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Switch Inventory and Roles

Upon installation, lifecycle management displays an inventory of switches that are available for software installation or upgrade through NetQ. This includes all switches running Cumulus Linux 3.7.12 or later, SONiC 202012 and 202106, and NetQ Agent 4.1.0 or later in your network. You can assign network roles to switches and select switches for software installation and upgrades from this inventory listing.

View the LCM Switch Inventory

The Switches card displays the number of switches that NetQ discovered and the network OS versions that are running on those switches:

switches card displaying 12 discovered switches with Cumulus Linux version 4.1.0

To view a list of all discovered switches, select Manage on the Switches card.

Review the list:

  • Sort the list by any column; hover over column title and click to toggle between ascending and descending order
  • Filter the list: click Filter Switch List and enter parameter value of interest

If you have more than one network OS version running on your switches, you can click a version segment on the Switches card graph to open a list of switches pre-filtered by that version.

To view a list of all switches discovered by lifecycle management, run:

netq lcm show switches [version <text-cumulus-linux-version>] [json]

Use the version option to only show switches with a given network OS version, X.Y.Z.

The following example shows all switches discovered by lifecycle management:

cumulus@switch:~$ netq lcm show switches
Hostname          Role       IP Address                MAC Address        CPU      CL Version           NetQ Version             Last Changed
----------------- ---------- ------------------------- ------------------ -------- -------------------- ------------------------ -------------------------
leaf01            leaf       192.168.200.11            44:38:39:00:01:7A  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:37 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine04           spine      192.168.200.24            44:38:39:00:01:6C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:16 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf03            leaf       192.168.200.13            44:38:39:00:01:84  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:56 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf04            leaf       192.168.200.14            44:38:39:00:01:8A  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:07 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
border02                     192.168.200.64            44:38:39:00:01:7C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:56:49 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
border01                     192.168.200.63            44:38:39:00:01:74  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:56:37 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
fw2                          192.168.200.62            44:38:39:00:01:8E  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:24:58 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine01           spine      192.168.200.21            44:38:39:00:01:82  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:07 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine02           spine      192.168.200.22            44:38:39:00:01:92  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:08 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine03           spine      192.168.200.23            44:38:39:00:01:70  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:16 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
fw1                          192.168.200.61            44:38:39:00:01:8C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:24:58 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf02            leaf       192.168.200.12            44:38:39:00:01:78  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:53 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed

This list is the starting point for network OS upgrades or NetQ installations and upgrades. If the switches you want to upgrade are not present in the list, you can:

  • Verify the missing switches are reachable using ping
  • Verify the NetQ Agent is fresh and version 4.1.0 or later for switches that already have the agent installed (click Main Menu Menu, then click Agents or run netq show agents)
  • Install NetQ on the switch
  • Upgrade NetQ Agents (if needed)

Role Management

You can assign switches one of four roles: superspine, spine, leaf, and exit.

Switch roles identify switch dependencies and determine the order in which switches are upgraded. The upgrade process begins with switches assigned the superspine role, then continues with the spine switches, leaf switches, exit switches, and finally, switches with no role assigned. Upgrades for all switches with a given role must be successful before the upgrade process for switches with the closest dependent role can begin.

Role assignment is optional, but recommended. Using roles can prevent switches from becoming unreachable due to dependencies between switches or single attachments. Additionally, when you deploy MLAG pairs, assigned roles avoid upgrade conflicts.

Assign Roles to Switches

  1. Expand the Menu. Under Admin, select Manage Switches.

  2. On the Switches card, click Manage.

  3. Select one switch or multiple switches to assign to the same role.

  4. Above the table, select Assign Role.

  5. Select the role that applies to the selected switch(es):

dialog showing role options including superspine, leaf, spine, and exit
  1. Click Assign.

    Note that the Role column is updated with the role assigned to the selected switch(es). To return to the full list of switches, click All.

table displaying role column with updated switch role assignments
  1. Continue selecting switches and assigning roles until most or all switches have roles assigned.

To add a role to one or more switches, run:

netq lcm add role (superspine | spine | leaf | exit) switches <text-switch-hostnames>

For a single switch, run:

netq lcm add role leaf switches leaf01

To assign multiple switches to the same role, separate the hostnames with commas (no spaces). This example configures leaf01 through leaf04 switches with the leaf role:

netq lcm add role leaf switches leaf01,leaf02,leaf03,leaf04

View Switch Roles

  1. Expand the Menu. Under Admin, select Manage Switches.

  2. On the Switches card, click Manage. The assigned role appears in the table’s Role column.

To view all switch roles, run:

netq lcm show switches [version <text-cumulus-linux-version>] [json]

Use the version option to only show switches with a given network OS version, X.Y.Z.

This example shows the role of all switches in the Role column of the listing.

cumulus@switch:~$ netq lcm show switches
Hostname          Role       IP Address                MAC Address        CPU      CL Version           NetQ Version             Last Changed
----------------- ---------- ------------------------- ------------------ -------- -------------------- ------------------------ -------------------------
leaf01            leaf       192.168.200.11            44:38:39:00:01:7A  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:37 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine04           spine      192.168.200.24            44:38:39:00:01:6C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:16 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf03            leaf       192.168.200.13            44:38:39:00:01:84  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:56 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf04            leaf       192.168.200.14            44:38:39:00:01:8A  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:07 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
border02                     192.168.200.64            44:38:39:00:01:7C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:56:49 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
border01                     192.168.200.63            44:38:39:00:01:74  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:56:37 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
fw2                          192.168.200.62            44:38:39:00:01:8E  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:24:58 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine01           spine      192.168.200.21            44:38:39:00:01:82  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:07 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine02           spine      192.168.200.22            44:38:39:00:01:92  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:08 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
spine03           spine      192.168.200.23            44:38:39:00:01:70  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:25:16 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
fw1                          192.168.200.61            44:38:39:00:01:8C  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Tue Sep 29 21:24:58 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed
leaf02            leaf       192.168.200.12            44:38:39:00:01:78  x86_64   4.1.0                3.2.0-cl4u30~1601410518. Wed Sep 30 21:55:53 2020
                                                                                                        104fb9ed

Reassign Roles to Switches

  1. Open the LCM dashboard.

  2. On the Switches card, click Manage.

  3. Select the switches with the incorrect role from the list.

  4. Click Assign Role.

  5. Select the correct role. (Note that you can select No Role here as well to remove the role from the switches.)

  6. Click Assign.

You use the same command to assign a role as you use to change the role.

For a single switch, run:

netq lcm add role exit switches border01

To assign multiple switches to the same role, separate the hostnames with commas (no spaces). For example:

cumulus@switch:~$ netq lcm add role exit switches border01,border02

Export a List of Switches

  1. Open the LCM dashboard.

  2. On the Switches card, click Manage.

  3. Select one or more switches.

  4. Click .

  5. Choose the export file type and click Export:

dialog prompting user to export data as a CSV or in JSON format

Use the json option with the netq lcm show switches command to output a list of all switches in the LCM repository. Alternately, output only switches running a particular network OS version by including the version option.

cumulus@switch:~$ netq lcm show switches json

cumulus@switch:~$ netq lcm show switches version 3.7.11 json