Cisco ACI – Run Commands on the Switches from your APIC

Posted on November 7, 2016 by richardstrnad Leave a comment

With the introduction of the NX-OS like CLI Cisco also added the option to run commands on the switches directly from your apic. It’s now even easier to get some infos from one or multiple switches in your fabric.

Show switchname on a single fabric switch

apic1# fabric leaf01 show switchname
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Node 101 (leaf01)
----------------------------------------------------------------
leaf01

You can also run commands on multiple devices

apic1# fabric leaf01, leaf02 show switchname
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Node 101 (leaf01)
----------------------------------------------------------------
leaf01
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Node 102 (leaf02)
----------------------------------------------------------------
leaf02

The list of possible commands is pretty long, just to give an idea

 aaa               aaa
 bfd               BFD commands
 bgp               Display BGP status and configuration
 cdp               Show Cisco Discovery Protocol information
 clock             Display current Date
 coop              Show information about coop
 copp              Control Plane Policing (CoPP) information
 copyright         Copyright information
 cores             Show all core dumps for the current vdc
 dhcp              Show DHCP
 diagnostic        Diagnostic commands
 dpp               Data Plane Policing (DPP) information
 eigrp             Display EIGRP status and configuration
 endpoint          End point
 environment       Environment Information
 fc2               Show fc2 information
 fcoe              Show FCOE paramaters
 fex               Show FEX information
 forwarding        Display mfdm information
 hardware          Show hardware information
 hostname          Hostname
 hsrp              HSRP information
 interface         Show interface status and information
 inventory         system inventory information
 ip                Display IP information
 ipmgr             Show information about ipmgr
 ipv6              Show IPv6 information
 isis              Display IS-IS status and configuration
 istack            Show istack information
 lacp              LACP protocol
 lldp              Show information about lldp
 locator-led       Blink locator led on device
 logging           logging information
 mac               Mac addr information
 mcp               Show information about mcp
 mfdm              Show MFDM information
 module            Module
 monitor           Show SPAN information
 npv               Show Npv information
 ntp               Show NTP information
 oam               Show information about oam
 ospfv3            Display OSPFv3 status and configuration
 port-channel      Show port-channel information
 porttrack         Port Tracking
 processes         Show processes
 radius-server     Radius-server
 redundancy        Show system redundancy status
 resource          Show resource configuration for VDC
 route-map         Route-map information
 routing           Display routing information
 san-port-channel  Show san-port-channel information
 service           Display service information
 snmp              Display SNMP information
 sprom             show SPROM contents
 stats_manager     Show information about stats_manager
 switchname        Show the system's hostname
 system            System-related commands
 tacacs-server     Tacacs-server
 tunnel            Show information about Tunnel
 users             Show users logged onto the system and their sessions
 vdc               Show information about vdc_mgr
 version           Show running firmware version and basic system information
 vlan              VLAN status
 vpc               Virtual Port Channel configuration
 vrf               Display VRF information
 vsan              Show vsan information
 zoning-filter     Display Zoning-Filter information
 zoning-rule       Display Zoning-Rule information

Acitoolkit – Get all Nodes

Posted on October 27, 2016November 3, 2016 by richardstrnad Leave a comment

Example script to print all your fabric nodes.

from acitoolkit.acitoolkit import Session
from acitoolkit.aciphysobject import Node

url = 'https://apic'
user = 'user'
pw = 'pw'

session = Session(url, user, pw)
session.login()

nodes = Node.get(session)
for node in nodes:
    print('=' * 50)
    print('Pod: {}'.format(node.pod))
    print('Node: {}'.format(node.node))
    print('Mode: {}'.format(node.mode))
    print('Model: {}'.format(node.model))
    print('Vendor: {}'.format(node.vendor))
    print('Serial: {}'.format(node.serial))

Cisco ACI – The new and nice GUI way to Upgrade your ACI Fabric

Posted on August 9, 2015November 3, 2016 by richardstrnad 1 Comment

Some time ago i posted how to do a upgrade of your ACI Fabric through CLI.
Cisco made this process now way easier, with some cool new features.

In this short guide i used the current ACI release 1.1(1o), that you can grab directly from cisco here.

Upload the Firmware to the APIC

You can now upload directly through your browser, no longer the need for a SCP/FTP Server!

Just select the file from you computer, that’s it!

Upload both files, the Controller and Switch Firmware:
Controller – aci-apic-dk9.1.1.1o.iso
Switches – aci-n9000-dk9.11.1.1o.bin

Upgrade of the APIC Controllers

You can now start with the upgrade of your APIC Controllers.

Select the new version here and ‘Apply now’ the Update will start immediately.

Upgrade of the Nexus 9000 Spine and Leaf switches

After the upgrade of the controllers is finished, you can start with the switches.
In production you got properly more than one Firmware Group or you split them in another way (Maintenance Windows A/B), but i kept it simple in my lab and made just two (Leaf/Spine).

You can just trigger the upgrade one and now with the ‘Upgrade Now’ option!

Same apply for my other group.

That’s it! You just upgraded your ACI Fabric with success and this time easier and faster!

Cisco ACI – Upgrade your ACI Fabric (1.0(2j) to 1.0(3f))

Posted on February 26, 2015November 3, 2016 by richardstrnad 8 Comments

I did a upgrade of our ACI Lab Fabric last week and documented all the steps. The upgrade is really straightforward, but hopefully this guide still helps you 🙂

First you have to catch the desired Software, get them directly from cisco. You need APIC Release image for 1.0(3f) release (aci-apic-dk9.1.0.3f.iso) and the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series ACI Mode Switch Software Release 11.0(3f) (aci-n9000-dk9.11.0.3f.bin). Get them here:
Cisco ACI Version 1.0(3f)

I always check the MD5 sum, just to be sure that everything went right with my download.

$ md5 aci-apic-dk9.1.0.3f.iso
MD5 (aci-apic-dk9.1.0.3f.iso) = 6e747378ec4225ead0f27cb23aa54f02

Cisco ACI 1.0(3f) MD5 Hash

The MD5 hash looks right. Check the same for the Nexus 9000 Image!

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Cisco ACI – Connect to the leaf/spine switches

Posted on February 18, 2015November 6, 2016 by richardstrnad 3 Comments

With the introduction of the NX-OS Cli, cisco changed the way how you connect to leaf/spine switches.
Find my updated post here.

There are several scenarios where you want to connect to your leaf and spine switches of the ACI fabric.
In this example we want to checkout the BGP Status.

First you connect to your APIC Controller through SSH:

$ ssh admin@10.32.5.100
Application Policy Infrastructure Controller
admin@10.32.5.100's password:
admin@aci-lab-apic01:~>

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