Building an Arista EOS Vagrant Libvirt Box

Arista EOS is supported by the netlab libvirt package command. To build an Arista EOS box:

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

  • Download vEOS disk image (.qcow2 file) into that directory (Arista no longer provides downloadable Vagrant boxes).

Tip

Use the eos-downloader Python package to simplify vEOS image download. See the eos-downloader documentation for more details.

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

Warning

  • The ‌netlab libvirt package eos command has been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and 22.04 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.

Initial Device Configuration

During the box-building process (inspired by the step-by-step instructions by Brad Searle) you’ll have to copy-paste initial device configuration. netlab libvirt config eos command displays the build recipe:

Creating initial configuration for Arista EOS
=============================================

* Wait for the 'login' prompt
* Login as 'admin' (no password)
* Disable zero-touch with 'zerotouch disable'

===============
*** WARNING ***
===============
Disabling zero-touch (which will also cause a device reboot) is crucial. With
zero-touch enabled, the Vagrant box will acquire an IP address on the management
interface, but never start SSH, resulting in a stuck "vagrant up" process.

After the system reboot

* Login as 'admin'
* Go into enable mode, enter configuration mode
* Copy-paste the following configuration

NOTE: the management traffic is isolated in a dedicated management VRF (management).

=============================================
aaa authorization exec default local
!
no aaa root
!
service routing protocols model multi-agent
!
vrf instance management
!
username vagrant privilege 15 secret sha512 $6$3kgdKcJLJ3j/0N51$a0YshIzKL3xtdwP6XXXRlY9B8yHFK/tLdg0I95YUIaW7oHqLsgK9TxMg8/0bL6VDkImuWT.g7WRKTxi8nNPtA1
username vagrant ssh-key ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA6NF8iallvQVp22WDkTkyrtvp9eWW6A8YVr+kz4TjGYe7gHzIw+niNltGEFHzD8+v1I2YJ6oXevct1YeS0o9HZyN1Q9qgCgzUFtdOKLv6IedplqoPkcmF0aYet2PkEDo3MlTBckFXPITAMzF8dJSIFo9D8HfdOV0IAdx4O7PtixWKn5y2hMNG0zQPyUecp4pzC6kivAIhyfHilFR61RGL+GPXQ2MWZWFYbAGjyiYJnAmCP3NOTd0jMZEnDkbUvxhMmBYSdETk1rRgm+R4LOzFUGaHqHDLKLX+FIPKcF96hrucXzcWyLbIbEgE98OHlnVYCzRdK8jlqm8tehUc9c9WhQ== vagrant insecure public key
!
interface Management1
   vrf management
   ip address dhcp
!
no ip routing
no ip routing vrf management
!
security pki key generate rsa 2048 default
security pki certificate generate self-signed default key default param common-name Arista
!
management api http-commands
   no shutdown
   !
   vrf management
      no shutdown
!
management api netconf
 transport ssh default
!
management api restconf
 transport https default
  ssl profile default
  port 6040
!
management security
 ssl profile default
  certificate default key default
!
management ssh
   vrf management
      no shutdown
!
no user vagrant shell
!
end
=============================================

* Save the configuration with 'wr mem'
* Poweroff the VM with 'bash sudo poweroff'