Building a Cisco IOSv Layer-2 Vagrant Libvirt Box

Cisco IOSvL2 is supported by the netlab libvirt package command. To build an IOSvL2 box:

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

  • Copy the IOSvL2 disk image (.vmdk or .qcow file) into that directory. The image name should start with vios_l2 or you might not have an IOSv Layer-2 image.

  • Execute netlab libvirt package iosvl2 virtual-disk-file-name and follow the instructions

Warning

  • The Cisco IOSv layer-2 image uses slightly different configuration commands and system defaults than the IOSv image and must be built as a separate Vagrant box.

  • If you’re using a ‌netlab release older than 1.8.2, or if you’re using a Linux distribution other than Ubuntu, please read the box-building caveats first.

Initial Device Configuration

During the box-building process (inspired by this recipe) you’ll have to copy-paste initial device configuration. netlab libvirt config iosvl2 command displays the build recipe:

Creating initial configuration for Cisco IOSv L2 image
======================================================

* Answer 'no' to the 'Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog' prompt
* Press ENTER to start a CLI session
* Go into enable mode, enter configuration mode
* Copy-paste the following configuration (see also NOTE below the configuration)

======================================================
hostname iosvl2
no ip domain lookup
ip domain name lab.local
!
no service config
!
crypto key generate rsa modulus 2048
ip ssh version 2
!
aaa new-model
!
aaa authentication login default local
aaa authorization exec default local
!
username vagrant privilege 15 secret vagrant
!
ip ssh pubkey-chain
 username vagrant
  key-hash ssh-rsa DD3BB82E850406E9ABFFA80AC0046ED6
!
vrf definition MGMT
 description Management interface
 !
 address-family ipv4
 exit-address-family
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 no switchport
 vrf forwarding MGMT
 description vagrant-management
 ip address dhcp
 no shutdown
!
line vty 0 4
 transport input ssh
!
event manager applet ENABLE-MGMT
 event syslog pattern "SYS-5-RESTART"
 action 0 cli command "enable"
 action 1 cli command "conf t"
 action 2 cli command "interface GigabitEthernet0/0"
 action 3 cli command "no shutdown"
 action 4 cli command "exit"
 action 5 cli command "crypto key generate rsa modulus 2048"
!
end
=============================================

NOTE:
* On a system with slow CPU, you might have to change the "event syslog ..."
  trigger to "event timer countdown time 5"

After copying the configuration:

* Exit the configuration mode
* Save the configuration with 'wr mem'
* Disconnect from console (ctrl-] usually works).