Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Overview
The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router is based on Cisco IOS XR software, so it inherits and shares the wide breadth of routing functionality available on other IOS XR platforms. The IOS XR features available on the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router are discussed in Supported Cisco IOS XR Technologies section.
When the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router virtual IOS XR software is deployed as a VM, the Cisco IOS XR software functions just as if it were deployed on a traditional Cisco IOS XR hardware platform. The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router combines Route Processor, Line Card, and virtualized forwarding capabilities into a single, centralized forwarding instance. The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router has a fully featured, high speed virtual x86 data plane.
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router supports the same look and feel as Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers and North-bound APIs. Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router does not support hardware specific configurations. The configuration commands for control plane and data plane features follow the same syntax as the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers. See Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers command references for more information on configuration commands.
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Licensing Model
The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router supports activation using Cisco Smart Licensing. By default the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router (without license) is rate limited to 200 Kbps.
For more information on licensing model supported on Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router, see the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Smart Licensing chapter in the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Installation and Configuration Guide.
See Cisco Smart Software Licensing Overview for more information on Cisco Smart Licensing.
License Ordering Information
The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router offers a flexible licensing scheme, with multiple tiers to choose from, such as Scale, and Throughput. This table lists details of Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router's pool of software licenses or entitlements, arranged according to licensing PIDs.
 Note |
The XRv9000 router only consumes and reports VPE licenses. VRR licenses are not consumed or reported. |
|
License PID |
Description |
|---|---|
|
R-XRV9000-66-RR |
Cisco IOS XRV 9000 software, VRR profile |
|
S-XRV-ROUTE-T4 |
Preloaded Software Image: IOS XRv 9000 vRR scale upgrade license from 20M up to 70M |
|
XRV9000-APLN-ROUT |
IOS XRv 9000 M5 Appliance with preloaded IOS XR functionality with 20 million route scale |
Supported MIBs
The following MIBs are supported in this release:
-
ENTITY-MIB
-
ENTITY-STATE-MIB
-
CISCO-ENTITY-ASSET-MIB
-
BGP4-MIB
-
CISCO-AAA-SERVER-MIB
-
CISCO-ACL-MIB
-
CISCO-BGP4-MIB
-
CISCO-BULK-FILE-MIB
-
CISCO-CDP-MIB
-
CISCO-CLASS-BASED-QOS-MIB
-
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB
-
CISCO-CONFIG-MAN-MIB
-
CISCO-CONTEXT-MAPPING-MIB
-
CISCO-FTP-CLIENT-MIB
-
CISCO-IF-EXTENSION-MIB
-
CISCO-PING-MIB
-
CISCO-PROCESS-MIB
-
CISCO-SYSLOG-MIB
-
CISCO-SYSTEM-MIB
-
CISCO-TCP-MIB
-
CISCO-VLAN-IFTABLE-RELATIONSHIP-MIB
-
ETHERLIKE-MIB
-
EVENT-MIB
-
EXPRESSION-MIB
-
IETF-TCP-MIB
-
IETF-UDP-MIB
-
IF-MIB
-
IP-FORWARD-MIB
-
IP-MIB
-
IPV6-MIB
-
IPV6-FORWARD-MIB
-
ISIS-MIB
-
MPLS-L3VPN-STD-MIB
-
MPLS-LDP-GENERIC-STD-MIB
-
MPLS-LDP-STD-MIB
-
MPLS-LSR-STD-MI
-
NOTIFICATION-LOG-MIB
-
OSPF-MIB
-
OSPF-TRAP-MIB
-
OSPFV3-MIB
-
RFC1213-MIB
-
RFC2011-MIB
-
RFC2465-MIB
-
SNMP-COMMUNITY-MIB
-
SNMP-FRAMEWORK-MIB
-
SNMP-NOTIFICATION-MIB
-
SNMP-TARGET-MIB
-
SNMP-USB-MIB
-
SNMPv2-MIB
-
SNMP-VACM-MIB
-
TCP-MIB
-
UDP-MIB
-
CISCO-IETF-BFD-MIB
-
CISCO-IP-TAP-MIB
-
CISCO-TAP2-MIB
-
RADIUS-ACC-CLIENT-MIB
-
RADIUS-AUTH-CLIENT-MIB
-
SNMP-TARGET-MIB
New Software Features Supported in Release
-
Application Hosting—Application hosting gives administrators a platform for leveraging their own tools and utilities. Cisco IOS XR 6.0 supports third-party off-the-shelf applications built using Linux tool chains. Users can run custom applications cross-compiled with the software development kit that Cisco provides. Application hosting is offered in two variants: Native and Container.
Cisco IOS XR uses a 64-bit Linux-based operating system that simplifies the integration of applications, configuration management tools, and industry-standard zero touch provisioning mechanisms to meet the DevOps style workflows for service providers.
-
BFD over Logical Bundle (BLB)—BLB is a multipath (MP) single-hop session. BLB requires limited knowledge of the bundle interfaces on which the sessions run; this is because BFD treats the bundle as one big pipe. To function, BLB requires only information about IP addresses, interface types, and caps on bundle interfaces. Information such as list of bundle members, member states, and configured minimum or maximum bundle links are not required.
-
Link Bundle or Link Aggregation Group (LAG)—A link bundle is a group of one or more ports that are aggregated together and treated as a single link. Each bundle has a single MAC, a single IP address, and a single configuration set (such as ACLs). Since XRv 9000 is a virtual platform, you must configure mac address on each bundle main interface. Use lacp system mac command in global configuration mode and mac address command in interface configuration mode to configure mac address to bundle main interface. Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for virtual E1000, VirtIO, and VMXNET3 is not supported.
Note
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 supports only Layer 3 link bundle.
-
Network Service Header (NSH)—Network Service Header is the Service Function Chaining (SFC) encapsulation required to support the SFC Architecture (defined in RFC7665). The NSH is inserted onto ingress encapsulated packets or frames to realize service function paths. NSH also provides a mechanism for metadata exchange along the instantiated service path.
Note
-
A service classifier supports only IPv4 ACL 5-tuple based packet classification.
-
The proxy function is not supported in this release.
-
-
Multisocket Dataplane—The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 router supports a dataplane that is located on one or two sockets.
-
Platform Automated Monitoring—Platform Automated Monitoring (PAM) is a system monitoring tool integrated into Cisco IOS XR software image to monitor issues such as process crash, memory leak, CPU hog, tracebacks, syslog and disk usage. When PAM tool detects any of these system issues, it collects the required data to troubleshoot the issue, and generates a syslog message stating the issue. The auto-collected troubleshooting information is then stored in a separate file located at the harddisk:. The files are located at harddisk:/cisco_support/ or at /misc/disk1/cisco_support. PAM is enabled by default on all Cisco IOS XR 64 bit platforms.
For documentation reference for above features, see Supported Cisco IOS XR Technologies section.
Introducing Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Appliance
The Cisco IOS XRv 9000 is now available as an Appliance, which is IOS XRv 9000 software pre-installed on a UCS server from factory with all applicable licenses to scale to 20M routes. It provides a plug and play model through zero touch provisioning. The Appliance is available on a fixed hardware UCS server and looks like a traditional IOS XR based router running on a UCS server form factor. The Appliance runs the IOS XRv 9000 software as a bare metal, removing an extra layer of software (hypervisor) to manage, secure and support the system. The Appliance provides hyper scalability as it can scale to 70M route prefix support when run as a Virtual Route Reflector. The PID for Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Appliance is ASR-XRV9000-APLN; a single PID for hardware, software and service contract.
.
System Requirements
Hypervisors
A hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host machine. While each operating system appears to have the dedicated use of the host's processor, memory, and other resources; the hypervisor controls and allocates only needed resources to each operating system and ensures that the operating systems (VMs) do not disrupt each other.
Installation of the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router is supported on selected Type 1 (native, bare metal) hypervisors. Installation is not supported on Type 2 (hosted) hypervisors, such as VMware Fusion, VMware Player, or Virtual Box. The following table lists release specific supported hypervisor versions.
|
Cisco IOS XR Version |
VMWare ESXi |
Kernel Based Virtual Machine (KVM) |
|---|---|---|
|
version 6.5, 6.7, and later |
Linux KVM based on
|
Virtual Machines
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router virtual machines must meet the following requirements:
|
Parameters |
Supported |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
VMware ESXi |
Version 6.5, 6.7, 7.0 and later |
||||||
|
Virtual CPU cores |
1 socket with a minimum of 2 cores
|
||||||
|
Virtual Machine memory size |
|||||||
|
Virtual Machine hard disk size |
|||||||
|
Virtual Interfaces |
E1000 VMXNET3 for traffic interfaces only |
||||||
|
Physical NICs |
For pass-through:
Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1225
|
||||||
|
Number of interfaces |
Minimum of 4 NICs where:
Maximum of 11 NICs where:
|
||||||
|
Default video, SCSI controller set |
Required SCSI controller not required for IDE disk. |
||||||
|
Virtual CD/DVD drive installed |
Virtual CD/DVD is required when installing the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router on the VM using ISO template. |
||||||
|
IDE hard disk |
Single IDE hard disk
|
Note |
The maximum traffic performance with pass-through NIC interfaces in ESXi is lower than the performance that can be achieved in KVM environments. This is because it is not possible to configure 1G huge-pages in the ESXi hypervisor (as of VMware ESXi 6.0). |
|
Parameters |
Supported |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
KVM versions |
|
||||||
|
Virtual CPU cores |
1 socket with minimum of 2 cores. |
||||||
|
Virtual Machine memory size |
|||||||
|
Virtual Machine hard disk size |
|||||||
|
Virtual Interfaces |
E1000, VirtIO and VMXNET3 for traffic interfaces only |
||||||
|
Physical NICs |
For pass-through:
Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1225
|
||||||
|
Number of interfaces |
Minimum of 4 NICs where:
Maximum of 11 NICs where:
|
||||||
|
Virtual CD/DVD drive installed |
Virtual CD/DVD drive is required for ISO installation |
Note |
In the Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router, some CPU cores are dedicated to the control plane while others are dedicated to the data plane. Each data plane's core runs a single thread that performs packet forwarding. To achieve maximum performance, these threads constantly look for data packets to process. As a result, the OS records that these cores run at 100% utilization. This is expected behavior and not an indication that packet forwarding has reached its threshold limit. |
Server
The server must support:
-
Intel Westmere or later CPU versions with clock frequency of 2.0GHz for instances with Gigabit or paravirtualized interfaces
-
Intel Ivy Bridge or later CPU versions for instances with 10Gb or higher interfaces
-
Intel CPU must support the sse4_2 capability flag. This can be checked in KVM by looking for the sse4_2 flag in the flags section of /proc/cpuinfo. For example:
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep sse4_2 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm ida arat epb pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi ept vpid fsgsbase smep
Note |
To use passthrough interfaces in KVM, you must set the option intel_iommu=on command in the grub configuration. |
Supported Cisco IOS XR Technologies
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router supports selected Cisco IOS XR technologies.
This table lists the major Cisco IOS XR technologies Cisco IOS XRv 9000 supports. Not all features in a given technology may be supported. To verify support for specific features, use Cisco Feature Navigator.
|
Feature |
See the Following Documentation |
Introduced in Release |
|---|---|---|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Customize Installation using Golden ISO |
Release 7.3.1 | |
|
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Deployment on AWS |
Release 6.3.1 |
|
|
Create User Profiles and Assign Privileges |
System Setup and Software Installation Guide for Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers |
Release 7.1.1 |
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 5.4.0 |
|
|
Release 6.0.1 |
|
|
gNMI Bundling of Telemetry Updates |
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Installation and Configuration Guide |
Release 7.8.1 |
|
ORR Support for FlexAlgo |
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Installation and Configuration Guide |
Release 7.5.1 |
|
Generic Route Encapsulation using IPv6 |
Release 7.3.3 |
|
|
Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Router Installation and Configuration Guide |
Release 7.3.3 |
|
Release Notes for Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Routers, IOS XR Release 7.3.3 |
Release 7.3.3 |
|
Release Notes for Cisco IOS XRv 9000 Routers, IOS XR Release 7.5.1 |
Release 7.5.1 |
Caveats
Caveats describe unexpected behavior in Cisco IOS XR Software release.
Related Documentation
Production Software Maintenance Updates (SMUs)
A production SMU is a SMU that is formally requested, developed, tested, and released. Production SMUs are intended for use in a live network environment and are formally supported by the Cisco TAC and the relevant development teams. Software bugs identified through software recommendations or Bug Search Tools are not a basis for production SMU requests.
For information on production SMU types, refer the Production SMU Types section of the IOS XR Software Maintenance Updates (SMUs) guide.
Communications, Services, and Additional Information
-
To receive timely, relevant information from Cisco, sign up at Cisco Profile Manager.
-
To get the business impact you’re looking for with the technologies that matter, visit Cisco Services.
-
To submit a service request, visit Cisco Support.
-
To discover and browse secure, validated enterprise-class apps, products, solutions and services, visit Cisco Marketplace.
-
To obtain general networking, training, and certification titles, visit Cisco Press.
-
To find warranty information for a specific product or product family, access Cisco Warranty Finder.
Cisco Bug Search Tool
Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST) is a web-based tool that acts as a gateway to the Cisco bug tracking system that maintains a comprehensive list of defects and vulnerabilities in Cisco products and software. BST provides you with detailed defect information about your products and software.
Feedback