CML 2.9 Release Notes

Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) is a network simulation platform. CML 2.9 is the latest feature release of CML. This release introduces Docker container support, external lab repositories, node disk image cloning, and fine-grained group permissions for lab sharing. Starting with this release, CML provides access to an IOL node type and image that supports serial interfaces and a variety of container images. The supplemental reference platform ISO image now includes images for Catalyst 9800-CL Cloud Wireless Controller, Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), and Splunk Enterprise. Other new features include custom font for the Console Panes, display of snooped IP addresses in the Sidebar, new sample labs, and the ability to specify the default console in the node definition.

New and Changed Information

This table shows any published changes to this CML 2.9 release notes document.

Installing or Migrating to CML 2.9

Upgrading to CML 2.9

If you are still running CML 2.7.1 or older, you cannot upgrade it directly to CML 2.9. Your CML instance must be running CML 2.7.2 or CML 2.8.x before you can upgrade it to CML 2.9. If you have not upgraded to CML 2.7.2 yet, see CML 2.7 Release Notes for more details about the process to upgrade to CML 2.7.2.

See the In-Place Upgrade page for detailed upgrade instructions.

• Online upgrades require access to Docker repositories hosted at https://download.docker.com. Your network environment must allow connections to this host over the Internet, otherwise upgrade will fail.
• We recommend reviewing the Known Issues and Caveats before upgrading to a new CML release. The latest release may include bugs that impact specific features or CML installation types. Depending on how you deploy and use CML, you may want to skip a release and wait until a specific bug is fixed in a future maintenance release.
• Do not forget to disable maintenance mode once the upgrade is complete.

In-place upgrades from CML version 2.2.3 or earlier are not supported. In that case, a migration is required. The migration process from CML 2.2.3 is detailed in the CML 2.6 Release Notes.

Upgrading a CML Cluster to CML 2.9

If you have deployed a CML Cluster, you may upgrade it to CML 2.9 provided that your CML cluster is already running CML 2.7.2 or later.

When upgrading from CML 2.4.0, which introduced cluster support, you must manually run the CML upgrade first on the controller and then separately on each compute host.

If you are upgrading from CML 2.5.0+, you only need to run the CML upgrade on the controller. The CML controller's upgrade automatically initiates a CML upgrade on the cluster's compute hosts.

Installing CML 2.9

The CML Installation Guide provides detailed steps for installing your new CML 2.9 instance.

• In CML 2.9, all the reference platform virtual machine (VM) images must be copied to the local disk of the CML instance. Be sure to provision enough disk space for your new CML instance to accommodate the reference platforms.
• Be sure to check the System Requirements for updated system requirements.
• Important: After the reference platforms are copied to disk during the Initial Set-Up, wait a couple of minutes for the CML services to finish restarting before clicking OK to continue. If you click OK too soon, the initial set-up can fail. (See the Known Issues below.)

Summary of Changes

This section details new and changed features in the new release. Bug fixes are listed in the subsequent section.

Support for Container Images

With the CML 2.9.0 release, we have added support for Docker containers in CML.

Before version 2.9, CML supported running the following node types:

• KVM virtual machines — full-fledged x86 virtual machines (VMs) that bring their own kernel and virtualized devices
• IOL — using libvirt LXC containers, these node types provided a way to start up IOL and IOL-L2 devices in CML. The use of LXC containers was limited to the IOL and IOL-L2 node types.
• built-in supporting node types - External Connector and Unmanaged Switch

Starting with CML 2.9.0, when you create or import a new node definition, the Domain Driver can be KVM virtual machine, IOL, or Docker container. You can create a node definition to use your own Docker container within a CML lab. We have also added several container node types to the reference platform ISOs for CML 2.9:

Sample Labs Improvements

We have included more sample labs with CML 2.9. See Tools > Sample Labs in the CML UI. Even better, CML 2.9 makes it easier for CML administrators to update the sample labs in between CML releases. You can also supplement or replace the default list of sample labs that are included with CML by default.

Prior to CML 2.9, a fixed list of sample labs were included with the CML controller. You weren't able to replace them with your own custom list of sample labs. Starting in 2.9.0, the sample labs included with the CML controller are tied to a lab repository. CML administrators can add or customize lab repositories and link them to Git repositories. The sample lab content is synced from the git repository and cached on the CML controller host. Users of the CML system can then browse this catalog of sample labs just as they do today in Tools > Sample Labs. The CML 2.9 release is pre-configured with the cml-community repository, and a snapshot of the sample labs from that repository are already bundled in the release.

Custom Font for Console Pane

The Console pane for accessing the nodes' terminals in the CML Workbench now has a configurable font. You can select the font in the Global Console Settings dialog.

Address Display in Interfaces Pane

When a node is L2 adjacent to an external-connector that has an IP address snooper running, such as the NAT external connector, CML will display the IP addresses learned by the IP address snooper. You can see the IP address in the Interfaces page of the Sidebar when you select the node in the Workbench.

The Interfaces page of the Sidebar will also show the MAC addresses in use by the node's interfaces if CML has randomly assigned a MAC address to the interfaces. In previous releases, CML only showed a MAC address in the Workbench if you had set the MAC address to the interface explicitly.

Node Disk Image Cloning

To make it easier to create custom VM images from an existing image on your CML server, we have added the node disk cloning feature in CML 2.9.0. While you have always been able to add third-party and custom VM images to your CML instance, the CML administrator had to use a separate system or access CLI tools on the CML server itself to create a custom image. With Node Disk Image Cloning, a CML administrator can convert the disk image of a specific node in an existing, instantiated lab and convert it to a new image that's available to use with an existing or new node type. This feature provides a simpler way to create, for example, a custom Ubuntu Linux VM image with specific packages already installed and configured. All users on your CML instance could then use that custom VM image for their Ubuntu nodes, and their nodes will boot up with those packages already installed and configured.

Lab Sharing and Advanced Group Permissions

Since we introduced Lab Sharing for multi-user CML deployments in CML 2.2, the permission level when you shared a lab with a group was a simple selection between "read-only" or "read-write". With the 2.9 release, we're introducing more fine-grained permissions: View, Exec, Edit, and Admin.

Starting in CML 2.9, you may also share a lab directly with an individual user, not just a group. This improvement enables a user to share their lab with another user on the same CML instance without the assistance of a CML administrator to create a lab sharing group.

IOL Nodes with Serial Interfaces

A year ago, we were happy to provide IOL-XE node definitions and images for you to use within your CML labs. The IOL-XE node types and images were well-received, but many of you asked us about serial interfaces with IOL. You asked, and we listened!

CML 2.9.0 provides a new IOL node type and image that supports serial interfaces. If you are upgrading an existing CML instance to CML 2.9, you will also need to add the new iol-xe-serial-4eth node definition and the corresponding image from the reference platform ISO image to your CML instance. You will then be able to add one of these new nodes to your lab. These IOL serial nodes have a static 4-port Ethernet "module" installed, but the rest of the interfaces on the IOL node are of type "serial". These serial interfaces support protocols like FrameRelay and HDLC / PPP. See the IOL (Serial) page for more details.

Attention: Remember that Cisco VM and container images that are provided for download with CML are only licensed for use within CML labs.

Catalyst 9800-CL and ISE Images

Starting with CML 2.9.0, the updated supplemental reference platform ISO includes two new virtual machine (VM) images. The first is the Catalyst 9800-CL Cloud Wireless Controller, an IOS-XE-based virtual wireless controller. The second is the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) image.

Note: CML-Free provides a more limited set of reference platform VM images and does not include access to the supplemental reference platform ISO. The supplemental reference platform ISO and associated images are available to all CML customers who have an active license for the Personal, Personal Plus, Enterprise, or Education offering.

API Changes

CML 2.9 includes several changes to the REST-based web service APIs. For details about a specific API, log in to the CML UI and click Tools > API Documentation to view the CML API documentation page.

The most notable API changes are related to the revamped group permissions. In previous CML releases, you could share a lab with named groups of users. In CML 2.9, you can still share a lab with a group, but you can also share a lab directly with an individual user on your CML instance. In both cases, you can use the new fine-grained lab/group permissions. (See the Lab Sharing and Advanced Group Permissions section above.) The existing data structure for the groups property and API endpoints could not accommodate this change in a backwards-compatible way. We decided to add new endpoints and deprecate the groups property for now, replacing it with a new associations property that capture the details of the expanded lab sharing enabled by this release.

CML 2.9 also removes some redundant lab endpoints that handled simple data values when there are already more general lab API endpoints that accomplish the same purpose. For example, instead of a specific endpoint, PUT /labs/{lab_id}/title, to update the lab title, use the more general PATCH /labs/{lab_id} and specify the title field and its new value in the request body.

APIs Removed in CML 2.9

This table summarizes the deprecated API endpoints that have been removed in CML 2.9.

APIs Deprecated in CML 2.9

This table summarizes the API endpoints that have been deprecated in CML 2.9.

APIs to be Removed in CML 2.10

This table summarizes the API endpoints that were deprecated in earlier releases and that will be removed in CML 2.10.

New APIs in CML 2.9

This table summarizes the API endpoints that are new in CML 2.9.

APIs Changed in CML 2.9

This table summarizes the APIs that have been changed in CML 2.9.

Other Changes

Bug Fixes

Known Issues and Caveats for CML 2.9

sudo rm -r /usr/lib/systemd/system/ssh.socket.d 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload 
sudo systemctl restart ssh.socket

Err:5 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu noble InRelease 
Could not handshake: Error in the pull function. [IP: 3.163.44.46 443]