In this video I want to show how the laboratory is prepared for the “segment routing” course. “segment routing” scenarios can be implemented with ios-xe using the csr-100v virtual machine and also with ios-xr using the ios-xrv virtual machine. At best, it is recommended to use a mixture of ios-xr and ios-xe for practicing “segment routing”. But it is not the case for this course. In order not to change the focus from the concept to the configuration, and also because some features only support on ios-xr, in this course I will only use ios-xrv for most scenarios. So here I am going to show you how you can use ios-xrv to prepare your own laboratory.
routers supporting segment routing
I have downloaded ios-xrv version 6.3.3 from the Cisco site. The compressed tar file contains an ova file that can be imported directly into VMware ESX. as you can see, this version is not the latest version, but I chose it because it was already available to me . the latest version is 7.3.1.
download iosxrv from cisco website
download cisco iosxrv 6.6.3 from google drive
download cisco ios xe 17.1.1 from google drive
I have already prepared seven ios-xrv, now I want to add another router and connect last two routers, routers seven and eight, through the first interface, gigaethernet0/0/0/0.
Let’s create another router by importing ova in our VMware ESX. In the Ethernet interface section, note that the first three interfaces are intended for management, control and development. The fourth interface is therefore the first data interface or Gigabitethernet0/0/0/0. We have seven data interfaces from Gigabitethrnet0/0/0/0 to Gigabitethrnet0/0/0/6.
Please do not turn on the router so that we can complete the configuration.
ova file takes some time to be imported, so I’ll cancel the importing the router and show the rest of the configuration in the seventh router.
how make console access in ios xrv
To make console access to the routers, we need to add a serial interface through which we can establish a console connection. In “serial port output” section, we select the option “connect via network”. In “network backing” section, we select the server option and in “port URI” field, we add telnet and then IP address of VMware ESX and the port number though which console connection should be established (telnet://192.168.1.254:3001). I chose port 3001 for first router, port 3002 for second router and so on. So I choose port 3007 for the seventh router.
Now we want to connect the first interface of two last routers or Gigabitethernet0 of routers seven and eight together. To isolate each link and to make sure, the different links does not receive each other’s broadcast, I will create a new port group with a specific VLAN. Here port group 7_8 for the connection between routers 7 and 8 and VLAN number 78. For every link I have already created a different port group and VLAN.
Now we can turn on the router and check the console connection to make sure it is working.
Now that the console connection is working, you can assign an IP address to the first interface of two routers and then use ping to ensure that the connection is established correctly. I will not test it here but it is recommended to test it before starting any scenarios.
The resources that each ios xrv needs are the default amount and I haven’t changed them. By default, each router requires 24 GB of RAM and 8 CPU cores.
I myself have 64 GB of Memory in my physical server and with this resource I could load and turn on a maximum of seven routers at the same time.