README v1.6.13 2024-12-04
Table of contents
1. General
This document describes the cisco-fmc NED.
Additional README files bundled with this NED package
Common NED Features
Verified target systems
1.1 Extract the NED package
It is assumed the NED package ncs-<NSO version>-cisco-fmc-<NED version>.signed.bin
has already
been downloaded from software.cisco.com.
In this instruction the following example settings will be used:
NSO version: 6.0
NED version: 1.0.1
NED package downloaded to: /tmp/ned-package-store
Extract the NED package and verify its signature:
In case the signature can not be verified (for instance if no internet connection), do as below instead:
The result of the extraction shall be a tar.gz file with the same name as the .bin file:
1.2 Install the NED package
There are two alternative ways to install this NED package. Which one to use depends on how NSO itself is setup.
In the instructions below the following example settings will be used:
NSO version: 6.0
NED version: 1.0.1
NED download directory: /tmp/ned-package-store
NSO run time directory: ~/nso-lab-rundir
A prerequisite is to set the environment variable NSO_RUNDIR to point at the NSO run time directory:
1.2.1 Local install
This section describes how to install a NED package on a locally installed NSO (see "NSO Local Install" in the NSO Installation guide).
It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.
Untar the tar.gz file. This creates a new sub-directory named:
cisco-fmc-<NED major digit>.<NED minor digit>
:Install the NED into NSO, using the ncs-setup tool:
Open a NSO CLI session and load the new NED package like below:
Alternatively the tar.gz file can be installed directly into NSO. Then skip steps 1 and 2 and do like below instead:
1.2.2 System install
This section describes how to install a NED package on a system installed NSO (see "NSO System Install" in the NSO Installation Guide).
It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.
Do a NSO backup before installing the new NED package:
Start a NSO CLI session and fetch the NED package:
Install the NED package (add the argument replace-existing if a previous version has been loaded):
Load the NED package
1.3 Configure the NED in NSO
This section describes the steps for configuring a device instance using the newly installed NED package.
Start a NSO CLI session:
Enter configuration mode:
Configure a new authentication group (my-group) to be used for this device:
Configure a new device instance (example: dev-1):
Optionally set the ssl to accept-any
Define a custom managed device registration timeout value:
The NED setting parameter async-task-timeout value is used at device registration as a timeout.
The default is set to 600 seconds, if managed devices registration takes more due to the complexity of the environment, this value could be increased here.
Finally commit the configuration
Verify configuration, using a sync-from.
If the sync-from was not successful, check the NED configuration again.
2. Optional debug and trace setup
It is often desirable to see details from when and how the NED interacts with the device(Example: troubleshooting)
This can be achieved by configuring NSO to generate a trace file for the NED. A trace file contains information about all interactions with the device. Messages sent and received as well as debug printouts, depending on the log level configured.
NSO creates one separate trace file for each device instance with tracing enabled. Stored in the following location:
$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ned-cisco-fmc-gen-1.0-<device name>.trace
Do as follows to enable tracing in one specific device instance in NSO:
Start a NSO CLI session:
Enter configuration mode:
Enable trace raw:
Alternatively, tracing can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances:
Configure the log level for printouts to the trace file:
Alternatively the log level can be set globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.
The log level 'info' is used by default and the 'debug' level is the most verbose.
IMPORTANT: Tracing shall be used with caution. This feature does increase the number of IPC messages sent between the NED and NSO. In some cases this can affect the performance in NSO. Hence, tracing should normally be disabled in production systems.
An alternative method for generating printouts from the NED is to enable the Java logging mechanism. This makes the NED print log messages to common NSO Java log file.
$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ncs-java-vm.log
Do as follows to enable Java logging in the NED
Start a NSO CLI session:
Enter configuration mode:
Enable Java logging with level all from the NED package:
Configure the NED to log to the Java logger
Alternatively Java logging can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.
IMPORTANT: Java logging does not use any IPC messages sent to NSO. Consequently, NSO performance is not affected. However, all log printouts from all log enabled devices are saved in one single file. This means that the usability is limited. Typically single device use cases etc.
3. Dependencies
This NED has the following host environment dependencies:
Java 1.8 (NSO version < 6.2)
Java 17 (NSO version >= 6.2)
Gnu Sed
Dependencies for NED recompile:
Apache Ant
Bash
Gnu Sort
Gnu awk
Grep
Python3 (with packages: re, sys, getopt, subprocess, argparse, os, glob)
4. Sample device configuration
4.1 Configure access policies
Access rules lists suport insert : before, after, first, last in:
/ncs:devices/device{*}/config/cisco-fmc:policy/accesspolicies{*}/categories{*}/accessrules{*}
/ncs:devices/device{*}/config/cisco-fmc:policy/accesspolicies{*}/accessrules{*}
Please see bellow example:
The following starting config is on the device:
Define new access rules:
From top level move the newly defined rules where are needed:
Commit the config
End config on device:
5. Built in live-status actions
This sections describes the RPCs (remote procedure cals) provided by the NED:
5.1 Get deployable devices
REST call: GET /deployment/deployabledevices?expanded=true
5.2 Request for a deployment of a policy on one or more devices.
REST call: POST /deployment/deploymentrequests
6. Built in live-status show
NONE
7. Limitations
7.1 /object/ports limitation
In ticket FMC-43 the folowing api was added:
/object/protocolportobjects
/object/icmpv4objects
/object/icmpv6objects
To keep bacward compatibility the list /object/ports that contains all types of ports(and as per device API only suports HTTP GET) is also keept. To avoid a diff at compare config the service level has to also manage this list.
When adding new ports:
When deleting ports:
7.2 /policy/ftdnatpolicies limitation
In ticket FMC-42 the folowing api was added:
/policy/ftdnatpolicies */before-manualnatrules *
/policy/ftdnatpolicies */after-manualnatrules *
Plese note that before commiting before-manualnatrules and after-manualnatrules the /policy/ftdnatpolicies has to be created first.
Also because the /policy/ftdnatpolicies/manualnatrules device API does not suport a name or index, when adding /policy/ftdnatpolicies */before-manualnatrules * and /policy/ftdnatpolicies */after-manualnatrules * use incrementing indexes in NSO.
7.3 /policy/ftds2svpns limitation
In ticket FMC-45 the folowing api was added:
/policy/ftds2svpns */endpoints *
/policy/ftds2svpns */ikeSettings IkeSetting
/policy/ftds2svpns */ipsecSettings IPSecSetting
Plese note that before commiting endpoints, ikeSettings and ipsecSettings the /policy/ftds2svpns has to be created first on device.
7.4 /object/extendedaccesslists limitation
In ticket FMC-85 the following api was added:
/object/extendedaccesslists
Please note that modification of a list entry is not supported by the NED. What is supported is just creation of a new list entry and deletion of an entry.
This limitation resulted from the way the REST API json for this endpoint is structured:
In the above example entry_1,entry_2,entry_3, do not have any UUIDs or names. Besides that all can be identical. In NED yang a list is modeled mandatory with a key. The fact that the entries can be identical makes generating keys to identify them prone to error.
At sync-from the NED will automatically generate the sequence list key on the order on which entry entry_x is present in the entries list.
When creating new extendedaccesslists use incrementing numbers for the sequence list key:
8. How to report NED issues and feature requests
Issues like bugs and errors shall always be reported to the Cisco NSO NED team through the Cisco Support channel:
The following information is required for the Cisco NSO NED team to be able to investigate an issue:
Do as follows to gather the necessary information needed for your device, here named 'dev-1':
Enable full debug logging in the NED
Configure the NSO to generate a raw trace file from the NED
If the NED already had trace enabled, clear it in order to submit only relevant information
Do as follows for NSO 6.4 or newer:
Do as follows for older NSO versions:
Run a compare-config to populate the trace with initial device config
Reproduce the found issue using ncs_cli or your NSO service. Write down each necessary step in a reproduction report.
Gather the reproduction report and a copy of the raw trace file containing data recorded when the issue happened.
Contact the Cisco support and request to open a case. Provide the gathered files together with access details for a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED when investigating the issue.
Requests for new features and extensions of the NED are handled by the Cisco NSO NED team when applicable. Such requests shall also go through the Cisco support channel.
The following information is required for feature requests and extensions:
A detailed use case description, with details like:
Data of interest
The kind of operations to be used on the data. Like: 'read', 'create', 'update', 'delete' and the order of the operation
Device APIs involved in the operations (For example: REST URLs and payloads)
Device documentation describing the operations involved
Run sync-from # devices device dev-1 sync-from (if relevant)
Attach the raw trace to the ticket (if relevant)
Access to a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED team for testing and verification of the new feature. This usually means that both read and write permissions are required. Pseudo access via tools like Webex, Zoom etc is not acceptable. However, it is ok with access through VPNs, jump servers etc.
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