Edgecore Switch¶

The Edgecore switch from Mellanox is 1Gb top-of-rack switch. It’s coming with ONIE installer. Open Network Install Environment (ONIE)is an open source initiative that defines an open “install environment” for bare metal network switches. For more information, see http://onie.opencompute.org/. Mellanox will ship the switch with Cumulus Network OS and along with a license file installed. In some case, user may get whitebox without OS and licenses. Since edgecore switch has different configuration than other switches that xCAT supports, xCAT handles edgecore switch differently.

ONIE Mode¶

If the switch arrives without an OS pre-loaded, the ONIE installer and management port is the only thing enabled on the switch. Once the switch connects to the xCAT network, the switch should get a dynamic IP address. The xCAT DHCP server will get requests from the onie-installer from the switch and attempt to find an OS binary file to execute. The following messages will be logged in /var/log/messages on the management node.

Info: Fetching http://172.1.0.1/onie-installer-arm-accton_as4610_54-r0 ...
Info: Fetching http://172.1.0.1/onie-installer-arm-accton_as4610_54 ...
Info: Fetching http://172.1.0.1/onie-installer-accton_as4610_54 ...
Info: Fetching http://172.1.0.1/onie-installer-arm ...
Info: Fetching http://172.1.0.1/onie-installer .

To remove the installed Cumulus Linux OS to boot back to ONIE mode, connect to the switch via serial-port or ssh and execute the following commands:

ssh cumulus@172.1.0.1
#clean up all the configuration
sudo onie-select -k
sudo reboot
#boot back to onie mode
sudo onie-select -i
sudo reboot

After switch reboots, it will enter ONIE mode and send DHCP request to attempt to fetch the OS binary file.

Discover Edgecore Switch¶

ONIE supports a number of methods for locating OS binary file. xCAT choose to use a DHCP server to provide specific information to the switch.

IP address of the switch
URL of the OS binary file on the Web server

With the xCAT DHCP configuration, ONIE picks up an IP address and downloads the URL specified by the user and start to install of the OS. The steps take to discover the edgecore switch and process request from ONIE installer as follows:

Pre-define switch object into xCAT db, make sure ip adress, netboot and provemethod are set, also define core switch and port number where edgecore switch connect to.

#lsdef edgecoresw1
Object name: edgecoresw1
  groups=switch
  ip=192.168.23.1
  mgt=switch
  netboot=onie
  nodetype=switch
  postbootscripts=otherpkgs
  postscripts=syslog,remoteshell,syncfiles
  provmethod=/install/custom/sw/edgecore/cumulus-linux-3.1.0-bcm-armel-1471981017.dc7e2adzfb43f6b.bin
  switch=switch-10-5-23-1
  switchport=1

#makehosts edgecoresw1

Run switchdiscover command, it will find edgecore switch and update mac address on pre-defined switch node definition.

#switchdiscover --range 192.168.5.170-190 -s nmap
#lsdef edgecoresw1
Object name: edgecoresw1
    groups=switch
    ip=192.168.23.1
    mac=8C:EA:1B:12:CA:40
    mgt=switch
    netboot=onie
    nodetype=switch
    postbootscripts=otherpkgs
    postscripts=syslog,remoteshell,syncfiles
    provmethod=/install/custom/sw/edgecore/cumulus-linux-3.1.0-bcm-armel-1471981017.dc7e2adzfb43f6b.bin
    status=Matched
    switch=switch-10-5-23-1
    switchport=1
    switchtype=cumulus
    usercomment=Edgecore switch

Run makedhcp after edgecore switch discovered, it will update dhcpd.conf and response the DHCP request from the onie-installer.
```
#makedhcp -n
#makedhcp -a edgecoresw1
```
Installation of the Cumulus Linux OS takes about 50 minutes. Monitor the /var/log/messages to check the status of the installation.

Oct 27 15:28:08 fs4 dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 8c:ea:1b:12:ca:40 via enP4p1s0f2 Oct 27 15:28:08 fs4 dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.23.1 to 8c:ea:1b:12:ca:40 via enP4p1s0f2 Oct 27 15:28:08 fs4 dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.23.1 (192.168.3.25) from 8c:ea:1b:12:ca:40 via enP4p1s0f2 Oct 27 15:28:08 fs4 dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.23.1 to 8c:ea:1b:12:ca:40 via enP4p1s0f2
Once installation finished, the pre-defined switch name and IP address will be configured on edgecore switch.

cumulus@edgecoresw1:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 8c:ea:1b:12:ca:40

inet addr:192.168.23.1 Bcast:192.168.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0 inet6 addr: fe80::8eea:1bff:fe12:ca40/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

cumulus@edgecoresw1:~$ hostname edgecoresw1

Configure Edgecore Switch¶

xCAT provides a script /opt/xcat/share/xcat/script/configcumulus to configure attributes in the Cumulus Switch. Use the --help option to see more details.

#configcumulus --help
Usage:
  configcumulus [-?│-h│--help]
  configcumulus [--switches switchnames] [--all]
  configcumulus [--switches switchnames] [--ssh]
  configcumulus [--switches switchnames] [--license filename ]
  configcumulus [--switches switchnames] [--snmp] [--user snmp_user] [--password snmp_password]
  configcumulus [--switches switchnames] [--ntp]