Quick Start Guide

This quick start guide provides an end-to-end setup process for installing and running Cumulus Linux, as well as a collection of example commands for getting started after installation is complete.

Install Cumulus Linux

To install Cumulus Linux, you use ONIE (Open Network Install Environment), an extension to the traditional U-Boot software that allows for automatic discovery of a network installer image. This facilitates the ecosystem model of procuring switches with an operating system choice, such as Cumulus Linux.

The easiest way to install Cumulus Linux with ONIE is with local HTTP discovery:

1. If your host (laptop or server) is IPv6-enabled, make sure it is running a web server. If the host is IPv4-enabled, make sure it is running DHCP in addition to a web server.

2. Download the Cumulus Linux installation file to the root directory of the web server. Rename this file onie-installer.

3. Connect your host using an Ethernet cable to the management Ethernet port of the switch.

4. Power on the switch. The switch downloads the ONIE image installer and boots. You can watch the progress of the install in your terminal. After the installation completes, the Cumulus Linux login prompt appears in the terminal window.

ONIE supports many other discovery mechanisms using USB (copy the installer to the root of the drive), DHCPv6 and DHCPv4, and image copy methods including HTTP, FTP, and TFTP. For more information on these discovery methods, refer to the ONIE documentation.

After installing Cumulus Linux, you are ready to:

• Log in to Cumulus Linux on the switch.
• Install the Cumulus Linux license.
• Configure Cumulus Linux. This quick start guide provides instructions on configuring switch ports and a loopback interface.

Getting Started

When starting Cumulus Linux for the first time, the management port makes a DHCPv4 request. To determine the IP address of the switch, you can cross reference the MAC address of the switch with your DHCP server. The MAC address is typically located on the side of the switch or on the box in which the unit ships.

Login Credentials

The default installation includes one system account, root, with full system privileges, and one user account, cumulus, with sudo privileges. The root account password is set to null by default (which prohibits login). In Cumulus Linux 3.7.11 and earlier, the cumulus account is configured with this default password:

CumulusLinux!

For optimum security, change the default password (using the passwd command) before you configure Cumulus Linux on the switch.

In Cumulus Linux 3.7.12 and later, the cumulus account is configured with this default password:

cumulus

The first time you log into Cumulus Linux 3.7.12 or later, you are required to change this default password. When prompted, enter a new password, then confirm the new password.

In this quick start guide, you use the cumulus account to configure Cumulus Linux.

All accounts except root are permitted remote SSH login; you can use sudo to grant a non-root account root-level access. Commands that change the system configuration require this elevated level of access.

For more information about sudo, read Using sudo to Delegate Privileges.

Serial Console Management

You are encouraged to perform management and configuration over the network, either in band or out of band. Using a serial console is fully supported; however, many customers prefer the convenience of network-based management.

Typically, switches ship from the manufacturer with a mating DB9 serial cable. Switches with ONIE are always set to a 115200 baud rate.

Wired Ethernet Management

Switches supported in Cumulus Linux always contain at least one dedicated Ethernet management port, which is named eth0. This interface is geared specifically for out-of-band management use. The management interface uses DHCPv4 for addressing by default. You can set a static IP address with the Network Command Line Utility (NCLU).

To set a static IP address, run the interface address and interface gateway NCLU commands. For example:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add interface eth0 ip address 192.0.2.42/24
cumulus@switch:~$ net add interface eth0 ip gateway 192.0.2.1
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

These commands produce the following snippet in the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto eth0
iface eth0
    address 192.0.2.42/24
    gateway 192.0.2.1

auto eth0
 iface eth0
    address 192.0.2.42/24
    gateway 192.0.2.1

Configure the Hostname and Timezone

To change the hostname, run net add hostname, which modifies both the /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts files with the desired hostname.

cumulus@switch:~$ net add hostname <hostname>
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

To update the timezone, use NTP interactive mode:

1. Run the following command in a terminal:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

2. Follow the on screen menu options to select the geographic area and region.

Verify the System Time

Before you install the license, verify that the date and time on the switch are correct. You must correct the date and time if they are incorrect. The wrong date and time can have impacts on the switch, such as the inability to synchronize with Puppet or return errors like this one after you restart switchd:

Warning: Unit file of switchd.service changed on disk, systemctl daemon-reload recommended.

Install the License

Cumulus Linux is licensed on a per-instance basis. Each network system is fully operational, enabling any capability to be utilized on the switch with the exception of forwarding on switch panel ports. Only eth0 and console ports are activated on an unlicensed instance of Cumulus Linux. Enabling front panel ports requires a license.

NVIDIA provides a generic license for Cumulus Linux. Download the license from the NVIDIA Enterprise support portal and apply it.

There are three ways to install the license onto the switch:

• Copy the license from a local server. Create a text file with the license and copy it to a server accessible from the switch. On the switch, use the following command to transfer the file directly on the switch, then install the license file:

cumulus@switch:~$ scp user@my_server:/home/user/my_license_file.txt .
cumulus@switch:~$ sudo cl-license -i my_license_file.txt

• Copy the file to an HTTP server (not HTTPS), then reference the URL when you run cl-license:

cumulus@switch:~$ sudo cl-license -i <URL>

• Copy and paste the license key into the cl-license command:

cumulus@switch:~$ sudo cl-license -i
<paste license key>
^+d

Check that your license is installed with the cl-license command.

cumulus@switch:~$ cl-license 
user@example.com|$ampleL1cen$et3xt

cumulus@switch:~$ sudo systemctl restart switchd.service

cumulus@switch:~$ sudo systemctl restart switchd.service

Configure Breakout Ports with Splitter Cables

If you are using 4x10G DAC or AOC cables, or want to break out 100G or 40G switch ports, configure the breakout ports. For more details, see Breakout Ports.

Test Cable Connectivity

By default, all data plane ports (every Ethernet port except the management interface, eth0) are disabled.

To test cable connectivity, administratively enable a port:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add interface swp1
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

To administratively enable all physical ports, run the following command, where swp1-52 represents a switch with switch ports numbered from swp1 to swp52:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add interface swp1-52
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

To view link status, use the net show interface all command. The following examples show the output of ports in admin down, down, and up modes:

cumulus@switch:~$ net show interface all
State  Name           Spd  MTU    Mode           LLDP                    Summary
-----  -------------  ---  -----  -------------  ----------------------  -------------------------
UP     lo             N/A  65536  Loopback                               IP: 127.0.0.1/8
       lo                                                                IP: 10.0.0.11/32
       lo                                                                IP: 10.0.0.112/32
       lo                                                                IP: ::1/128
UP     eth0           1G   1500   Mgmt           oob-mgmt-switch (swp6)  Master: mgmt(UP)
       eth0                                                              IP: 192.168.0.11/24(DHCP)
UP     swp1           1G   9000   BondMember     server01 (eth1)         Master: bond01(UP)
UP     swp2           1G   9000   BondMember     server02 (eth1)         Master: bond02(UP)
ADMDN  swp45          N/A  1500   NotConfigured
ADMDN  swp46          N/A  1500   NotConfigured
ADMDN  swp47          N/A  1500   NotConfigured
ADMDN  swp48          N/A  1500   NotConfigured
UP     swp49          1G   9000   BondMember     leaf02 (swp49)          Master: peerlink(UP)
UP     swp50          1G   9000   BondMember     leaf02 (swp50)          Master: peerlink(UP)
UP     swp51          1G   9216   NotConfigured  spine01 (swp1)
UP     swp52          1G   9216   NotConfigured  spine02 (swp1)
UP     bond01         1G   9000   802.3ad                                Master: bridge(UP)
       bond01                                                            Bond Members: swp1(UP)
UP     bond02         1G   9000   802.3ad                                Master: bridge(UP)
       bond02                                                            Bond Members: swp2(UP)
UP     bridge         N/A  1500   Bridge/L2
UP     mgmt           N/A  65536  Interface/L3                           IP: 127.0.0.1/8
UP     peerlink       2G   9000   802.3ad                                Master: bridge(UP)
       peerlink                                                          Bond Members: swp49(UP)
       peerlink                                                          Bond Members: swp50(UP)
DN     peerlink.4094  2G   9000   SubInt/L3                              IP: 169.254.1.1/30
ADMDN  vagrant        N/A  1500   NotConfigured
UP     vlan13         N/A  1500   Interface/L3                           Master: vrf1(UP)
       vlan13                                                            IP: 10.1.3.11/24
UP     vlan13-v0      N/A  1500   Interface/L3                           Master: vrf1(UP)
       vlan13-v0                                                         IP: 10.1.3.1/24
UP     vlan24         N/A  1500   Interface/L3                           Master: vrf1(UP)
       vlan24                                                            IP: 10.2.4.11/24
UP     vlan24-v0      N/A  1500   Interface/L3                           Master: vrf1(UP)
       vlan24-v0                                                         IP: 10.2.4.1/24
UP     vlan4001       N/A  1500   NotConfigured                          Master: vrf1(UP)
UP     vni13          N/A  9000   Access/L2                              Master: bridge(UP)
UP     vni24          N/A  9000   Access/L2                              Master: bridge(UP)
UP     vrf1           N/A  65536  NotConfigured
UP     vxlan4001      N/A  1500   Access/L2                              Master: bridge(UP)

Configure Switch Ports

Layer 2 Port Configuration

Cumulus Linux does not put all ports into a bridge by default. To create a bridge and configure one or more front panel ports as members of the bridge, use the following examples as a guide.

Examples

In the following configuration example, the front panel port swp1 is placed into a bridge called bridge. The NCLU commands are:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add bridge bridge ports swp1
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

The commands above create the following /etc/network/interfaces snippet:

auto bridge
iface bridge
    bridge-ports swp1
    bridge-vlan-aware yes

You can add a range of ports in one command. For example, add swp1 through swp10, swp12, and swp14 through swp20 to bridge:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add bridge bridge ports swp1-10,12,14-20
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

The commands above create the following snippet in the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto bridge
iface bridge
    bridge-ports swp1 swp2 swp3 swp4 swp5 swp6 swp7 swp8 swp9 swp10 swp12 swp14 swp15 swp16 swp17 swp18 swp19 swp20
    bridge-vlan-aware yes

To view the changes in the kernel, use the brctl command:

cumulus@switch:~$ brctl show
bridge name     bridge id              STP enabled     interfaces
bridge          8000.443839000004      yes             swp1
                                                       swp2

Layer 3 Port Configuration

You can also use NCLU to configure a front panel port or bridge interface as a layer 3 port.

In the following configuration example, the front panel port swp1 is configured as a layer 3 access port:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add interface swp1 ip address 10.1.1.1/30
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

The commands above create the following snippet in the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto swp1
iface swp1
    address 10.1.1.1/30

To add an IP address to a bridge interface, you must put it into a VLAN interface. If you want to use a VLAN other than the native one, set the bridge PVID:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add vlan 100 ip address 10.2.2.1/24
cumulus@switch:~$ net add bridge bridge pvid 100
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

The commands above create the following snippet in the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto bridge
iface bridge
    bridge-ports swp1
    bridge-pvid 100
    bridge-vlan-aware yes

auto vlan100
iface vlan100
    address 192.168.10.1/24
    vlan-id 100
    vlan-raw-device bridge

To view the changes in the kernel, use the ip addr show command:

cumulus@switch:~$ ip addr show
...
4. swp1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master bridge state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 44:38:39:00:6e:fe brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
...

14: bridge: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default
    link/ether 44:38:39:00:00:04 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet6 fe80::4638:39ff:fe00:4/64 scope link
        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
...

Configure a Loopback Interface

Cumulus Linux has a loopback preconfigured in the /etc/network/interfaces file. When the switch boots up, it has a loopback interface called lo, which is up and assigned an IP address of 127.0.0.1.

To see the status of the loopback interface (lo), use the net show interface lo command:

cumulus@switch:~$ net show interface lo
     Name    MAC                Speed      MTU  Mode
--  ------  -----------------  -------  -----  --------
UP  lo      00:00:00:00:00:00  N/A      65536  Loopback
 
Alias
-----
loopback interface
IP Details
-------------------------  --------------------
IP:                        127.0.0.1/8, ::1/128
IP Neighbor(ARP) Entries:  0

Note that the loopback is up and is assigned an IP address of 127.0.0.1.

To add an IP address to a loopback interface, configure the lo interface with NCLU:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add loopback lo ip address 10.1.1.1/32
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

You can configure multiple loopback addresses by adding additional address lines:

cumulus@switch:~$ net add loopback lo ip address 172.16.2.1/24
cumulus@switch:~$ net pending
cumulus@switch:~$ net commit

The commands above create the following snippet in the /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
    address 10.1.1.1/32
    address 172.16.2.1/24