Cisco Catalyst 8000V Edge Software Installation And Configuration Guide

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Day 0 Configuration

Updated: April 24, 2026

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Overview

Specifies the information to configure the Day 0 settings for Cisco Catalyst 8000V in autonomous mode.

Day 0 configuration is the initial, one-time setup of a device, performed after installing the device, to make it reachable and ready for management.

Cisco Catalyst 8000V supports Cisco IOS XE, Cisco SD-Routing, and Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN functionalities. Access the Cisco IOS XE functionalities by booting the instance in the autonomous mode. To access and use the Cisco SD-Routing and Cisco SD-WAN functionalities, boot your instance in the SD-Routing and controller modes, respectively.

The autonomous mode is the default mode in which a Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance boots up. To perform the Day 0 configuration in the autonomous mode, see the sections in this document.

See Install and Upgrade for Cisco Catalyst 8000V Controller Mode to deploy the Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance in the controller mode.

Note

If the system is unable to detect any of the following four parameters – OTP, UUID, VBOND, ORG, the device boots in the autonomous mode.

Bootstrap support across hypervisors and clouds

This table describes how Cisco Catalyst 8000V supports bootstrap across various hypervisors and cloud platforms in autonomous mode.

Hypervisor

iosxe_config.txt on CD-ROM

ovf-env.xml on CD-ROM

OVA installation

Config-drive format

Custom data

User data

VMware

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

KVM

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

AWS

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Azure

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

GCP

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Feature support for Day 0 configuration

View details in this section to learn which features are supported by each Day 0 configuration method.

iosxe_config.txt on CD-ROM

ovf-env.xml on CD-ROM

OVA installation

Config-drive format

Custom data

User data

Raw configuration copy and paste

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Availability of specific configuration fields

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

GUI availability

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

Guestshell bootstrapping

Yes; via manual IOS configuration

Yes; via manual IOS configuration

No

Yes; via manual IOS configuration

Yes

Yes; via manual IOS configuration

  • Public clouds provide a single input mechanism for bootstrapping a VM. On the device side, each cloud supports three input formats: custom-data, user-data, and SDWAN (using the ciscosdwan_cloud_init.cfg file from vManage). For example, in AWS, you can provide the bootstrap information in any of these formats to the instance at launch via the EC2 user data text box or the File Upload option. Cisco Catalyst 8000V then determines and processes the configuration information that you provided.

  • The custom-data and user-data columns in the table refer to the bootstrapping input formats and not the cloud native bootstrap input mechanisms for which they were originally named. All the public clouds support both the formats, but the custom-data format is more mature and is the recommended option for most applications.

  • For private clouds, you can perform the bootstrap configuration by providing a configuration file in the iosxe_config.txt format or the ovf-env.xml format. You must upload the configuration file to the VM during Cisco Catalyst 8000V installation through an attached CD-ROM.

Prerequisites for Day 0 configuration

This section lists all the prerequisites you must know before you perform the Day 0 configuration.

  • To deploy the Cisco Catalyst 8000V instance in controller mode, generate the bootstrap config file from vManage. Rename the generated config file to ciscosdwan_cloud_init.cfg. Use this same file for the device to automatically bootup in the Controller mode and register to vManage.

    Do not manually edit the automatically generated config file from vManage. If you edit the file, the controller could go out of sync, and the device might not boot up successfully on first power-on.

Limitations for Day 0 configuration

The items in this list provides all the limitations for Day 0 configuration.

  • If you use the PayG licensing model, you cannot perform a mode switch as controller mode does not support the PayG licensing model.

  • Only the autonomous mode supports Dual-IOSd.

  • Images without payload encryption and NO-LI images are not supported in the controller mode.

  • Switching modes between controller and autonomous modes after onboarding and mode determination causes loss of configuration.

  • When you switch from the autonomous mode to the controller mode or vice versa, Cisco Federal Licensing and Smart Licensing registration does not work. You must reregister for the licenses to work.

  • When deploying a Cisco Catalyst 8000V VM through GUI, network interfaces may be added in an order that does not match the creation sequence. The numbering is determined by the driver name and PCI address, so Day 0 configuration may be assigned incorrectly for some interfaces. If this occurs, configure the affected network interfaces manually after deployment.

Select the bootstrapping mechanism

Decide which bootstrapping mechanism to use before you configure Day 0 settings. The available mechanisms for device configuration are:

  • The GUI tool: If you have installed Cisco Catalyst 8000V on VMware, and you chose an OVA deployment, you can perform the configuration by using the OVA deployment wizard. The wizard supports bootstrap-specific fields, so you do not need to manually create a bootstrap configuration file.

  • .txt file/.xml file: If you are in a private cloud and want to configure Day 0 settings with IOS commands, choose the iosxe_config.txt file. This method lets you collect the CLIs to apply, paste them into a file, and provide it to the VM as a CD-ROM.

  • Custom data: When you deploy Cisco Catalyst 8000V on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or GCP, use the custom-data formatted bootstrap configuration. This method is more functional and flexible than using user-data. Configuration using user-data is intended for users with an established user-data deployment.