Cisco Nexus Dashboard Sites Management, Release 3.0.x

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Last updated: April 6, 2024
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Managing Sites

With Cisco Nexus Dashboard, you can on-board multiple Cisco ACI, Cisco Cloud Network Controller, and Cisco NDFC fabrics as individual sites to the same cluster. Once the fabrics are on-boarded, they can be used by the applications running on the same Cisco Nexus Dashboard cluster.

To add a site, you need its controller’s in-band or out-of-band IP address and credentials. The type of the IP address you will use for site onboarding depends on the Nexus Dashboard services that will use the site and is described in detail in the following sections. Sites added to the Cisco Nexus Dashboard cluster are not enabled in the services by default, so you will need to explicitly enable them directly from each service’s own GUI.

After you on-board one or more sites to your Nexus Dashboard, you can view them in the Nexus Dashboard GUI by selecting Sites from the left navigation sidebar. You can also use the Sites page to launch directly into any of the site’s GUIs by clicking the Open link next to the site’s name.

If you are using remote authentication to login to your Nexus Dashboard and you have the same login domain and user configured in the site you are launching, you will be able to login to the site’s GUI automatically without having to re-authenticate yourself.

Adding Sites

Before you begin
  • Fabric connectivity must be already configured.

  • While Cisco Nexus Dashboard supports on-boarding all three types of fabrics (APIC, Cloud Network Controller, and NDFC), for specific fabric types and versions compatible with your services, see the Services Compatibility Matrix.

  • If adding a Cisco APIC site, EPG/L3Out for Cisco Nexus Dashboard data network IP connectivity must be pre-configured.

    Refer to [Fabric Connectivity] for more information.

  • If adding a Cisco APIC site and planning to install the Insights service:

    • IP connectivity from Cisco Nexus Dashboard to Cisco APIC Inband IP over data network must be configured.

    • IP connectivity from Cisco Nexus Dashboard to the leaf nodes and spine nodes in-band IPs must be configured.

  • If adding a Cisco NDFC site:

    • You must configure Layer 3 connectivity to the fabric and switches.

    • If you cluster is deployed in AWS or Azure, you must configure inbound rules on the data interface.

      This is typically done during initial cluster deployment and described in detail in the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide.

To add a site:

  1. Navigate to your Nexus Dashboard’s Admin Console.

  2. From the main navigation menu, select Operate > Sites.

  3. In the main pane, click Add Site.

    The Add Site screen opens.

  4. In the Add Site page, provide the site’s information.

    • Host Name/IP Address — provide the IP address used to communicate with the site’s controller.

      note.svg

      For NDFC sites, this must be the in-band IP address of NDFC.
      When providing the address, do not include the protocol (http:// or https://) as part of the URL string or site addition will fail.


    • User Name and Password — login credentials for a user with admin privileges on the site you are adding.

    • (Optional) Login Domain — if you leave this field empty, the site’s local login is used.

    • (Optional) Validate Peer Certificate — allows Nexus Dashboard to verify that the certificates of hosts to which it connects (such as site controllers) are valid and are signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).

      note.svg

      You must have the certificate for this site already imported into your Nexus Dashboard before you can add a site using this option. If you have not yet added the certificates, cancel the Add Site wizard and follow the instructions described in [Validating Peer Certificates] first; then after you have imported the certificates, add the site as described here.
      If you enable the Verify Peer Certificate option but don’t import the valid certificate, site onboarding will fail.


    After you’ve provided the required information, click Next to continue.

  5. In the Detail page, provide the additional site details.

    • Name — a descriptive name for the site.

    • Location — site’s geographical location. This option is available only for on-premises sites.

    After you’ve provided the required information, click Next to continue.

  6. In the Summary page, verify the information and click Save to finish adding the site.

Editing Sites

To edit a site:

  1. Navigate to your Nexus Dashboard’s Admin Console.

  2. From the main navigation menu, select Operate > Sites.

  3. From the Actions (…​) menu for the site you want to edit, select Edit Site.

    The Edit Site screen opens.

  4. In the Edit Site screen, make the required changes.

    • To remove a security domain, click the Delete icon next to an existing domain.

    • To add one or more security domains, click +Add Security Domain.

    • To re-provision the site, check the Re-register Site checkbox and provide the required information.

      Re-registering a site may be required for Cloud Network Controller sites used with Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator in case the Cloud Network Controller’s public IP address changes.

      You can also use this option if you changed the IP address information for a NDFC fabric managed by the Orchestrator service.

      note.svg

      Re-registering a site is not supported for the Nexus Dashboard Insights service.


  5. Click Save to save the changes

Before you begin
  • Ensure that the site is not used by any applications installed in your Nexus Dashboard.

    Deleting a site will cause an interruption to all applications using this site.

  • When a Cisco ACI fabric is added as a site to Nexus Dashboard, some policies may be created in the Cisco APIC. If the Nexus Dashboard is clean rebooted without deleting the on-boarded site, the policies created on Cisco APIC will not be deleted. To clean up these policies on Cisco APIC, the site should be re-added and deleted.

To remove one or more sites:

  1. Navigate to your Nexus Dashboard’s Admin Console.

  2. From the main navigation menu, select Operate > Sites.

  3. From the Actions (…​) menu for the site you want to remove, select Remove Site.

  4. In the Confirm Delete window, provide the login information for the site

  5. Click OK to remove the site.

Trademarks

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First Published: 2023-01-31
Last Modified: 2023-04-11

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