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Cisco XRv9k#

Cisco XRv9k virtualized router is identified with cisco_xrv9k kind in the topology file. It is built using vrnetlab project and essentially is a Qemu VM packaged in a docker container format.

Cisco XRv9k nodes launched with containerlab come up pre-provisioned with SSH, SNMP, NETCONF and gNMI (if available) services enabled.

Resource requirements

XRv9k node is a resource hungry image. As of XRv9k 7.2.1 version the minimum resources should be set to 2vcpu/14GB. To be safe the defaults used in containerlab are 2vCPU/16G RAM.
Image may take 25 minutes to fully boot, be patient. You can monitor the loading status with docker logs -f <container-name>.

If you need to tune the allocated resources, you can do so with setting VCPU and RAM environment variables for the node. For example, to set 4vcpu/16GB for the node:

    iosxr:
      kind: cisco_xrv9k
      image: vr-xrv9k:7.10.1
      env:
        VCPU: 4
        RAM: 16384

Managing Cisco XRv9k nodes#

Cisco XRv9k node launched with containerlab can be managed via the following interfaces:

to connect to a bash shell of a running Cisco XRv9k container: 

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

to connect to the XRv9kCLI 

ssh clab@<container-name/id>

NETCONF server is running over port 830 

ssh clab@<container-name> -p 830 -s netconf

using the best in class gnmic gNMI client as an example: 

gnmic -a <container-name/node-mgmt-address> --insecure \
-u clab -p clab@123 \
capabilities

Info

Default user credentials: clab:clab@123

Interface naming#

You can use interfaces names in the topology file like they appear in Cisco XRv9k.

The interface naming convention is:

  • GigabitEthernet0/0/0/X or Gi0/0/0/X
  • TenGigabitEthernet0/0/0/X, TenGigE0/0/0X or Te0/0/0/X

where X denotes the port number.

With that naming convention in mind:

  • Gi0/0/0/0 - first data port available
  • Gi0/0/0/1 - second data port, and so on...

Note

  1. Data port numbering starts at 0.
  2. Data interfaces may take 10+ minutes to come up, please be patient.
  3. Cisco XRv9k can have up to 90 interfaces.

The example ports above would be mapped to the following Linux interfaces inside the container running the Cisco XRv9k VM:

  • eth0 - management interface connected to the containerlab management network.
  • eth1 - first data interface, mapped to the first data port of the VM (rendered as Gi0/0/0/0)
  • eth2+ - second and subsequent data interfaces, mapped to the second and subsequent data ports of the VM (rendered as Gi0/0/0/1 and so on)

When containerlab launches Cisco XRv9k node the management interface of the VM gets assigned 10.0.0.15/24 address from the QEMU DHCP server. This interface is transparently stitched with container's eth0 interface such that users can reach the management plane of the Cisco XRv9k using containerlab's assigned IP.

Data interfaces Gi0/0/0/0+ need to be configured with IP addressing manually using CLI or other available management interfaces.

Features and options#

Node configuration#

Cisco XRv9k nodes come up with a basic configuration where only the control plane and line cards are provisioned, as well as the clab user and management interfaces such as NETCONF, SNMP, gNMI.

Startup configuration#

It is possible to make XRv9k nodes boot up with a user-defined startup-config instead of a built-in one. With a startup-config property of the node/kind user sets the path to the config file that will be mounted to a container and used as a startup-config:

topology:
  nodes:
    node:
      kind: cisco_xrv9k
      startup-config: myconfig.txt

With this knob containerlab is instructed to take a file myconfig.txt from the directory that hosts the topology file, and copy it to the lab directory for that specific node under the /config/startup-config.cfg name. Then the directory that hosts the startup-config dir is mounted to the container. This will result in this config being applied at startup by the node.

Configuration is applied after the node is started, thus it can contain partial configuration snippets that you desire to add on top of the default config that a node boots up with.

Lab examples#

The following labs feature Cisco XRv9k node: