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Inception Server (SMI Deployer) Deployment Guide

 7 minutes read

 O N T H I S PA G E

INTRODUCTION

S U M M A R Y S T E P S F O R I N S TA L L AT I O N O F I N C E P T I O N S E R V E R

INCEPTION VM DIMENSIONING

P R E R E Q U I S I T E ( O P T I O N A L , I F D C A L R E A DY E X I S T S )

S T E P 1 : I N C E P T I O N V M D E P LOY M E N T U S I N G B A S E I S O I M A G E P R O V I D E D B Y S M I

S T E P 2 : I N S TA L L AT I O N O F S M I C L U S T E R D E P LOY E R U S I N G TA R B A L L

V E R I F I C AT I O N S

Introduction

Inception Server is used to deploy the SMI cluster. It packages Ansible Playbooks which makes the deployment
of SMI with all addons as a one click operation. The server also has a confD, which o ers a user and machine
friendly interfaces for SMI deployment. The main interfaces o ered are Netconf, Restconf and CLI. In this tutorial
we will deploy Inception Server in VMWare ESXi environment. The VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) >=6.5 has
been fully tested and meets performance benchmarks.

We need following softwares for deployment of Inception Server:

Customized Base Ubuntu ISO Image File (provided by SMI) e.g. smi-install-disk.iso
Cluster Deployer Tarball e.g. cluster-deployer-2024.02.1.14.tar

Summary Steps for Installation of Inception Server

Inception Server is deployed in two steps in VMWare ESXi environment:

 Installation of Inception VM: In this step Customized Ubuntu VM is deployed using SMI provided Base ISO le
Installation of SMI Cluster Deployer using the tarball in Inception Ubuntu VM

Inception VM Dimensioning

The following are the minimum hardware requirements for deploying Inception VM using the SMI Base Image ISO
on VMware:

CPU: 8 vCPU
Memory: 24 G
Storage: 200 GB
NIC interfaces: The number of NIC interfaces required is based on the K8s network and VMware host network
reachability. Refer to cnBNG Concepts Part-1 document for more details on networking.

The hardware requirements for Inception VM canbe reduced for non-production deployment:

CPU: 4 vCPU
Memory: 16 G

Storage: 100 GB
NIC interfaces: The number of NIC interfaces required is based on the K8s network and VMware host network
reachability. Refer to cnBNG Concepts Part-1 document for more details on networking

Prerequisite (optional, if DC already exists)

1. Make sure vCenter is installed (ver 6.7 is tested)

2. In the vCenter, right click and select New Data Center

Provide name of the data-center and click ok

3. Right click on the newly created datacenter and select New Cluster.
Provide name of the cluster and click ok (all other options remain default)
 4. Now add a host to the cluster. By selecting add host from right click menu on newly created cluster. Follow on
screen instructions to add the host.

Step 1: Inception VM deployment using Base ISO Image provided by SMI

Download the SMI base ISO image. This is the image which will be used for Ubuntu VM deployment. This is
customized Ubuntu for SMI. Now, follow below steps to deploy Ubuntu VM using the downloaded ISO le:

Download the SMI Base ISO le and copy the le to the VM Datastore
In the vCenter, select Create a New Virtual Machine
Specify name of the VM and select the Datacenter
Next select the host for the VM
Select the datastore
Select compatibility (ESXi 6.7 or later)
Select guest OS: Guest Family- Linux, Guest OS Version- Ubuntu Linux (64-bit)
Customize Hardware:
vCPU: 8, Memory: 16GB, New Hard disk: 100Gb (this will depend on the dimensioning selected)
Under Network: select management network (“VM Network” in most cases
Click New CD/DVD Drive and do the following:
Select Datastore ISO le option to boot from the SMI Base .iso le. Browse to the location of the .iso le on
the datastore set in Step 1.
In the Device Status eld, select Connect at power on checkbox.

After the VM boots up: login to the VM (user: cloud-user, password: Cisco_123). You will be prompted to
change the password immediately. New password must be 14 characters.
Now setup Networking by editing “/etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml” le. Here is a sample le con g:

network:
ethernets:
eno1:
dhcp4: true
enp0s3:
dhcp4: true
ens160:
dhcp4: false
addresses:
- {inception-VM-IP}/{your-subnet}
gateway4: {your-gateway-IP}
nameservers:
search: [{your-domain}]
addresses: [{your-dns-server}]
ens3:
dhcp4: true
eth0:
dhcp4: true
version: 2

Note1: Sometimes interface is not shown as ens160, in that case it is a good idea to search for the interface using ifcon g -a command.
Generally lower ens number is the rst NIC attached to the VM, and higher number is the last.

Note2: We can also use cloud-init for os changes.

 If you are not using cloud-init and editing netplan con guration manually, then it must be applied using “sudo
netplan apply” after succefully editing the le.

Inception Ubuntu VM OS customisation

SSH login to Inception VM using login password setup earlier

Now change the hostname of the VM to: , using:

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname {your-inception-vm-name}

E.g.
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname inception

Logout of the VM and login again to see hostname changes are re ected
Make the hostname persistent even after reload by adding “preserve_hostname: true” to /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg
le if not added already or change the setting to true from false if already present.
Replace default hostname for VM with the one you set (in above step) inside /etc/hosts le. This will avoid
hostname resolv error.

Step 2: Installation of SMI Cluster Deployer using Tarball

Make a temporary folder and copy the o ine SMI cluster deployer products tarball

cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm$ ls -altr
total 2984112
drwxrwxrwt 6 root root 4096 Apr 12 20:57 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 cloud-user cloud-user 3055718400 Apr 12 21:08 cluster-deployer-2020-04-12.tar
drwxrwxr-x 2 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:50 .

Note: Sometimes there could a disk space problem if les are kept in /var/tmp folder. In that case temporary folder, to keep install les, can be
created in user directory itself i.e. /home/cloud-user/

Untar the tarball using tar xvf

cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm$ tar xvf cluster-deployer-2020-04-12.tar

data/
data/docker/
data/docker/registry/
data/docker/registry/v2/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/ea8e1c3b8f60bb8087e7cd84123b530e981c523628bc092c50b9b71137a0e63c/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/ea8e1c3b8f60bb8087e7cd84123b530e981c523628bc092c50b9b71137a0e63c/data
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/eacc344652f0577c92c95ee8d2fbd2fd3033b117f2a01769763e16a08d469b18/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/eacc344652f0577c92c95ee8d2fbd2fd3033b117f2a01769763e16a08d469b18/data
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/eaf6fc4fd0a4a287d07e8d430ff1dc6725ce9cc555d15a43ba7d3f393b122ed3/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/ea/eaf6fc4fd0a4a287d07e8d430ff1dc6725ce9cc555d15a43ba7d3f393b122ed3/data
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/7a/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/7a/7a9829eb5aa4e01093d7906e357247a12d0466cea90055d2d71a83b3f81313b5/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/7a/7a9829eb5aa4e01093d7906e357247a12d0466cea90055d2d71a83b3f81313b5/data
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/7a/7a4174f2f7811341b93a64f86f3228c63a924f2c0332531f7d02b09dedf423e6/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/7a/7a4174f2f7811341b93a64f86f3228c63a924f2c0332531f7d02b09dedf423e6/data
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/4f/
data/docker/registry/v2/blobs/sha256/4f/4faf3e475ac4f0df9de360e9845e1c3de73e04cb0
. . .
. . .

After tar xvf nishes: cluster Deployer les will be copied to “data” folder in the same temporary folder where
tarball was copied

cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm/data$ ls -altr
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 3 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:04 docker
drwxrwxr-x 2 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 charts
drwxrwxr-x 3 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 deployer-inception
drwxr-xr-x 5 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 .
drwxrwxr-x 3 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 22:00 ..

Deploy utility which deploys the SMI Cluster Deployer can be located inside data/deployer-inception folder. We
will be using this utility to deploy SMI Cluster Deployer

cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm/data$ cd deployer-inception/
cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm/data/deployer-inception$ ls -altr
total 36
-rwxrwxr-x 1 cloud-user cloud-user 102 Apr 12 21:07 stop
-rwxrwxr-x 1 cloud-user cloud-user 5636 Apr 12 21:07 start
-rwxrwxr-x 1 cloud-user cloud-user 6297 Apr 12 21:07 deploy
drwxrwxr-x 3 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 compose-offline
-rw-rw-r-- 1 cloud-user cloud-user 60 Apr 12 21:07 README.md
drwxr-xr-x 5 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 ..
drwxrwxr-x 3 cloud-user cloud-user 4096 Apr 12 21:07 .

Run the deploy command as shown below. External-ip is the IP address from K8s Network con gured on
Inception VM. It will be used to host your ISO and your o ine le tars to be downloaded to the remote hosts

cloud-user@inception:/var/tmp/offline-cm/data/deployer-inception$ ./deploy --external-ip 172.22.18.55 --first-b

2020-04-13 19:49:16.261 INFO deploy: Directory Path /var/tmp/offline-cm/data/deployer-inception
2020-04-13 19:49:16.261 INFO deploy: Directory is /var/tmp/offline-cm/data/deployer-inception/../
2020-04-13 19:49:16.261 INFO deploy: Default info: external_ip: 172.22.18.55 and tar_name: cluster-deployer-202
2020-04-13 19:49:16.261 INFO deploy: Prep charts and docker images for registries .....
2020-04-13 19:49:19.726 INFO deploy: Set up the smi-cluster-deployer release: cluster-deployer-2020-04-12
2020-04-13 19:49:19.739 INFO deploy: Prep override yaml .....
2020-04-13 19:49:19.748 INFO deploy: Copy the start and stop scripts .....
2020-04-13 19:49:19.769 INFO deploy: Triggering deployer inception .........
. . .
. . .
Connection Information
----------------------
SSH (cli): ssh admin@localhost -p 2022
 SSH (browser): https://cli.172.22.18.55.nip.io
Files: https://files-offline.172.22.18.55.nip.io
UI: https://deployer-ui.172.22.18.55.nip.io
API: https://restconf.172.22.18.55.nip.io

Note: Rerun of deploy utility doesnot work/ x issues with previous deployment. It’s always a good idea to clean up containers manually and
before attemting to rerun ./deploy

Veri cations

We can login to the SMI Cluster Deployer CLI, using “ssh admin@localhost -p 2022” on Inception VM


cloud-user@inception:~$ ssh admin@localhost -p 2022
admin@localhost's password:

Welcome to the Cisco SMI Cluster Deployer on inception

Copyright © 2016-2020, Cisco Systems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

admin connected from 172.18.0.1 using ssh on 79bd273aeec7

[inception] SMI Cluster Deployer#
[inception] SMI Cluster Deployer#

We can also connect to netconf interface of the SMI Deployer through ssh at default port 830


cloud-user@inception:~$ ssh admin@localhost -p 830 -s netconf
admin@localhost's password:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<hello xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
<capabilities>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.1</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:confirmed-commit:1.1</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:confirmed-commit:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:candidate:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:rollback-on-error:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:url:1.0?scheme=ftp,sftp,file</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:validate:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:validate:1.1</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:xpath:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:notification:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:interleave:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:partial-lock:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:with-defaults:1.0?basic-mode=explicit&amp;also-supported=repo
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:yang-library:1.0?revision=2019-01-04&amp;module-set-id=4677c2
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:yang-library:1.1?revision=2019-01-04&amp;content-id=4677c22a6
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/netconf/actions/1.0</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/aaa/1.1?module=tailf-aaa&amp;revision=2018-09-12</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/common/query?module=tailf-common-query&amp;revision=2017-12-15</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/confd-progress?module=tailf-confd-progress&amp;revision=2020-06-29</capabil
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/kicker?module=tailf-kicker&amp;revision=2020-11-26</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/netconf/query?module=tailf-netconf-query&amp;revision=2017-01-06</capabilit
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/webui?module=tailf-webui&amp;revision=2013-03-07</capability>
 <capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/acm?module=tailf-acm&amp;revision=2013-03-07</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/common?module=tailf-common&amp;revision=2020-11-26</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/common-monitoring?module=tailf-common-monitoring&amp;revision=2019-04-09<
<capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/confd-monitoring?module=tailf-confd-monitoring&amp;revision=2019-10-30</c
<capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/netconf-monitoring?module=tailf-netconf-monitoring&amp;revision=2019-03-2
<capability>http://tail-f.com/yang/xsd-types?module=tailf-xsd-types&amp;revision=2017-11-20</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0?module=ietf-netconf&amp;revision=2011-06-01&amp;features
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:partial-lock:1.0?module=ietf-netconf-partial-lock&amp;revision=20
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:iana-crypt-hash?module=iana-crypt-hash&amp;revision=2014-08-06&amp;f
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-inet-types?module=ietf-inet-types&amp;revision=2013-07-15</capa
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-netconf-acm?module=ietf-netconf-acm&amp;revision=2018-02-14</ca
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-netconf-monitoring?module=ietf-netconf-monitoring&amp;revision=
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-netconf-notifications?module=ietf-netconf-notifications&amp;rev
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-netconf-with-defaults?module=ietf-netconf-with-defaults&amp;rev
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-restconf-monitoring?module=ietf-restconf-monitoring&amp;revisio
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-x509-cert-to-name?module=ietf-x509-cert-to-name&amp;revision=20
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-metadata?module=ietf-yang-metadata&amp;revision=2016-08-05
<capability>urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-yang-types?module=ietf-yang-types&amp;revision=2013-07-15</capa
</capabilities>
<session-id>278399</session-id></hello>]]>]]>

Note: You can exit from netconf prompt using ctrl+C

 Tags: bng cloud native bng cnbng cups dbng cups

 Updated: November 06, 2021

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Martin B − ⚑
2 years ago

Hi Gurpreet,

Thanks for the awesome guide!

rerunning ./deploy --external-ip 172.22.18.55 -- rst-boot-password "your-password" in

case something was wrong initially is not the best idea. in my case some certi cate was
wrong and it was not replaced by the deploy script when I executed it the second time. I
xed this manually in the end.

0 0 Reply ⥅

Alex Y − ⚑
2 years ago

Hi Gurpreet,
First of all, great guide!
For manual/openstack deployment when AIO VM is manually instantiated had to add a
few more steps to make everything work correctly.

Before running the "deploy" command "docker" group has to be created and the user
should be added to this group.

tar xvf "tarball.tgz" extracts les with the default permissions, which with minimalistic
cloud-init appeared to be 700. I have ended up with multiple synchronisation errors. Had
to add the -p ag to maintain le permissions. The command would look like this
tar xvfp <cluster-deployer-blah-blah.tar>

0 0 Reply ⥅

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