Overview of Configuration Groups for SD-Routing Devices

After a device is onboarded, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager provisions the device with the required configuration. The use of configuration groups streamlines this provisioning process.

Configuration Groups in Cisco SD-WAN Manager provide a simple, reusable, and structured approach for creating and applying device specific configurations to SD-Routing devices. Configuration groups are made up of feature profiles, features and subfeatures.

  • Configuration Group: A configuration group is a logical grouping of features or configurations that can be applied to one or more devices in the network managed by Cisco SD-WAN Manager. You can define and customize this grouping based on your business needs.

  • Feature Profile: A feature profile is a flexible building block of configurations that can be reused across different configuration groups. You can create profiles based on features that are required, recommended, or uniquely used, and then put together the profiles to complete a device configuration.

  • Feature: A feature profile consists of features. Features are the individual capabilities you want to share across different configuration groups.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager provides multiple ways to create configuration groups.
Creating Configuration Groups Create SD-Routing Configuration Groups Using Configuration Menu Create Configuration Groups Using CLI Configuration Group Create Configuration Groups Using Profile Configuration Group Create SD-Routing Configuration Groups Using the Workflow Library

Prerequisites for Configuration Groups

To use configuration groups, the minimum software version for Cisco SD-Routing devices is Cisco IOS XE Release 17.13.1a

Supported Devices for Configuration Groups

Configuration Group provisioning is supported on the following platforms.

  • Cisco Catalyst 8000V Series Edge Platforms, Cisco Catalyst 8200 Series Edge Platforms, Cisco Catalyst 8300 Series Edge Platforms, Cisco Catalyst 8500 Series Edge Platforms

  • Cisco 1000 Series Integrated Services Routers. However, ISR1100-4G/6G and ISR1100X-4G/6G do not support SD-Routing mode.

  • Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers


Note

For flex interfaces on supported devices, always configure the L2 or L3 mode using either the CLI or a CLI Add-on Profile, regardless of whether you are using a CLI Configuration Group or a Profile Configuration Group.

  • To set the interface to Layer 3 (L3) mode, configure no switchport under the interface.

  • To set the interface to Layer 2 (L2) mode, configure switchport under the interface.

Create SD-Routing Configuration Groups Using Configuration Group Menu

The Configuration Group menu in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager provides building blocks to assemble configurations for SD-Routing devices. The preferred method varies based on whether the device is an existing device or a new one.

Create Configuration Groups Using CLI Configuration Group

The Configuration Groups menu on Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager provides a user friendly method to create configuration groups for SD-Routing devices. After onboarding existing SD-Routing devices into Cisco SD-WAN Manager, use the CLI Configuration Group to load the device’s running configurations, modify and deploy the configurations to these devices.

To create a CLI configuration group for SD-Routing devices, perform the outlined procedure.

Before you begin

  • Ensure that the onboarded device is reachable on Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

  • Ensure that you have an understanding of the configurations needed for your deployment.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco SD-WAN Manager main menu, go to Configuration > Configuration Groups and select Solution as SD-Routing.

Step 2

Click Create Configuration Group.

Step 3

Add a name and description, select the CLI Configuration Group and click Create.

Step 4

On the CLI pane, select a reachable device and load the running configuration. If your device has configurations that do not have associated yang models, a prompt indicates that.

Tip

 

You can view these configurations next to the device in the Configuration > WAN Edge List. Select the device and click the Action button to see the unsupported configurations.

Step 5

Click Yes to save the running configurations.

What to do next

Associate and Deploy the Configuration Group to an SD-Routing Device

Create Configuration Groups Using Profile Configuration Group

The Configuration Groups menu on Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager provides a user friendly method to create configuration groups for SD-Routing devices. The building blocks: feature profiles, features and subfeatures can be quickly assembled to create the configuration group and deployed to provision the SD-Routing devices.

To create a profile based configuration group for SD-Routing devices, perform the outlined procedure.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have an understanding of the configurations needed for your deployment.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco SD-WAN Manager main menu, go to Configuration > Configuration Groups and select Solution as SD-Routing.

Step 2

Click Create Configuration Group.

Step 3

Add a name and description, and click Create.

Step 4

Create a System Profile, Transport&Management Profile, Service Profile and add features to these profiles. To know how to add features and subfeatures, refer to Add a Feature and Subfeatures to a Feature Profile.

Tip

 

You can automate creating the SD-Routing configuration group with the above profiles, from the Workflow Library.

Step 5

Create a CLI Add-on Profile to add device configurations that are not available through other configuration group features. You can add these commands in the CLI Configuration area or click Import Config File to import and save the configurations.

What to do next

Associate and Deploy the Configuration Group to an SD-Routing Device

Add a Feature and Subfeatures to a Feature Profile

Before you begin

You should have created a configuration group earlier.

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, select the SD-Routing configuration group and click ... to edit.

Step 2

Click a feature profile and open it.

Step 3

Click Add New Feature and choose a feature from the drop-down list.

Step 4

Enter a name for the feature. The name can be up to 128 characters and can contain only alphanumeric characters.

Step 5

Enter a description of the feature. The description can be up to 2048 characters and can contain only alphanumeric characters and spaces.

Step 6

Configure the options as needed. Some parameter have a scope drop-down list that enables you to choose Global, Device Specific, or Default for the parameter value. Select your preference as described in the table.

Step 7

Add subfeatures as required.

Step 8

Click Save to add the feature to the Feature profile.

What to do next

Associate and Deploy the Configuration Group to an SD-Routing Device

Associate and Deploy the Configuration Group to an SD-Routing Device

This task involves reviewing configurations in the configuration group, associating the device with a configuration group, and provisioning one or more SD-Routing devices.

Before you begin

Ensure that the selected configuration group is an SD-Routing configuration group.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco SD-WAN Manager, select the Configuration Group created earlier.

Step 2

Click + Add and select the devices from the list. Click Save to attach the configuration group to the selected devices.

Step 3

To provision the configuration changes, click Deploy.

Step 4

Select the device on which you want to provision the configuration changes. Click Next.

Step 5

For each device, review or update variables based on the configurations. Click Next.

Step 6

If you want to review device configuration changes, click Preview CLI.

For any incorrect device configuration, an error message on the top left of the screen highlights the issue.

  1. Go back to the configuration group, identify the invalid configuration and correct it.

  2. On the Deploy Configuration Group workflow, click Deploy to provision the configuration changes on the device and review the changes again.

  3. Select the device to review the configuration changes on the CLI pane either inline or side by side. The configurations that are removed are highlighted in red and the new configuration is highlighted in green.

  4. Go back and continue with the deployment.

Step 7

View deployment status to ensure that the logs indicate a successful device provisioning.

Deployment status

Once the deployment is complete, click View deployment status to view the status of the device provisioning. The Device Group pane provides the following information:

Table 1. Deployment status

Parameters

Description

Status

Indicates the deployment status.

Chassis Number

Specifies the Chassis number of the devices.

Hostname

Specifies the name of the host(s).

Message

Describes the status.

Start Time

Date and time at which you started the deployment.

System IP

Displays the system IP of the devices.

Action

Displays an ellipsis (…), which, when clicked, opens a menu providing you with detailed information about the logs.

Use the Device Group pane to review the deployment status and click on Action > Ellipsis (…) to view the detailed logs on the deployment status.

This workflow illustrates the various deployment statuses.

This table provided outlines the different deployment statuses and the recommended user actions for each scenario.

Status

Description

User Action

Successful

The deployment was successful, and the device is fully configured.

-

Partial success

The associated YANG configuration was committed, but Classic CLI failed at the device end.

Following is an example output of Partial Success. 

2-Apr-2025 15:43:40 UTC] Deploying device with Config Group sd_routing
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:41 UTC] Generating configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:41 UTC) Checking and creating device in Manager
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:47 UTC] Device is online
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:47 UTC] Updating device configuration in Manager
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:47 UTC] Sending configuration to device
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:52 UTC] Successfully notified device to pull configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:43:52 UTC] Device has pulled the configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:44:07 UTC] Device: Error:lOS command parser failed,
FailedCommand:abcd, CommandErrorPosition:2, ParserModeContext:line aux O, ParserOutput:
[2-Apr-2025 15:44:07 UTC] Config Group deployment completed with partial success. 
IOS add-on CLI config failed on the device

Select Action > ellipsis (…) to view detailed log information about the issue. Then go back to the configuration group page to correct the error and then deploy the device again.

Failure

The associated YANG configuration failed. The entire transaction was aborted, and no configuration was committed.

Following is an example output of Failure.

[2-Apr-2025 15:33:40 UTC) Deploying device with Config Group sd_routing
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:41 UTC] Generating configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:41 UTC] Checking and creating device in Manager
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:47 UTC] Device is online
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:47 UTC] Updating device configuration in Manager
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:47 UTC] Sending configuration to device
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:52 UTC] Successfully notified device to pull configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:53 UTC] Device has pulled the configuration
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:58 UTC] Device: Validation failure, YANG CLIs found, content:
fogin on-success log subscriber templating
[2-Apr-2025 15:33:58 UTC] Failed to deploy Config Group

Select Action > ellipsis (…) to view detailed log information about the issue. Then go back to the configuration group page to correct the error and if there is a Valid IOS XE CLI without an associated YANG model then move the configuration to the Classic CLI pane. Then deploy the device again.

Rollback

The Control Connection failed causing a rollback to its previous working state. Only the CLI section reverts to its previous state, rollback for Classic CLI is not supported. To retain the previous device configurations, you need to correct these manually using SD-WAN Manager.

Note, the system will wait for 5 minutes to re-establish the control connection; if the connection is not restored within this time, a rollback will occur.

Following is an example output of Rollback.

12-Apr-2025 16:05:12 UTCJ Device has pulled the configuration
[2-Apr-2025 16:10:44 UTC] Device: Control connections affected by config
Current Date and time is 2025-04-02 16:10:27.446127
Personality is SD-Routing vdaemon
Checking Mandatory System Configs
system-ip organization-name sp-organization-name root-ca-chain-status 
certificate-status certificate-validity number-active-wan-interfaces token 
dns-name/Validator Checking CDB
name configured org-name configured sys-ip configured
Checking WAN interfaces
wan intf GigabitEthernet1
PASS
PASS
PASS
PASS
PASS PASS
PASS
PASS
PASS
FAIL
WAN interface GigabitEthernet1 is down due to which control connection 
could not be established! Mandatory configs missing
[2-Apr-2025 16:10:44 UTC] Failed to attach configuration

Select Action > ellipsis (…) to view detailed log information about the issue. Then go back to the configuration group page to correct the error and then deploy the device again.

For any unknown issues, get in touch with Cisco Technical Assistance (TAC) team.

Disassociate a device from Configuration Group

When moving a device to a different Configuration Group, you must first disassociate it from its current group. Follow the steps below to disassociate a device from the Configuration Group.

Procedure

  Command or Action Purpose

Step 1

From Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, choose Configuration > Configuration Groups.

Step 2

Select the preferred SD-Routing configuration group from the list.

Step 3

Click +Add adjacent to Associated field.

Step 4

Uncheck the devices to disassociate the devices from the Configuration group.

Step 5

Click Save.

Create SD-Routing Configuration Groups Using the Workflow Library

The Create SD-Routing Config workflow available in the Workflow Library is a simplified workflow that guides you in creating a configuration group for SD-Routing devices. This is an alternative way to quickly create a configuration group.

Before you begin

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Workflows > Workflow Library > Create SD-Routing Config.

Step 2

Enter a name and optionally a description and click to create a SD-Routing config group.

Step 3

Select the configuration group and add any additional profiles that you need. For more information refer to Create Configuration Groups Using Profile Configuration Group

What to do next

Associate and Deploy the Configuration Group to an SD-Routing Device

Deploy SD-Routing Devices Using the Deploy Configuration Group Workflow

Before you begin

You should have created an SD-Routing Configuration Group and associated one or more devices with the configuration group.

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Workflows > Workflow Library.

Step 2

Start the Deploy Configuration Group workflow.

Step 3

Follow the instructions provided in the workflow.

Release a console

When you push configurations to a device using a Configuration Group, the device console locks, blocking any other actions through the terminal. To make the console available for pushing configurations directly through the terminal, you release it from the SD-WAN Manager. Follow these steps to release a console from a Configuration Group.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, choose Configuration > Devices > WAN Edges.

Step 2

Click … adjacent to the configuration group name.

Step 3

Select Config Unlock.

Step 4

Click Yes in the Config Unlock dialogue box to release the console.