CAT 8000V

Overview

The CAT 8000V is Cisco's Catalyst 8000V Edge Software, a virtual-form-factor software router. It is the same VM image that Cisco licenses for use as a production virtual router in public and private cloud environments. The Catalyst 8000V is the successor to the CSR 1000v, which is nearing end-of-life. In CML, the Catalyst 8000V image runs in demo mode without any additional licensing. Use the Catalyst 8000V image when you want to simulate a platform that runs Cisco IOS-XE.

For more details about Catalyst 8000V, refer to the following resources:

Cisco Catalyst 8000V Edge Software Product Page
Cisco Catalyst 8000V Edge Software Release Notes
Documentation for the corresponding version of Cisco IOS XE, such as Cisco IOS XE 17.6.1, for details on configuring the router

Limitations

The Catalyst 8000V is performance limited when forwarding traffic. Achieved throughputs are ~ 11.1 Mbits/sec when passing traffic through one Catalyst 8000V device and ~10.8 Mbits/sec when chained over two Catalyst 8000V devices. Baseline throughput was 648 Mbits/sec.

The serial, non-EFI image for Catalyst 8000V should be used. There are 8GB and 16GB versions available, and CML uses the 8GB image in its default Image Definition.

Features Tested with CML

Each CML release is tested with the bundled version of Catalyst 8000V. The tests validate the following features:

Test Name	Result
CDP	Pass
ping	Pass
OSPF single-area	Pass
NAT - static	Pass
HSRP	Pass
DHCP	Pass
Routed subinterface	Pass
Restconf	Pass
Netconf	Pass

The lab used for the tests is Catalyst 8000v Feature Tests, which is one of the sample labs included with CML on the Tools > Sample Labs page.

Catalyst 8000v Feature Test Topology

CDP

peer device is detected on the interface and listed in the CDP table.
Neighbor types: Catalyst 8000V, IOSvL2

cat8000v-3#show cdp neighbors
Capability Codes: R - Router, T - Trans Bridge, B - Source Route Bridge
                  S - Switch, H - Host, I - IGMP, r - Repeater, P - Phone,
                  D - Remote, C - CVTA, M - Two-port Mac Relay

Device ID        Local Intrfce     Holdtme    Capability  Platform  Port ID
cat8000v-1       Gig 2             155             R S I  C8000V    Gig 3
cat8000v-2       Gig 1             174             R S I  C8000V    Gig 1
iosvl2-0         Gig 3             157             R S I            Gig 0/2

Ping test

Sending ICMP Echo packets to the neighbor IP
Direct reachability and reachability via routing

cat8000v-3#ping 192.168.255.6
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.255.6, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/1/2 ms

DHCP

DHCP pool configured on a router

Sep  7 11:46:16 ubuntu systemd-networkd[545]: ens2: DHCPv4 address 192.168.253.16/24 via 192.168.253.1

Ubuntu VM connected to the router successfully obtains IP address

cat8000v-3#show ip dhcp binding
Bindings from all pools not associated with VRF:
IP address      Client-ID/              Lease expiration        Type       State      Interface
                Hardware address/
                User name
192.168.253.16  ff32.39f9.b500.0200.    Sep 09 2021 08:33 AM    Automatic  Active     GigabitEthernet3
                00ab.118e.f1c3.e9af.
                4407.d8

OSPF Single-Area

loopback interfaces configured
point-to-point networks configured on links between routers
all interfaces in area 0
OSPF establishes connectivity
Can ping loopback interfaces on different routers

cat8000v-3#ping 172.31.255.2
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.31.255.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/1/2 ms

HSRP

Two CAT 8000V devices, interconnected by a IOSvL2 switch
VM connected to the switch
HSRP configured on both CAT 8000V devices

cat8000v-3#show standby brief
                     P indicates configured to preempt.
                     |
Interface   Grp  Pri P State   Active          Standby         Virtual IP
Gi3         1    95  P Standby 192.168.253.3   local           192.168.253.1

VM can successfully ping the HSRP IP address
Verification: Failover test

cisco@ubuntu:~$ ping 192.168.253.1
PING 192.168.253.1 (192.168.253.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.253.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=9.86 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.253.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=3.09 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.253.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=3.09 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.253.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3.02 ms

NAT: Static

Alpine Linux VM connected to the router, static IP address configured on VM and on router interface
static NAT configured on a router
Loopback interface configured on router to advertise the subnet with the translated address in OSPF.

cat8000v-3#show ip nat translations
Pro  Inside global         Inside local          Outside local         Outside global
---  172.31.254.2          192.168.254.2         ---                   ---
Total number of translations: 1

ping of the untranslated VM IP from the router
ping of the translated VM IP from outside

cisco@ubuntu:~$ ping 172.31.254.2
PING 172.31.254.2 (172.31.254.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 172.31.254.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=63 time=3.94 ms
64 bytes from 172.31.254.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=63 time=4.16 ms
64 bytes from 172.31.254.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=63 time=4.09 ms

Routed subinterface

created routed subinterface on two Catalyst 8000V routers
Interconnected them over the IOSvL2 switch; configured interfaces as trunks; configured VLANs on IOSvL2
Configured an IP on the SVI for that VLAN on IOSvL2

Restconf

Restconf enabled on cat8000v-3
Successfully fetching configuration data by sending GET request from VM

cisco@ubuntu:~$ curl -k --user 'cisco:cisco' --request GET 'https://192.168.253.2:443/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface=GigabitEthernet1' --header 'Accept: application/yang-data+json'
{
  "ietf-interfaces:interface": {
    "name": "GigabitEthernet1",
    "type": "iana-if-type:ethernetCsmacd",
    "enabled": true,
    "ietf-ip:ipv4": {
      "address": [
        {
          "ip": "192.168.255.1",
          "netmask": "255.255.255.252"
        }
      ]
    },
    "ietf-ip:ipv6": {
    }
  }
}

Netconf

Netconf enabled on cat8000v-3
Ubuntu VM successfully starts netconf session and device responds with the capabilities

cisco@ubuntu:~$ ssh -p 830 -s cisco@192.168.253.2 netconf
cisco@192.168.253.2's password:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<hello xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
<capabilities>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.1</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:writable-running:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:rollback-on-error:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:validate:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:validate:1.1</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:xpath:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:notification:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:interleave:1.0</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:with-defaults:1.0?basic-mode=explicit&amp;also-supported=report-all-tagged,report-all</capability>
<capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:yang-library:1.0?revision=2016-06-21&amp;module-set-id=62fce412ef7ae70741dbc9b96d64dda6</capability>
<capability>http://tail-f.com/ns/netconf/actions/1.0</capability>

<-- output omitted -->