Building an ArubaOS-CX Libvirt Box

Aruba AOS-CX 10 is supported by the netlab libvirt package command. To build it:

  • Create an empty directory on a Ubuntu machine with libvirt and Vagrant.

  • Download the Aruba_AOS-CX_Switch_Simulator (see below) OVA image into that directory, and uncompress it (and the OVA file - which is a tarball)

  • Convert the vmdk image to the qcow2 format (qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 arubaoscx-disk-image-genericx86-p4-20231110145644.vmdk arubacx-10.13.qcow2)

  • Execute netlab libvirt package arubacx virtual-disk-file-name and follow the instructions

Warning

  • The ‌netlab libvirt package arubacx command has been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and might not work on other Linux distros.

  • On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, libvirt-qemu user needs read and execute access to the VM disk file. It’s easiest if you create Vagrant boxes in a subdirectory of the /tmp directory.

Aruba AOS-CX download notes

The Aruba AOS-CX 10 Switch Simulator image can be download from the Aruba Support Portal (after user registration), searching for: Aruba_AOS-CX_Switch_Simulator. In example, release 10.13 can be downloaded from here.

Initial Device Configuration

During the box-building process you’ll have to copy-paste initial device configuration. netlab libvirt config arubacx command displays the build recipe:

Creating initial configuration for ArubaOS-CX
=============================================

* Wait for the 'login' prompt
* Login as 'admin' (no password)
* Set the new 'admin' password as 'admin'
* Copy-paste the following configuration

=============================================

configure
!
user netlab group administrators password plaintext netlab
user netlab authorized-key ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA6NF8iallvQVp22WDkTkyrtvp9eWW6A8YVr+kz4TjGYe7gHzIw+niNltGEFHzD8+v1I2YJ6oXevct1YeS0o9HZyN1Q9qgCgzUFtdOKLv6IedplqoPkcmF0aYet2PkEDo3MlTBckFXPITAMzF8dJSIFo9D8HfdOV0IAdx4O7PtixWKn5y2hMNG0zQPyUecp4pzC6kivAIhyfHilFR61RGL+GPXQ2MWZWFYbAGjyiYJnAmCP3NOTd0jMZEnDkbUvxhMmBYSdETk1rRgm+R4LOzFUGaHqHDLKLX+FIPKcF96hrucXzcWyLbIbEgE98OHlnVYCzRdK8jlqm8tehUc9c9WhQ==
!
ssh server vrf mgmt
https server vrf mgmt
!
interface mgmt
  no shutdown
  ip dhcp
!
ntp vrf mgmt
!
end
!
write memory
!
! reload cycle is required
!
boot system
!

=============================================

* After the reboot, check that the management interface is up (sometimes you may need to apply the config and reboot twice)
* Disconnect from console (ctrl-] usually works).
* Shutdown the VM, if needed

NOTE: It seems it’s not possible to create a user called vagrant on AOS-CX, so the configuration creates a netlab user (with password: netlab).

Ansible Galaxy for Aruba AOS-CX

You need to install the Ansible modules for Aruba AOS-CX with: ansible-galaxy collection install arubanetworks.aoscx.