The Cisco Nexus 9000v is a virtual platform that is designed to simulate the control plane aspects of a network element running Cisco Nexus 9000 software. The Cisco Nexus 9000v shares the same software image running on Cisco Nexus 9000 hardware platform although no specific hardware emulation is implemented. When the software runs as a virtual machine, line card (LC) ASIC provisioning or any interaction from the control plane to hardware ASIC is handled by the Cisco Nexus 9000v software data plane.

The Cisco Nexus 9000v for the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series provides a useful tool to enable the devops model and rapidly test changes to the infrastructure or to infrastructure automation tools. This enables customers to validate configuration changes on a simulated network prior to applying them on a production network. Some users have also expressed interest in using the simulation system for feature test ,verification, and automation tooling development and test simulation prior to deployment. Cisco Nexus 9000v can be used as a programmability vehicle to validate software defined networks (SDNs) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) based solutions.

Cisco Nexus 9000v has the following guidelines and limitations:

• Cisco Nexus 9000v does not support the VGA console. You must provision a serial console on a VM to access the Nexus 9000v switch prompt on initial boot. See Deploying the Cisco Nexus 9000v on VirtualBox for more information.

• When N9000v VMs are created by KVM hypervisor, the following issues may occur due to the default setting on the Linux Bridge:

  • LLDP communication between the VMs: The LLDP communication is not established between N9000v. For the solution, the following Linux Bridge settings should be configured. (In the example, assume vb7af2d7ab777d0 is the Linux Bridge that is used for connecting two VMs.

    1. Stop STP running on the Linux Bridge using the brctl setageing vb7af2d7ab777d0 0 command.

    2. Allow LLDP to be forwarded on the Linux Bridge using the echo 0x4000 > /sys/class/net/vb7af2d7ab777d0/bridge/group_fwd_mask command.

    3. Stop LLDP service running on Linux base host (on which the topology is running) using the /etc/init.d/lldpd stop command.

    4. [Optional] Disable multicast snooping using the echo 0 > /sys/devices/virtual/net/vb7af2d7ab777d0/bridge/multicast_snooping command.

  • LACP connection between the VMs: The LACP connection is not formed between eNXOSv. For the solution, complete the following steps:

    • The Linux kernel should be patched.

    • Group forward mask should be set up using the echo 0x4 > /sys/class/net/vb7af2d7ab777d0/bridge/group_fwd_mask command.

  • The multicast packet may not flow through the Linux Bridge. For the solution, use the echo 0 > /sys/devices/virtual/net/vb7af2d7ab777d0/bridge/multicast_snooping command.

  • Some ports may get into STP blocked port by the Linux Bridge. For the solution, disable the STP running on the Linux Bridge using the brctl setageing vb7af2d7ab777d0 0 command.

• After initial setup of the Cisco Nexus 9000v, you must configure the booting image in your system. Otherwise, the Cisco Nexus 9000v drops to the loader> prompt after reload/shut down.

  switch# configure terminal
  switch(config)#  boot nxos n9000-dk9.7.0.3.I2.0.454.bin
  switch(config)#  copy running-config startup-config
  
  

• Cisco Nexus 9000v does not support VGA console. You must provision the serial console on any VM to access the Cisco Nexus 9000v switch prompt on initial boot.

• Beginning with Cisco Nexus Release 7.0(3)I7(1), you can use the Cisco Nexus Network Manager to manage Nexus 9000v chassis node in network management system

  Note	The Cisco Nexus 9000v does not support statistics querying.

• The Cisco Nexus 9000v uses vNICs that are entered from the KVM/QEMU command line or from the GUI on ESXi for networking either externally or internally within a hypervisor server. The first NIC is always used as the Cisco Nexus 9000v management interface. The subsequence NICs are used as data ports as e1/1, e1/2, ... e1/9. Ten NICs are allowed with nine NICs for data ports.

  Note	Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I5(2), a maximum of 64 data ports (e1/1, e1/2, ... e1/64) are supported.

  Connect only the first NIC for the Cisco Nexus 9000v VM as the management interface to your LAN physical switch or vSwitch (VM Network) connecting directly to a physical switch. Do not connect any data port vNIC to any physical switch that conflicts with your server management connectivity.

• Cisco Nexus 9000v only supports the ESXi standard vSwitch when VMs are interconnected within a hypervisor or an external physical switch.

• The vSwitch mapping to data port interface is required to have Promiscuous Mode as the Accept mode in order to pass traffic between VMs.

• Multicast snooping should be disabled on net-devices configured as bridges on Linux-host machines. These net-devices are used to connect VMs in the Cisco Nexus 9000v setup.

• The Cisco Nexus 9000v operates as a bridge that generates BPDU packets on its Ethernet interfaces as it participates in Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). It also forwards broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast traffic as expected by classic bridging logic. Do not connect the Cisco Nexus 9000v data plane interfaces to the upstream network in a manner that would create bridging loops or interfere with upstream STP operation.

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I6(1), Cisco Nexus 9000v is supported in the Virtual Internet Routing Lab (VIRL) and the Cisco Modeling Lab (CML) environment running as a VM.

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I6(1), VXLAN BGP EVPN is supported on Cisco Nexus 9000v. For details on VXLAN configuration, see the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS VXLAN Configuration Guide, Release 7.x.

The Cisco Nexus 9000v uses the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series hardware software image. It requires the minimum resources as shown in the following list. These resources are generally not oversubscribed on any server.

• 8G memory

• Minimum 4G. We recommend a 8G VM configuration for complex topology and enabling features.

• 1-4 vCPUs

• 4G hard disk

• 1 serial port

• 1 network interface card (NIC)

Server Software Requirements

The Cisco Nexus 9000v can run on Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers or servers from leading vendors that support VMware ESXi 5.1 (Post Build 1065491/ ESXi 5.5) or the combination of Ubuntu Linux 14.04LTS or later version and KVM-QEMU 2.0.

if you only need a standalone Cisco Nexus 9000v node, the Cisco Nexus 9000v can also be deployed on a laptop or and Apple Mac Pro with a virtual box hypervisor as long as your laptop meets basic resource requirements.

The virtual machine (VM) runs on the VMware vSphere Hypervisor. You can use the same VMware vSphere hypervisor to run serial VMs. Use the VMware vSphere Client GUI to create and manager VMs.

The VMware vSphere Client is an application for creating, configuring, and managing VMs on the VMware vCenter Server. The Cisco Nexus 9000v can boot from a virtual disk located on the data store. You can perform basic administration tasks such as starting and stopping the Cisco Nexus 9000v, using the VMware vSphere Client.

VMWare vCenter Server manages the vSphere environment and provides unified management of all the hosts and VMs in the data center from a single console.

For more information about how Cisco and VMware work together, see https:/​/​www.vmware.com/​partners/​global-alliances/​cisco.html.

For more information about VMware features and operations, see the https:/​/​www.vmware.com/​support/​pubs/​.

The kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source, full-virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware, containing virtualization extensions. It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor-specific module, ivm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko

Quick Emulator (QEMU) is a free and open-source software product that performs hardware virtualization. You can run QEMU on the Cisco UCS server with KVM installed. The recommended version of QEMU for the Cisco Nexus 9000v reference platform is version 2.2.0 or later.

Starting with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(3), 128 interfaces are suppoted for Cisco Nexus 9000v switches only on KVM hypervisor. This support is applicable for Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS and 16.04.3 LTS environments and Qemu distort qemu-2.10.0-rc3.tar.xz.

Cisco Nexus 9000v now supports interfaces up to 128+1 (128 data ports, for example, e1/1, e1/2.., e1/128, and management interface). If you do not need 128 interfaces, there is no any negative impact. Only number of vNICs users entered are displayed in the proper interface state. All other interfaces that do not have any associated vNICs display link not connected state.

For the interfaces to work smoothly, make sure that the following criteria is met:

• Total 129 vNICs (128 data + 1 for management) from KVM hypervisor command line are required in order to have 128 interfaces available.

• VM resources should be sufficient in terms of memory and vCPUs based on the enabled features and interfaces.

• Extra 3+ minutes are required to boot up the system due to significant PCI scan time on kernel boot-up. The Qemu 2.9.93 (the tested version) is recommended to reduce the VM boot up time. Typical VM boot up time is proximately 5-6 minutes for all 128 data port interfaces to be able to pass the traffic in a large topology system. Any previous released Qemu version could take longer time to boot up the VM.

• 8G+ memory footprint is required in order to have 128 connected interfaces.

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel 64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as for the home user. It is free software available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 and you can obtain more information and download from https:/​/​www.virtualbox.org/​ web site.

VMware Fusion is also a powerful virtualization product for enterprise as well as PC user.

Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I5(2), Cisco Cisco Nexus 9000v supports the Cisco Virtual Appliance Configuration (CVAC). This out-of-band configuration mechanism is similar to the PowerOn Auto Provisioning (POAP) autoconfiguration, but instead of downloading the configuration across the network as POAP does, CVAC receives the configuration injected into the Cisco Cisco Nexus 9000v environment on a CD-ROM. The configuration is detected and applied at startup time.

CVAC can be used for a bootstrap configuration (supplying just enough configuration to bring the switch into a reachable state suitable for subsequent configuration using Telnet, RESTful APIs, or other standard mechanisms) or a full configuration (taking the entire configuration of another router and replicating it into a newly launched platform VM). The configuration should be in a plain-text file called nxos_config.txt. You can package the configuration file onto the CD-ROM using the following command:

mkisofs -output nxosconfig.iso -l --relaxed-filenames --iso-level 2 <file(s) to add>

If the system does not detect a CVAC configuration, the POAP process begins, and the POAP interface prompts you for the initial installation. See the NX-OS Fundamentals Configuration Guide for information about POAP for a newly installed switch.

The Cisco Cisco Nexus 9000v supports the same control plane features and configuration that are supported on the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series hardware platforms. The configuration commands for the control plane features follow the same syntax as the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches.