What's New

This document supports the Cumulus Linux 5.16 release, and lists new features and enhancements.

What’s New in Cumulus Linux 5.16

Cumulus Linux 5.16 contains new features and improvements, and provides bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

  • FIPS
  • New FRR high severity ERROR log messages
  • You can now use Open telemetry export and gNMI streaming at the same time.
  • DHCP relay vrf-aware
  • 802.1x on router ports with dynamic VRF assignment
  • Security features
  • Routing convergence enhancement for EVPN
  • Support RFC5837
  • Dynamic IPv6 multi tenancy EVPN VXLAN encap in IPv6 header
  • BFD offload
  • SPC-1 Alligator PSID and CPLD update
  • Clear COPP counters
  • ACL to use header fields for ip-inip encap packets
  • add multiple interfaces for clearing buffer usage data “nv action clear interface swp1s0 qos buffer
  • activate authorization without rbash
  • 802.1x Related Metric / X-paths support
  • Parity between OpenTelemetry and gNMI (Phase 2)
  • Same user created locally and on Tacacs server, need NVUE support
  • LAG - Random Hash support for Adaptive Routing Eligible Traffic???
  • BGP conditional disaggregation for multi-planed GPUs
  • BGP Prefix Independent Convergence for Anycast Scenarios
  • Manage cl-support cyclic collection
  • Health Event and SDK Driver Monitoring for Multi ASIC
  • Add Bulk option for route
  • Scale up number of BGP paths supported on Cumulus Linux to enable 16K GPU cluster with 128-way ECMP
  • NVUE

Release Considerations

Review the following considerations before you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.16.

New, Changed, and Deprecated NVUE Commands

To align with a long-term vision of a common interface between Cumulus Linux, Nvidia OS (NVOS), and Host-Based Networking, many NVUE commands in Cumulus Linux 5.16 have changed. Before you upgrade to 5.16, review the following list and be sure to make any necessary changes to your automation.

Upgrade Requirements

You can use optimized image upgrade to upgrade the switch to Cumulus Linux 5.16 from Cumulus Linux 5.12 and later.

You can use package upgrade to upgrade the switch to Cumulus Linux 5.16 from the following releases. Package upgrade supports ISSU (warm boot) for these upgrade paths.

  • Cumulus Linux 5.15
  • Cumulus Linux 5.14
  • Cumulus Linux 5.13

To upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.16 from a release that does not support package upgrade or optimized image upgrade, you can install an image with ONIE.

Maximum Number of NVUE Revisions

Cumulus Linux includes an option to set the maximum number of revisions after which NVUE deletes older revisions automatically. The default setting is 100. If you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.16 from 5.12, the first time you run nv set or nv unset commands, NVUE deletes older revisions if the number of revisions on the switch is greater than 100.

Linux Configuration Files Overwritten

If you use Linux commands to configure the switch, read the following information before you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.16.

NVUE includes a default startup.yaml file. In addition, NVUE enables configuration auto save by default. As a result, NVUE overwrites any manual changes to Linux configuration files on the switch when the switch reboots after upgrade, or you change the cumulus user account password with the Linux passwd command.

These issues occur only if you use Linux commands to configure the switch. If you use NVUE commands to configure the switch, these issues do not occur.

To prevent Cumulus Linux from overwriting manual changes to the Linux configuration files when the switch reboots or when changing the cumulus user account password with the passwd command, follow the steps below before you upgrade to 5.16 or after a new binary image installation:

  1. Disable NVUE auto save:
cumulus@switch:~$ nv set system config auto-save state disabled
cumulus@switch:~$ nv config apply
cumulus@switch:~$ nv config save
  1. Delete the /etc/nvue.d/startup.yaml file:

    cumulus@switch:~$ sudo rm -rf /etc/nvue.d/startup.yaml
    
  2. Add the PASSWORD_NVUE_SYNC=no line to the /etc/default/nvued file:

    cumulus@switch:~$ sudo nano /etc/default/nvued
    PASSWORD_NVUE_SYNC=no
    

DHCP Lease with the host-name Option

When a Cumulus Linux switch with NVUE enabled receives a DHCP lease containing the host-name option, it ignores the received hostname and does not apply it. For details, see this knowledge base article.

NVUE Commands After Upgrade

After you upgrade to Cumulus Linux, running NVUE configuration commands might override configuration for features that are now configurable with NVUE and removes configuration you added manually to files or with automation tools like Ansible, Chef, or Puppet. To keep your configuration, you can do one of the following:

Cumulus VX

NVIDIA no longer releases Cumulus VX as a standalone image. To simulate a Cumulus Linux switch, use NVIDIA AIR.