docker image load -i 8201-32fh-clab_7.9.1.tar.gz

Supported platforms#

• Fixed form platforms
  8101-32H, 8102-64H, 8201-32FH, 8201, 8202-32FH-M
• Modular chassis (8808 and 8804)
  8800-LC-36FH, 8800-LC-48H, 8800-LC-36FH-M

Additional platforms will be supported on "as needed" basis.

Host server requirements#

• Open vSwitch
• KVM
• Limit /proc/sys/kernel/pid_max to 1048575
  sysctl -w kernel.pid_max=1048575

Hardware resource requirements#

Memory and cpu usage depends on XR features enabled and control/data plane traffic

• Fixed form platforms
  Recommended 20GB memory and 4 cores per router

• Modular chassis
  Recommended 64GB memory and 8 cores per router

Managing c8000 nodes#

docker logs <container-name/id> -f

docker exec -it <container-name/id> telnet 0 60000

docker exec -it <container-name/id> bash

ssh cisco@<node-mgmt-address> -p 830 -s netconf

Interface naming convention#

c8000 container uses the following naming convention for its management and data interfaces:

• eth0 - management interface connected to the containerlab management network
• Hu0_0_0_X - 100G data interface mapped to HundredGigE0/0/0/X internal interface.
• FH0_0_0_X - 400G data interface mapped to FourHundredGigE0/0/0/X internal interface.

When containerlab launches c8000 node, it will set IPv4 address as assigned by docker to the eth0 interface and c8000 node will boot with this address configured for its MgmtEth0.

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:r1#sh ip int br
Wed Dec 21 12:04:13.049 UTC

Interface                      IP-Address      Status          Protocol Vrf-Name
MgmtEth0/RP0/CPU0/0            172.20.20.5     Up              Up       default

Features and options#

Node configuration#

Default node configuration#

It is possible to launch nodes of cisco_c8000 kind with a basic config or to provide a custom config file that will be used as a startup config instead.

When a node is defined without startup-config statement present, containerlab will generate an empty config from this template and copy it to the config directory of the node.

User defined config#

With a startup-config property a user sets the path to the config file that will be mounted to a container and used as a startup-config:

name: c8201
topology:
  nodes:
    c8000:
      kind: cisco_c8000
      startup-config: r1.cfg

When a config file is passed via startup-config parameter it will be used during an initial lab deployment. However, a config file that might be in the lab directory of a node takes precedence over the startup-config¹.

With such topology file containerlab is instructed to take a file r1.cfg from the current working directory and copy it to the lab directory for that specific node under the /first-boot.cfg name. This will result in this config acting as a startup-config for the node.

To provide a user-defined config, take the default configuration template and add the necessary configuration commands without changing the rest of the file. This will result in proper automatic assignment of IP addresses to the management interface, as well as applying user-defined commands.

Lab examples#

name: test
topology:
  nodes:
    Cisco8201-1:
      kind: cisco_c8000
      image: 8201-32fh-clab:7.9.1
      image-pull-policy: Never

    Cisco8201-2:
      kind: cisco_c8000
      image: 8201-32fh-clab:7.9.1
      image-pull-policy: Never

  links:
    - endpoints: ["Cisco8201-1:FH0_0_0_0", "Cisco8201-2:FH0_0_0_0"]