Poor Man’s VIRL
How to run VIRL 1.0.0 as Bare Metal
on resource-constrained PC
(works on 1.0.11 as well)
Dec 30, 2015
Kaoru Yamashita
20 nodes topology runs on Intel Core i5
(Dual Core), 16GB DRAM, 128GB SSD
My tiny VIRL Server : about 400 – 500 USD
Lenovo ThinkPad T520
Core i5-2540M
16GB DRAM
Note: Hyper-Threading
(HT) is disabled.
USB NIC
SSD
Limitations
• IPv4 address for eth0 should be static.
(i.e. DHCP does not work)
• To save CPU power and DRAM, please start nodes one by one.
• (As far as I know) Hostname of Ubuntu should be “virl”.
Solution (maybe Tricky and Dirty)
• Save CPU Power
• Launch each instance on by one --- check “Exclude node from simulation launch”
• Rename “dummy” Linux virtual NICs to “eth<n>”
• Run UKSM-enabled kernel to save DRAM
• UKSM (Ultra KSM) is a kernel patch to perform memory de-duplication
What you need
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Laptop PC (or x86 server)
SSD
At least one physical NIC (in this document, two NICs are used)
DVD-ROM Drive (Physical or Virtual)
DVD-ROM Media of virl.1.0.0.iso (Physical or Virtual)
PC or Mac to run ssh client and VMmaestro
(Or you can use graphical desktop of Ubuntu)
• DHCP Server (used during initial installation)
• Internet connection
• License of VIRL
• Don’t use VMware products if you want to achieve maximum performance.
1. Boot from DVD-ROM
Select first item, “live”
1. Boot from DVD-ROM (cont.)
Wait for a while
2. Login
Password: VIRL
2. Login (cont.)
3. Initialize SSD (if it is not new)
sudo sgdisk –Z /dev/sda
3. Initialize SSD (cont.)
4. Start Installer
5. Specify Parameters
5. Specify Parameters (cont.)
Make sure that primary NIC is connected
5. Specify Parameters (cont.)
Check this Item
5. Specify Parameters (cont.)
5. Specify Parameters (cont.)
5. Specify Parameters (cont.)
6. Installer is running
7. Installer ends
Caution!
• In most cases, VIRL 1.0.0 ISO installer does not ask about hostname.
In other word, the installer does not expose below dialog.
• This is known issue.
• So we have to fix this
by changing hostname
manually.
(see later slides)
8. Boot from SSD, login and start xterm. Then...
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname virl
sudo apt-get –y remove openssh-server
sudo apt-get –y install openssh-server
sudo reboot
9. Reboot and pick IPv4 address of eth0
Now you can ssh from your favorite client
10. Edit configuration files
• /etc/hosts
• /etc/network/interfaces
• /etc/virl.ini
• /etc/virl/common.cfg
• /etc/modues
(type “sudo –s” before editing but this is somewhat dangerous)
/etc/hosts
• Modify
127.0.1.1
to
127.0.1.1
ubuntu
virl
/etc/network/interfaces
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.80/24
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.0.1
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto lo:1
iface lo:1 inet loopback
address 127.0.1.1
netmask 255.0.0.0
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 172.16.1.254/24
netmask 255.255.255.0
post-up ip link set eth1 promisc on
auto dummy0
iface dummy0 inet manual
pre-up ip link set dev dummy0 name eth2
pre-up ifconfig eth2 172.16.2.254/24 up
post-up ip link set eth2 promisc on
auto dummy1
iface dummy1 inet manual
pre-up ip link set dev dummy1 name eth3
pre-up ifconfig eth3 172.16.3.254/24 up
auto dummy2
iface dummy2 inet manual
pre-up ip link set dev dummy2 name eth4
pre-up ifconfig eth4 172.16.10.250/24
pre-up ifconfig eth4 mtu 1500
post-up ip link set eth4 promisc on
[Note] eth0 should be static. DHCP will not work.
/etc/virl.ini
using_dhcp_on_the_public_port: False
salt_master: us-virl-salt.cisco.com
(or)
salt_master: eu-virl-salt.cisco.com
/etc/virl/common.cfg
ram_overcommit = 5
default = 2. 6 or larger will not be allowed.
/etc/modules
dummy numdummies=3
default = 5. This is why there are dummy0 to dummy4 by default.
11. reboot and confirm settings
• In this example, you can ssh to 192.168.0.80
• Check five NICs by typing “ifconfig eth0”, “ifconfig eth1”, “ifconfig
eth2”, “ifconfig eth3” and “ifconfig eth4”.
12. “vinstall salt” and “vinstall rehost”
• You don’t have to switch to root. These commands can run as “virl”.
• “vinstall rehost” takes some minutes to complete.
• Please reboot when “vinstall rehost” finishes.
13. Almost done!
• Your VIRL server is almost ready.
• Run below commands to check status
• neutron agent-list
• nova service-list
• sudo virl_health_status
• Please perform activation.
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NTP setting
Install VIRL license key
Add CSR1000V image
Upgrade IOSv image
• Once you can run small topologies on your VIRL server,
proceed to next slide.
14. Introduce UKSM-enabled kernel
• Visit
http://lansw-book.net/VIRL/Poor/
to download kernel files (and latest copy of this document)
• Then switch to root, put two files under /usr/src,
and perform “dpkg –i” twice.
• dpkg -i linux-headers-3.13.11-ckt27_20151201UKSM_amd64.deb
• dpkg -i linux-image-3.13.11-ckt27_20151201UKSM_amd64.deb
• Edit /etc/default/grub as next slide
• And “update-grub2”
• reboot
/etc/default/grub
GRUB_DEFAULT="Advanced options for Ubuntu>Ubuntu, with Linux
3.13.11-ckt27”
Issues on UKSM-enabled kernel
• LACP and LLDP do not work between nodes
e.g. You can not form dynamic port-channel between vEOS nodes.
If you’re stuck