Cisco ACI Simulator Appliance Server Installation Guide

Chapter 1. Introduction

About the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller

About the ACI Simulator Appliance Server

About the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller

The Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a distributed, scalable, multitenant infrastructure with external end-point connectivity controlled and grouped through application-centric policies. The Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) is the unified point of automation, management, monitoring, and programmability for the ACI. The APIC supports the deployment, management, and monitoring of any application anywhere, with a unified operations model for the physical and virtual components of the infrastructure. The APIC programmatically automates network provisioning and control that is based on the application requirements and policies. It is the central control engine for the broader cloud network; it simplifies management and allows flexibility in how application networks are defined and automated. It also provides northbound Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs. The APIC is a distributed system that is implemented as a cluster of many controller instances.

About the ACI Simulator Appliance Server

Important

The ACI Simulator Appliance Server is no longer for sale after June 20, 2019, as noted here. For recent and future releases, you can download the Cisco ACI Simulator VM, an OVA file that can be installed in a virtual machine (VM) on any server that meets the installation requirements.

The ACI Simulator Appliance Server can only simulate the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) 4.2 releases and earlier. To simulate later releases, use the ACI Simulator virtual machine. For more information, see the Cisco ACI Simulator VM Installation Guide.

The intent of the ACI Simulator is to provide real, fully-featured Cisco APIC software, along with a simulated fabric infrastructure of leaf switches and spine switches in one physical server. Because the ACI Simulator includes Cisco APICs with real production software, you can use it to understand features, exercise APIs, and initiate integration with third-party orchestration systems and applications. The native GUI and CLI of the Cisco APIC use the same APIs that are published to third parties.

The ACI Simulator includes simulated switches, so you cannot validate a data path. However, some of the simulated switch ports have been mapped to the front-panel server ports which allows you to connect external management entities such as ESX servers, VMware vCenters, VMware vShields, bare metal servers, Layer 4 to Layer 7 services, AAA systems, and other physical or virtual service appliances. In addition, the ACI Simulator allows simulation of faults and alerts to facilitate testing and to demonstrate features.

One instance of the production Cisco APIC is shipped per server appliance. By contrast, the ACI Simulator includes three actual Cisco APIC instances and two simulated leaf switches and two simulated spine switches in a single server. As a result, the performance of the ACI Simulator is slower than deployments on production hardware.

Using the Simulator, you can perform operations on the simulated fabric using any of the following functional interfaces:

graphical user interface (GUI)

command line interface (CLI)

application programming interface (API)

The ACI Simulator consists of simulation software running on a special version of the Cisco UCS C220 M3 or M4 High-Density Rack Server. For information about the hardware installation and requirements of the physical server, you can refer to the documentation for the Cisco UCS C220 Server at this URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/hw/C220/install/C220.html

Note

The ACI Simulator software cannot be installed separately on a standard Cisco UCS C220 Server or on other servers. The software runs only on the ACI Simulator server, which has the following PID:

APIC-SIM-S (based on Cisco UCS C220 M3 server)

APIC-SIM-S2 (based on Cisco UCS C220 M4 server)

Chapter 2. Simulator Topology

Simulated Topology and Connections

Simulator Server Physical Connections

Connecting Network Service Appliances

Connecting AAA Server and Syslog Server

Simulated Topology and Connections

The ACI Simulator implements the following topology:

Two spine switches (spine1, spine2)

Two leaf switches (leaf1, leaf2)

Three instances of APIC (apic1, apic2, apic3)

These components are connected as follows:

APIC instances apic1 and apic2 are connected to leaf1.

APIC instance apic3 is connected to leaf2.

Each leaf switch is connected to each spine switch

This diagram shows the components and connections simulated within the simulator server:

This figure shows the connection of several external ESX servers as an example. External servers connected to the simulator server ports shown will be connected to simulated leaf switches as shown. For example, a server connected to port 4 of the simulator server will appear as attached to port 2 of Leaf1.

The vCenter and vShield can be connected through the tenant management network or through the out-of-band management network. The ESX management connectivity to vCenter and vShield is external to the simulator server as shown in the figure.

Note

External servers are not part of the simulator, and need not be ESX servers. External servers may be connected directly to the simulator server ports or through an external switch such as a blade switch.

Simulator Server Physical Connections

The following figure shows the physical port connections to the rear panel of the simulator server.

To access the APIC, you must connect port 1 to your out-of-band management network. Port 2 can be connected to the tenant management network, which connects the leaf switches to the external network devices over layer 2 or layer 3. You can connect external hosts or layer 2 switches to any of the ports 3 through 8.

Note

The simulator server provides no data path switching between external network devices. You must connect the external servers to the tenant management network through additional interfaces on the external servers.

The following table lists ports for management and external server connections:

Port

Speed

Description

1

1G

Out-of-band management

2

1G

Tenant management

3

1G

Leaf1 port 1

4

1G

Leaf1 port 2

5

1G

Leaf2 port 1

6

1G

Leaf2 port 2

7

10G

Leaf2 port 3

8

10G

Leaf1 port 3

Connecting Network Service Appliances

This section describes how to connect physical or virtual network service appliances such as firewalls (Cisco ASA, for example) or ADC (application delivery controllers such as F5 BigIP or Citrix NetScaler).

The APIC network service integration feature automates these functions:

Service insertion—Configuring the network for redirecting traffic through network service appliances (nodes)

Service configuration—Configuring the network service appliance based on endpoint group and application requirements

To enable the network service integration feature with the simulator server, connect the service appliances (physical or virtual) to the simulator server as shown in the following figure:

The management interface of physical appliances must have a layer 2 (L2) connection to the Eth1 interface port of the simulator server. The management interface of network service appliances must be connected to a port-group providing L2 connectivity to the out-of-band management network. Additionally, the automation of network connectivity for a virtual service appliance requires APIC to have connectivity to the vCenter server managing the virtual service appliance VM.

Note

The simulator server provides only the capability to validate service network configuration and service function configuration. As shown in the figure, data packets do not traverse through the simulator.

Connecting AAA Server and Syslog Server

The following figure shows how to connect the simulator to a AAA server and a syslog server, through either a L2 or L3 connection. Refer to the applicable configuration guides for configuring the external network, configuring the AAA (RADIUS, TACACS+, or LDAP) server, and configuring a syslog (or Cisco Call Home) server.

Chapter 3. First Time Access

Prerequisites for Configuring the Simulator

Starting the Simulator

Prerequisites for Configuring the Simulator

Three IP addresses are required. Each APIC instance requires a private IP address from within your network for out-of-band management.

Starting the Simulator

When the simulator server boots up, the ACI Simulator starts automatically, launching a separate initialization console for each APIC instance. You can switch between the consoles by using the following keyboard commands:

Alt-F1— Connects to apic1 console

Alt-F2— Connects to apic2 console

Alt-F3— Connects to apic3 console

To continue the configuration and operation of the ACI Simulator, see the Cisco ACI Simulator Getting Started Guide.

Note

Before configuring the simulator server, read the Cisco ACI Simulator Release Notes to learn about any functional or configuration differences between the simulator and the actual APIC.

Chapter 4. Installing the ACI Simulator Software

This chapter contains the following sections:

Joining Cisco ACI Simulator Split OVA Files in Microsoft Windows

Joining Cisco ACI Simulator Split OVA Files in Linux

Installing the ACI Simulator Software

Installing the Simulator using a PXE Server

Installing the Simulator Using Virtual Media

Joining Cisco ACI Simulator Split OVA Files in Microsoft Windows

The OVA file for the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) simulator comes split into multiple files. You must join the files together before you can install the Cisco ACI simulator software.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco.com, download all parts of the acisim-version.ova file to a folder on your Windows machine.

Each part is a multi-gigabyte file, so make sure that you have enough space on the machine where you will combine the files.

Step 2

From a Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe), navigate to the folder where you downloaded the simulator split files.

Example:

In the following example, the files are on the Z: drive in the acisim folder:

Z:\> cd acisim
Z:\acisim> dir
Directory of Z:\acisim

05/19/2020  02:06 PM    <DIR>          .
05/19/2020  09:04 AM    <DIR>          ..
05/19/2020  08:46 AM    10,568,524,750 acisim-5.0-1k_part1.ova
05/19/2020  08:46 AM    10,568,524,750 acisim-5.0-1k_part2.ova
05/19/2020  08:47 AM    10,568,524,750 acisim-5.0-1k_part3.ova
05/19/2020  08:47 AM    10,568,524,750 acisim-5.0-1k_part4.ova
05/19/2020  08:47 AM    10,568,524,488 acisim-5.0-1k_part5.ova
               5 File(s) 52,842,623,488 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  934,286,774,272 bytes free

Z:\acisim>

Step 3

Use the copy /b command to join the split files.

Example:

The following example commands show joining 5 acisim-5.0-1k_*.ova files into in a single file named acisim.ova:

Z:\acisim> copy /b acisim-5.0-1k_part1.ova+acisim-5.0-1k_part2.ova+
acisim-5.0-1k_part3.ova+acisim-5.0-1k_part4.ova+acisim-5.0-1k_part5.ova acisim.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part1.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part2.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part3.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part4.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part5.ova
        1 file(s) copied.

Z:\acisim>

This process takes several minutes and will result in a new joined file being created with the name you that you specified. The command will not delete the original split files.

What to do next

Deploy this newly-combined OVA file.

Joining Cisco ACI Simulator Split OVA Files in Linux

The OVA file for the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) simulator comes split into multiple files. You must join the files together before you can install the Cisco ACI simulator software.

Procedure

Step 1

From Cisco.com, download all parts of the acisim-version.ova file to a directory on your Linux machine.

Each part is a multi-gigabyte file, so make sure that you have enough space on the machine where you will combine the files.

Step 2

Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the simulator split files.

Example:

In the following example, the files are in the acisim directory:

$ cd acisim
$ ls

acisim-5.0-1k_part1.ova     acisim-5.0-1k_part2.ova     acisim-5.0-1k_part3.ova
acisim-5.0-1k_part4.ova     acisim-5.0-1k_part5.ova
$

Step 3

Use the cat command to join the split files.

Example:

The following example commands show joining 5 acisim-5.0-1k_*.ova files into in a single file named acisim.ova:

$ cat acisim-5.0-1k_part1.ova acisim-5.0-1k_part2.ova \
acisim-5.0-1k_part3.ova acisim-5.0-1k_part4.ova \
acisim-5.0-1k_part5.ova > acisim.ova

Many modern Linux shells allow you to use the range option. The range syntax can vary depending on which type of Linux shell you are using. This example uses Bash. The following example uses a range to achieve the same result with fewer characters:

$ cat acisim-5.0-1k_part[1-5].ova > acisim.ova

This process takes several minutes and will result in a new joined file being created with the name you that you specified. The command will not delete the original split files.

What to do next

Deploy this newly-combined OVA file.

Installing the ACI Simulator Software

You can use one of the following methods to install your ACI simulator software:

Using a PXE server

Using virtual media

Installing the Simulator using a PXE Server

Follow these steps to install the ACI simulator software using a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) server:

Note

The paths of configuration files may vary for your PXE server depending on your Linux distro and how the PXE server is installed.

Before you begin

You must be familiar with setting up a PXE server on a Linux distribution operating system.

Procedure

Step 1

Configure the PXE server with a simulator image as follows:

Add an entry for the simulator image to your PXE menu.

Edit the /tftpboot/boot_msg to add the entry for the simulator image.

Example:

[root@pxeserver ~]# cat /tftpboot/boot_msg | grep Simulator
50. Simulator - 1.0.1.247e - secure

Mount the ISO simulator image.

Example:

# mkdir –p /var/www/html/option50
sudo mount –o loop –t iso9660 /local/aci-mnsim-dk9.1.0.1.247e.iso /var/www/html/option50

Copy vmlinuz and intird from the mounted ISO simulator image to your tftpboot path.

Example:

# mkdir –p /tftpboot/ifcimages
# cp –f /var/www/html/option50/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz/tftpboot/ifcimages/
# cp –f /var/www/html/option50/images/pxeboot/initrd.img/tftpboot/ifcimages/

Create a kickstart file that will be served by an HTTP server.

Example:

# mkdir –p /var/www/html/kickstart
[root@tftpserver ~]# cat /var/www/html/kickstart/ks-50
# IFC Kickstart script for UCS C200
install
url --url=http://<tftpserver-httpserver-ip>/option50
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --onboot yes --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6
network --onboot no --device eth1 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6
network --onboot no --device eth2 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6
network --onboot no --device eth3 --bootproto dhcp --noipv6

Add an entry to the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default so that it points to the kickstart file for the ACI simulator image.

Example:

[root@pxeserver ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
label 50
kernel ifcimages/vmlinuz dd blacklist=isci blacklist=ahci nodmraid noprobe=ata1 noprobe=ata2 noprobe=ata3 noprobe=ata4
 append initrd=ifcimages/initrd.img ks=http://<pxe-http-server-ip>/kickstart/ks-50 ksdevice=eth0

Restart the PXE and HTTP servers.

Example:

[root@pxeserver ~]# service xinetd restart
[root@pxeserver ~]# service httpd restart

Step 2

Reboot the simulator server, and enter F12 to start a network boot.

Step 3

Choose the options configured on the PXE server to boot the simulator image. Choose Enter.

The simulator setup screen appears in approximately 15 minutes.

Step 4

Follow the steps in Cisco ACI Simulator Installation Guide to setup each Cisco APIC.

Entering ALT+F1 connects to the apic1 console, ALT+F2 connects to the apic2 console, and ALT+F3 connects to the apic3 console.

Installing the Simulator Using Virtual Media

Procedure

Step 1

Mount the virtual media using the Cisco UCS virtual media instructions by performing the following tasks:

Enter the IP address to access Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) using a web browser.

You can use a Google Chrome browser.

Note

See Recommended Cisco APIC and Cisco Nexus 9000 Series ACI-Mode Switches Releases for information regarding recommended CIMC Firmware Version.

See Cisco Host Upgrade Utility User Guide for information regarding upgrading CIMC

Enter the username and password.

Launch the KVM console.

Mount the ACI simulator ISO image using the virtual media.

Step 2

Reboot the simulator.

Step 3

Enter F6 to enter the boot selection menu.

Step 4

Choose a KVM virtual DVD from the available boot options.

Wait for the simulator installation to complete and the setup screen to appear. It could take from 20 to 60 mins to complete. If you have a dedicated CIMC NIC with 1Gbps speed, the setup screen could appear sooner.

Step 5

Press any key to reboot the simulator.

Step 6

Follow the steps in Cisco APIC Management, Installation, Upgrade, and Downgrade Guide to setup each Cisco APIC.

Entering ALT+F1 connects to the apic1 console, ALT+F2 connects to the apic2 console, and ALT+F3 connects to the apic3 console.

Preface

This preface includes the following sections:

Audience

Related Documentation

Documentation Feedback

Audience

This guide is intended primarily for data center administrators with responsibilities and expertise in one or more of the following:

Virtual machine installation and administration

Server administration

Switch and network administration

Related Documentation

Cisco ACI Simulator Release Notes

Cisco ACI Simulator Getting Started Guide

The Application Centric Infrastructure documentation set includes the following documents that are available on Cisco.com at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/cloud-systems-management/application-policy-infrastructure-controller-apic/tsd-products-support-series-home.html.

Web-Based Documentation

Cisco APIC Management Information Model Reference

Cisco APIC Online Help Reference

Cisco APIC Python SDK Reference

Cisco ACI Compatibility Tool

Cisco ACI MIB Support List

Downloadable Documentation

Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Release Notes

Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Fundamentals Guide

Cisco APIC Getting Started Guide

Cisco APIC REST API Configuration Guide

Cisco APIC Object Model Command Line Interface User Guide

Cisco APIC Faults, Events, and System Messages Management Guide

Cisco APIC Layer 4 to Layer 7 Device Package Development Guide

Cisco APIC Layer 4 to Layer 7 Services Deployment Guide

Cisco ACI Firmware Management Guide

Cisco APIC Troubleshooting Guide

Cisco ACI System Messages Reference Guide

Cisco ACI Switch Command Reference, NX-OS Release 11.0

Verified Scalability Guide for Cisco ACI

Cisco ACI MIB Quick Reference

Cisco Nexus CLI to Cisco APIC Mapping Guide

Documentation Feedback

To provide technical feedback on this document, or to report an error or omission, please send your comments to apic-docfeedback@cisco.com. We appreciate your feedback.

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