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Cumulus Linux

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If you are using the current version of Cumulus Linux, the content on this page may not be up to date. The current version of the documentation is available here. If you are redirected to the main page of the user guide, then this page may have been renamed; please search for it there.

What's New

This document supports the Cumulus Linux 5.9 release, and lists new platforms, features, and enhancements.

Cumulus Linux 5.9 is an Extended-Support Release (ESR). For more information, refer to this Knowledge base article.

What’s New in Cumulus Linux 5.9.2

Cumulus Linux 5.9.2 provides bug fixes and includes a new forwarding profile called ecmp-nh-heavy for Spectrum 1 switches.

What’s New in Cumulus Linux 5.9.1

Cumulus Linux 5.9.1 replaces Cumulus Linux 5.9.0, which is no longer available.

Cumulus Linux 5.9.1 provides all the same new features and enhancements as Cumulus Linux 5.9.0, and in addition, includes stability enhancements.

  • The NVIDIA SN5600 switch supports Cumulus Linux 5.9 and later; do not install Cumulus Linux 5.8 and earlier on this switch.
  • Cumulus Linux 5.9 provides a set of default firewall rules that allows only specific IP addresses and ports, and drops packets that are disallowed. Be sure to review the firewall rules before upgrading.

New Features and Enhancements

  • Cumulus Linux upgrade to Debian 12 (bookworm)
  • All switches that ship with a 32 GB or larger SSD now include a secondary partition for future use
  • Latency histogram for ASIC monitoring
  • LLDP application priority TLV transmission
  • Firewall rules
  • CLI Session pagination and timeout options
  • Password security commands
  • SSH strict mode
  • Warmboot support for VXLAN EVPN is now generally available
  • 4x breakout on QSFP-DD/OSFP 8 lane ports now allocates two lanes per port by default instead of one
  • New Linux ifreload -a --diff option processes and applies only incremental changes instead of reloading entire configuration
  • Cumulus Linux no longer supports NCLU; all net show commands have been removed
  • NVUE
    • ISSU upgrade mode and package upgrade commands
    • New nv show --output raw option shows native vtysh (FRR) output
    • Auto save is enabled by default; when you run nv config apply, NVUE saves the configuration to the startup configuration file
    • NVUE ships with a default /etc/nvue.d/startup.yaml file

      • The default startup file sets the default hostname as cumulus; Cumulus Linux does not accept the DHCP host-name option. If you do not manage your switch with NVUE and want to change this behavior with Linux configuration files, see this knowledge base article.
      • The default NVUE startup.yaml file includes the cumulus user account, which is the default account for the system. Modifying the NVUE configuration to not include the cumulus user account, replacing the configuration or applying a startup configuration, deletes the cumulus account. To merge in configuration changes or to restore a backup startup.yaml file, use the nv config patch command.

    • ▼ Redesigned nv show interface commands
    • ▼ Redesigned nv show platform commands
    • ▼ New NVUE Commands

What’s New in Cumulus Linux 5.9.0

Cumulus Linux 5.9.0 is no longer available. Cumulus Linux 5.9.1 replaces Cumulus Linux 5.9.0.

Release Considerations

Review these release considerations before you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.9.

Linux Configuration Files Overwritten

If you use Linux commands to configure the switch, read the following information before you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.9.1 or later.

Cumulus Linux 5.9.1 and later includes a default NVUE startup.yaml file. In addition, NVUE configuration auto save is enabled by default. As a result of these changes, Cumulus Linux overwrites any manual changes to Linux configuration files on the switch when:

  • The switch reboots after upgrade
  • You change the cumulus 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 and no action is needed.

To prevent Cumulus Linux from overwriting manual changes to the Linux configuration files when the switch reboots after upgrade:

  1. Before you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.9.2 or later, disable NVUE auto save:

    cumulus@switch:~$ nv set system config auto-save enable off
cumulus@switch:~$ nv config apply
cumulus@switch:~$ nv config save

  2. Delete the /etc/nvue.d/startup.yaml file:

    cumulus@switch:~$ sudo rm -rf /etc/nvue.d/startup.yaml

To prevent Cumulus Linux from overriding changes to the Linux configuration files when you change the cumulus account password with the Linux passwd command, comment out the password optional pam_exec.so seteuid /usr/lib/cumulus/reconcile_password_with_nvue.sh line from the following files before you upgrade to 5.9.1 or later:

  • /etc/pam.d/chpasswd
  • /etc/pam.d/login
  • /etc/pam.d/passwd

You can also add these commands to your automation scripts after you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.9.1.

NVUE Commands After Upgrade

Cumulus Linux 5.9 includes the NVUE object model. After you upgrade to Cumulus Linux 5.9, 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 Linux 3.7, 4.3, and 4.4 continue to support NCLU. For more information, contact your NVIDIA Spectrum platform sales representative.

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