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:
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 functionality of the Catalyst 8000V nodes in your labs depends on the network driver in use. The default Catalyst 8000V node definition uses the vmxnet3
network driver. Subinterfaces do not work properly if you are using a Catalyst 8000V node definition that uses the virtio
network driver. On the other hand, note that it may be necessary to use the virtio
network driver when working with ICMP Echo requests with the DF (Don't Fragment) bit set. While the vmxnet3
network driver supports MTU values up to 2034 with the DF-bit set, the virtio
network driver can support MTU values up to 9216.
You can check the node definition for your CML instance in Tools > Node and Image Definitions. Click CAT8000V on the Node Definitions page and scroll down to the Network Driver property in the Linux Native Simulation group. A CML administrator can edit the node definition to change this property. The setting applies to all nodes that use the Catalyst 8000V node definition. If you change the node definition's Network Driver property, note that the change will only affect nodes started after the change. That is, if you have previously run a lab with Catalyst 8000V nodes, after you make this change, you must wipe the Catalyst 8000V nodes and restart them before the node's VM will use the updated network driver.
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.

CDP
- peer device is detected on the interface and listed in the CDP table.
- Neighbor types: Catalyst 8000V, IOSvL2
Ping test
- Sending ICMP Echo packets to the neighbor IP
- Direct reachability and reachability via routing
DHCP
- DHCP pool configured on a router
- Ubuntu VM connected to the router successfully obtains IP address
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
HSRP
- Two CAT 8000V devices, interconnected by a IOSvL2 switch
- VM connected to the switch
- HSRP configured on both CAT 8000V devices
- VM can successfully ping the HSRP IP address
- Verification: Failover test
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.
- ping of the untranslated VM IP from the router
- ping of the translated VM IP from outside
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
Netconf
- Netconf enabled on cat8000v-3
- Ubuntu VM successfully starts netconf session and device responds with the capabilities