Installing Arista vEOS in VirtualBox and GNS3

November 14, 2014 5 Comments

Something that I have been looking for, for a while, has been a nice software switch that I can use that support not just switching but VLANs as well. Yes, there is Open vSwitch, but I was looking for something more traditional, if that’s the right way to say it. I heard about Arista’s vEOS switch a while back, but back then you could only download it if you were already an Arista customer. But recently I ran across another great blog post at Radovan Brezula’s blog again that shows how to setup Arista’s vEOS and that’s when I found out that I could download vEOS to try without being an already Arista customer. I swear, this guy likes playing with virtual networking as much as I do.

So below I’ll walk through my steps for setting up vEOS in VirtualBox and then putting it into GNS3 to do some basic VLAN tests.

1. Download vEOS from https://www.arista.com/en/support/software-download . You will need to create an account.
Aboot-veos-serial-2.1.0.iso
vEOS-4.14.2F.vmdk

2. Create a base vEOS VM in VirtualBox

  • General:
    • Name: base-vEOS
    • Type: Linux
    • Version: Other Linux (64bit)
  • System:
    • Memory: 1024MB
    • CPU: 1
  • Hard Drive:
    • IDE Controller
      • HD: Use downloaded vmdk
      • CD: Use downloaded iso
  • Network:
    • Enable all 4 adapters and set the ‘Adapter Type’ to ‘PCNet-FAST III’
  • Audio:
    • Off
  • Serial Ports:
    • Enable Serial Port 1
    • Port Number: COM1
    • Port Mode: Disconnected

3. Boot it up.
The boot is a little slow to start the first time. Just wait a minute or so. When it finishes and you have the Login: prompt and you can login with ‘admin’ with no password.

Now that we have vEOS able to boot up into VirtualBox, lets add it into GNS3 for testing,

4. Make two vEOS VMs for use in GNS3

  • Make sure the base-vEOS is shutdown and remove the Aboot-veos-serial-2.1.0.iso from the CD. I had issues cloning while the CD was still attached.
  • My test is going to use two switches, so I cloned(linked clone) base-vEOS two times. vEOS-1 and vEOS-2.
  • Add Aboot-veos-serial-2.1.0.iso back in to each cloned VM.

5. Add to GNS3
Add both new vEOS clones to GNS3 VirtualBox list following
GNS3->Edit->Preferences->VirtualBox->VirtualBox VMs->New

6. After adding both VMs, choose the each VM one at a time in the VM list in the preferences and click on the Edit button to set the following.

  • General settings:
    • Start VM in headless mode
  • Network:
    • Adapters: 4 (Adapter0 will be used for the Management1 interface. So when you set the number of adapter you need, add one extra.)
    • Start at: 0
    • Type: ‘PCNet-FAST III’

7. Add both switches to the GNS3 canvas along with four VPCS.
Create links between them
PC1 — vEOS-1 e2
PC2 — vEOS-1 e3
PC3 — vEOS-2 e2
PC4 — vEOS-2 e3
vEOS-2 e1 — vEOS-1 e1

vEOS-GNS3

8. Startup and configure

Now start up all the VPCS and vEOS switches.  After they start up, configure the switches to have a trunk between them and set the interfaces to the VPCS to be access.  To test VLANs, I’ll put PC1 and PC3 in one VLAN and I’ll put PC2 and PC4 in another.
vEOS-1:

hostname vEOS-1
enable secret arista
username admin secret arista
!
vlan 10
exit
vlan 20
exit
!
interface Ethernet1
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan 10,20
no shutdown
exit
!
interface Ethernet2
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 10
no shutdown
exit
!
interface Ethernet3
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 20
no shutdown
exit

vEOS-2:

hostname vEOS-2
enable secret arista
username admin secret arista
!
vlan 10
exit
vlan 20
exit
!
interface Ethernet1
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan 10,20
no shutdown
exit
!
interface Ethernet2
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 10
no shutdown
exit
!
interface Ethernet3
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 20
no shutdown
exit

PC1:

ip 192.168.1.2 /24

PC3:

ip 192.168.1.3 /24

PC2:

ip 192.168.2.2 /24

PC4:

ip 192.168.2.3 /24

9. Test it out
PC1 ping PC3

PC1> ping 192.168.1.3
192.168.1.3 icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=59.008 ms
192.168.1.3 icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=26.003 ms
192.168.1.3 icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=28.504 ms
192.168.1.3 icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=27.003 ms
192.168.1.3 icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=26.504 ms

PC2 ping PC4

PC2> ping 192.168.2.3
192.168.2.3 icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=26.004 ms
192.168.2.3 icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=26.503 ms
192.168.2.3 icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=26.004 ms
192.168.2.3 icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=26.003 ms
192.168.2.3 icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=25.503 ms

Well, it works great and does what I need it to do for a special test I want to try out, which I hope to post within the next month.

Enjoy everyone and thanks again to Radovan Brezula.

This post ‘Installing Arista vEOS in VirtualBox and GNS3’ first appeared on https://techandtrains.com/.

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MiniEdit 2.2.0.1

October 3, 2014 9 Comments

UPDATE: You will not be able to run this specific version against the latest Mininet 2.2. There was a change in Mininet that removed a class that MiniEdit referenced. But there is good news. MiniEdit 2.2.0.1 has been included in the Mininet 2.2 distribution and has this bug fixed in it. So if you want MiniEdit that was released with Mininet 2.2, grab it from the link below.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mininet/mininet/2.2.0/examples/miniedit.py

—————-

Out with another update. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to start using new functions in Mininet that are not backward compatible with Mininet 2.1.0 or older. So to use this version, you will need to have the latest version of Mininet from GITHUB.

    • Support TCP or SSL for remote controller
    • Some UI layout changes in the host and switch properties.
    • Support new Mininet HostWithPrivateDirs class. Allows you to mount private directories for each host which can also be mounted over an existing directory like /var/tmp or an application directory like /etc/httpd.  Another example is available in Mininet in https://github.com/mininet/mininet/blob/master/examples/bind.py.
    • Replace custom code to set OF protocols with new Mininet OVSSwitch parameter. Below is an example of the new usage in Mininet.
s2 = net.addSwitch( 's2', protocols='OpenFlow13' )
or
s2 = net.addSwitch( 's2', protocols='OpenFlow13,OpenFlow11' )

Download MiniEdit 2.2.0.1 here.

This post ‘MiniEdit 2.2.0.1’ first appeared on https://techandtrains.com/.

 

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Mininet and Open vSwitch on CentOS 7

September 13, 2014 6 Comments

The following are the steps I took to get Mininet running in CentOS 7.  I ran into many issues trying to get OVS installed and running.  There was a conflict between the OVS script tools starting OVSDB and SELinux.  I had to set SELinux to Passive to work around it.  So depending on what system you are running this on,  be advised of the following steps and what system level settings I changed for security.  I assume most of these will be corrected once OVS officially supports CentOS/RHEL 7.

Installing Mininet on CentOS7
– I needed VM with 2GB memory to get OS installed.
– I used CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-livecd.iso to install the VM. I’m not going to outline steps for installing CentOS.
– I created a local user called mininet and gave it sudo access and ran the remainder as that user.
– Install SSHD
sudo yum -y install openssh-server
sudo chkconfig sshd on
sudo service sshd start

– Disable SELinux to get OVSDB to stasrt
sudo setenforce Permissive

– Modify sudoers secure_path to add /usr/local/bin so the ‘controller’ which be found.
Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

– Install GIT
sudo yum -y install git

– Get Mininet.
git clone git://github.com/mininet/mininet.git
– Update installer mininet/util/install.sh.
***ADD the following before the line ‘test -e /etc/fedora-release && DIST=”Fedora”‘. Somewhere around line 47.  May differ.
test -e /etc/centos-release && DIST="CentOS"
if [ "$DIST" = "CentOS" ]; then
    install='sudo yum -y install'
    remove='sudo yum -y erase'
    pkginst='sudo rpm -ivh'
    # Prereqs for this script
    if ! which lsb_release &> /dev/null; then
        $install redhat-lsb-core
    fi
fi
***EDIT
if ! echo $DIST | egrep 'Ubuntu|Debian|Fedora|CentOS'; then
    echo "Install.sh currently only supports Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora."
    exit 1
fi

– Install Mininet and OpenFlow reference.  Not OVS.
mininet/util/install.sh -nf

– Build and Install OVS
sudo yum -y install gcc make python-devel openssl-devel kernel-devel graphviz \
kernel-debug-devel autoconf automake rpm-build redhat-rpm-config \
libtool wget

mkdir -p /home/mininet/rpmbuild/SOURCES/
cd /home/mininet/rpmbuild/SOURCES/
wget http://openvswitch.org/releases/openvswitch-2.3.0.tar.gz
tar zxvf openvswitch-2.3.0.tar.gz
cd openvswitch-2.3.0
rpmbuild -bb --without check rhel/openvswitch.spec
sudo rpm -ivh --nodeps /home/mininet/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/openvswitch*.rpm

– Start OVS
sudo /etc/init.d/openvswitch start

– Check working
[mininet@localhost ~]$ sudo ovs-vsctl show
76ed3664-6b6b-4325-85c1-c9a2bf735e30
    ovs_version: "2.3.0"

– Test out Mininet
[mininet@localhost ~]$ sudo mn --test pingall
*** Creating network
*** Adding controller
*** Adding hosts:
h1 h2
*** Adding switches:
s1
*** Adding links:
(h1, s1) (h2, s1)
*** Configuring hosts
h1 h2
*** Starting controller
*** Starting 1 switches
s1
*** Waiting for switches to connect
s1
*** Ping: testing ping reachability
h1 -> h2
h2 -> h1
*** Results: 0% dropped (2/2 received)
*** Stopping 1 controllers
c0
*** Stopping 1 switches
s1 ..
*** Stopping 2 hosts
h1 h2
*** Done
completed in 5.397 seconds

So it seems to work.  But there are a few things to note.

1. The kernel datapath is not installed.  This is totally userspace.  I could not get the kernel module to compile.  Wait until official support of RHEL7.
2. The above is the extent of the testing I did.  There may be other issues that crop up.

Hope this helps anyone that uses CentOS or RHEL 7 with Mininet.

 

This post ‘Mininet and OVS on CentOS 7’ first appeared on https://techandtrains.com/.

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