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Seeding data

The topology in the previous section will be used in the workshop as an example of what a network could look like. Obviously it is possible to create any “physical” topology you like and build the matching “logical” topology using the Workflow Orchestrator.

Putting initial data in place

The first thing we will do is populate NetBox with some initial data such as Manufacturers and Device types, as well as networks allocated for Loopback and Core-links addressing.

To do this, navigate to the Tasks page, click New task and then select NetBox Bootstrap. An empty form will show where you can click Start task.

Once the workflow has successfully run, we can log in to NetBox (admin/admin) and check the situation: within the Devices menu you can see that the Device Types and Manufacturers now contain some definitions.

In the IPAM >> Prefixes menu we are going to reserve the first address of the loopback networks since certain network devices don’t like “network addresses” to be used as loopback addresses.

  • From the IPv4 prefix 10.0.127.0/24 we allocate the address 10.0.127.0/32 with status Reserved and description RESERVED
  • From the IPv6 prefix fc00:0:0:127::/64 we allocate the address fc00:0:0:127::/128 with status Reserved and description RESERVED

Deploying the nodes

Now we should be able to deploy our routers using the create node workflow in the Orchestrator. To do this, click the New subscription button and select node Nokia. This is going to create a new subscription of the “node Nokia” product. We will have to fill in an initial form.

  • Customer: SURF
  • Node type: Select the first option
  • Node role: Provider
  • Site: Amsterdam
  • Node status: active
  • Node name: clab-orch-demo-ams-pe

Click Next, review the summary page, and click Next again to start the workflow.

The workflow will pause halfway during the step “Confirm provisioning proxy results”. Assuming that the result was successful, click Resume workflow.

Once the workflow has successfully run, we can log in to the node and take a look at the config:

ssh clab-orch-demo-ams-pe -l admin
# Enter password: NokiaSrl1!

Note

If you deployed ContainerLab through the docker image, run the ssh commands from the same container.

For example, observe the IP addresses assigned to the loopback interface, e.g. show interface lo1.0. This corresponds to what you see in NetBox in the Devices >> Devices menu.

Repeat this process for the other 2 ContainerLab nodes:

  • clab-orch-demo-lon-pe
  • clab-orch-demo-par-p

Once we have all 3 nodes configured, we should be able to create a core link between them. To do this, click New subscription and select core link 10G.

Given that this is the containerlab topology:

links:
- endpoints: ["ams-pe:e1-1", "par-p:e1-2"]
- endpoints: ["par-p:e1-1", "lon-pe:e1-2"]

Can you determine which choices to select in the form?

Answer

For the first corelink, select node A clab-orch-demo-ams-pe and node B clab-orch-demo-par-p. Then choose port 1/1 on node A and port 1/2 on node B.

Click Next to start the workflow.

The workflow will pause halfway during the step “Confirm provisioning proxy results”. Assuming that the result was successful, click Resume workflow.

You can log in to the router and check the status of ISIS using:

show network-instance default protocols isis adjacency
show network-instance default protocols isis interface

Feel free to play around with the created devices. Can you manage to send a ping through the created link?