A procedure for creating a Cisco Nexus 9000v Switch Vagrant box for the libvirt provider.

• Git
• uv
• libvirt with client tools
• QEMU
• Vagrant >= 2.4.0
• vagrant-libvirt
• Expect
• Telnet

Using Install and configure a lab server with Arch Linux as a reference for the following steps.

0. Verify the prerequisite tools are installed.

which git uv libvirtd virsh qemu-system-x86_64 expect telnet vagrant

1. Install the edk2-ovmf package.

sudo pacman -S edk2-ovmf

2. Log in and download a Cisco Nexus 9000/3000 Virtual Switch for KVM 10.6(x) disk image file.

3. Copy (and rename) the disk image file to the /var/lib/libvirt/images directory.

// 9300v Lite 10.6(2)(F)

sudo cp nexus9300v64-lite.10.6.2.F.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

// 9300v 10.6(2)(F)

sudo cp nexus9300v64.10.6.2.F.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

// 9500 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

sudo cp nexus9500v64-lite.10.6.2.F.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

// 9500 10.6(2)(F)

sudo cp nexus9500v64.10.6.2.F.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

4. Modify the file ownership.

The owner and/or group will differ between Linux distributions.

sudo chown libvirt-qemu:libvirt-qemu /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

5. Set the file as executable.

sudo chmod u+x /var/lib/libvirt/images/cisco-nxosv.qcow2

6. Create the boxes directory.

mkdir -p ~/boxes

7. Start the default network (if not already started).

virsh -c qemu:///system net-start default

8. Clone this repo and cd into the directory.

git clone https://github.com/mweisel/cisco-nxos9kv-vagrant-libvirt && cd cisco-nxos9kv-vagrant-libvirt

9. Get the path to the OVMF (x64) firmware image and runtime variables template.

pacman -Ql edk2-ovmf | grep -E 'x64/OVMF_(CODE|VARS)\.4m\.fd'

output:

edk2-ovmf /usr/share/edk2/x64/OVMF_CODE.4m.fd
edk2-ovmf /usr/share/edk2/x64/OVMF_VARS.4m.fd

10. Modify/Verify the OVMF paths in the create_box.sh script file.

vim files/create_box.sh

...

  config.vm.provider :libvirt do |domain|
    domain.cpus = 4
    domain.features = ['acpi']
    domain.loader = '/usr/share/edk2/x64/OVMF_CODE.4m.fd'
    domain.nvram = '/usr/share/edk2/x64/OVMF_VARS.4m.fd'
    domain.memory = 122288
    domain.disk_bus = 'sata'
    domain.disk_device = 'sda'
    domain.disk_driver :cache => 'none'
    domain.nic_model_type = 'e1000'
    domain.graphics_type = 'none'
  end
...

11. Modify/Verify the variable values in the boot_image.exp script file.

vim files/boot_image.exp

// 9300v64 Lite or 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

set nxos "10.6.2.F"
set is_lite 1

// 9300v64 or 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

set nxos "10.6.2.F"
set is_lite 0

12. Create a Python virtual environment for Ansible.

uv sync

13. Run the Ansible playbook.

uv run ansible-playbook main.yml

14. Copy (and rename) the Vagrant box artifact to the boxes directory.

// 9300v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

cp cisco-nxosv.box $HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-10.6.2.F-lite.box

// 9300v64 10.6(2)(F)

cp cisco-nxosv.box $HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-10.6.2.F.box

// 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

cp cisco-nxosv.box $HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-10.6.2.F-lite.box

// 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

cp cisco-nxosv.box $HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-10.6.2.F.box

15. Copy the box metadata file to the boxes directory.

// 9300v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

cp ./files/cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json $HOME/boxes/

// 9300v64 10.6(2)(F)

cp ./files/cisco-nexus9300v.json $HOME/boxes/

// 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

cp ./files/cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json $HOME/boxes/

// 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

cp ./files/cisco-nexus9500v.json $HOME/boxes/

16. Change the current working directory to boxes.

cd $HOME/boxes

17. Substitute the HOME placeholder string in the box metadata file.

// 9300v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json
"url": "file://HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER-lite.box"

$ sed -i "s|HOME|${HOME}|" cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER-lite.box"

// 9300v64 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v.json
"url": "file://HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER.box"

$ sed -i "s|HOME|${HOME}|" cisco-nexus9300v.json

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v.json
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER.box"

// 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json
"url": "file://HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER-lite.box"

$ sed -i "s|HOME|${HOME}|" cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER-lite.box"

// 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v.json
"url": "file://HOME/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER.box"

$ sed -i "s|HOME|${HOME}|" cisco-nexus9500v.json

$ awk '/url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v.json
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER.box"

18. Also, substitute the VER placeholder string with the Cisco NX-OS version.

// 9300v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/VER/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json
"version": "VER",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER-lite.box"

$ sed -i 's/VER/10.6.2.F/g' cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json

$ awk '/\<version\>|url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json
"version": "10.6.2.F",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-10.6.2.F-lite.box"

// 9300v64 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/VER/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v.json
"version": "VER",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-VER.box"

$ sed -i 's/VER/10.6.2.F/g' cisco-nexus9300v.json

$ awk '/\<version\>|url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9300v.json
"version": "10.6.2.F",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9300v-10.6.2.F.box"

// 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/VER/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json
"version": "VER",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER-lite.box"

$ sed -i 's/VER/10.6.2.F/g' cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json

$ awk '/\<version\>|url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json
"version": "10.6.2.F",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-10.6.2.F-lite.box"

// 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

$ awk '/VER/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v.json
"version": "VER",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-VER.box"

$ sed -i 's/VER/10.6.2.F/g' cisco-nexus9500v.json

$ awk '/\<version\>|url/{gsub(/^ */,"");print}' cisco-nexus9500v.json
"version": "10.6.2.F",
"url": "file:///home/marc/boxes/cisco-nexus9500v-10.6.2.F.box"

19. Add the Vagrant box to the local inventory.

// 9300v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

vagrant box add cisco-nexus9300v-lite.json

// 9300v64 10.6(2)(F)

vagrant box add cisco-nexus9300v.json

// 9500v64 Lite 10.6(2)(F)

vagrant box add cisco-nexus9500v-lite.json

// 9500v64 10.6(2)(F)

vagrant box add cisco-nexus9500v.json

View the Telnet session output for the expect task:

tail -f ~/nxosv-console.explog

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details