CML 2.10 Release Notes

Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) is a network simulation platform. CML 2.10 is the latest feature release of CML. This release introduces Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server integration for your AI tools, packet capture streaming, lab autostart, and node staging improvements. The reference platform image set now includes XRd, Meraki vMX, Snort3, and Wireless images. Other notable updates include custom icon enhancements, unmanaged switch improvements, and experimental support for wireless networking and RADIUS user authentication to CML.

New and Changed Information

This table shows published changes to this CML 2.10 release notes document.

Installing or Migrating to CML 2.10

Upgrading to CML 2.10

If you are still running CML 2.7.1 or older, you cannot upgrade it directly to CML 2.10. Your CML instance must be running CML 2.7.2 or later before you can upgrade it to CML 2.10. 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.

• Review Known Issues and Caveats before upgrading.
• 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.
• Disable maintenance mode after 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 2.10

If you have deployed a CML Cluster, you may upgrade it to CML 2.10 provided that your CML cluster is already running CML 2.7.2 or later.

Installing CML 2.10

The CML Installation Guide provides the required installation workflow.

• Verify the latest System Requirements.
• In CML 2.10, 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.
• During Initial Set-Up, wait for services to stabilize before continuing.

Summary of Changes

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

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server for Better AI Integration with CML

MCP enables you to interact with CML using English, or one’s local language, commands using your preferred AI tool. MCP is a protocol that helps AI understand how to interact with APIs. Once you configure your AI tool with the CML MCP Server, you will be able to create topologies with configured nodes, run commands on the nodes, and evaluate the network without complex scripting or calling the CML APIs yourself. Overall, this feature will allow users to Speak their lab into Existence with AI-Driven Cisco Modeling Labs and MCP.

Custom Icons

We have gotten numerous requests for custom node icons ever since the first CML release. In CML 2.10, this feature is now available for users to be able to set and assign custom icons within lab topologies. When you override the default node icons, you also have the option to include custom icons when you export or import the lab.

Packet Capture Streaming

Prior to CML 2.10, you could only see active packet capture traffic in the CML UI. The CML UI can show active packet captures in the Link Packet Capture pane, which provides the ability to expand each packet to see the decoded messages. In CML 2.10, you are now able to configure the Breakout UI and stream the captured data through it into Wireshark instances that run on your local computer. This feature allows more convenient packet analysis as the data arrives.

Lab Autostart

If you would like a specific lab to start automatically as soon as the CML server boots up, check out the Lab AutoStart feature in CML 2.10. If you’re a CML administrator, you can now flag a lab for "autostart." You can even flag multiple labs and set a stage value to dictate the order that CML should start the flagged labs. Lab AutoStart is especially useful in an education environment, where you may be using CML to simulate the same sample network for each student. CML-Enterprise administrators who always want CML to run a simulation of their company’s production network or individual learners who are using a particular lab for their studies may also find Lab AutoStart useful.

Node Staging

The Node Staging feature in CML 2.10 allows you to set priorities on nodes in your lab to control the order that CML starts the nodes when you start the lab. If you are using resource-intensive node types, such as IOS XRv 9000 or NX-OS 9000, in your CML labs, node staging may help you ensure that all of the nodes in your lab reliably boot up when you start the lab. When you use this feature, CML starts nodes with a higher priority first, and it waits for all nodes with a higher priority to finish booting up before it starts any nodes with a lower priority.

While Node Staging priorities are not generally needed to start labs in CML, specific labs may start up more reliably when you use this feature. In particular, if you have a lab where some nodes fail to boot up to the prompt when you start the lab, but all of the nodes seem to run well and without error once you stop and restart the nodes that initially failed to boot up, you should consider using this feature. By tuning the order in which CML starts the lab’s nodes and the number of resource-intensive nodes that CML starts up simultaneously, you may be able to ensure that all nodes boot up reliably when you start the lab.

Unmanaged Switch Improvements

CML 2.10 adds an additional option for your unmanaged switches that allows you to toggle it to behave as a hub for SPAN support. This feature will allow traffic from a device to go to another device for troubleshooting or learning purposes.

RADIUS User Authentication (beta)

CML 2.10 Enterprise and Education deployments now support RADIUS as a method for user authentication. RADIUS authentication is currently a beta feature, and it is disabled by default while functionality is still being expanded. Early customer feedback is requested, and you can submit your feedback on this feature by sending e-mail to cml-info@cisco.com with subject "CML RADIUS feedback".

Enable the RADIUS Authentication Option

Before you can use RADIUS as an authentication method, you must first enable this feature for your CML instance. Edit /etc/default/virl2 and set CML_FEATURES to include radius.

# Optional feature toggles are configured via CML_FEATURES as a 
# comma-separated feature list (for example: "foo,bar,baz"). 
CML_FEATURES="radius" 

After this change, restart controller services with systemctl restart virl2.target. RADIUS now appears as a selectable option in the Authentication Method dropdown.

Wireless Support

Wireless support is available starting in CML 2.10. We will be introducing this feature in phases across multiple CML releases. CML's wireless support will provide network engineers, students, and instructors with a realistic, comprehensive, and flexible virtual environment to design, test, troubleshoot, and learn about wireless network technologies.

CML 2.10 adds beta support for simulated Wi‑Fi in the lab so you can run wireless clients and access points alongside your wired nodes--no physical radios required. Wireless-capable nodes use a reference image based on Ubuntu 24.04 with wireless support included. This support includes a virtual wireless radio and either wpa_supplicant and hostapd, which facilitates the wireless client and wireless AP's, respectively.

Updated Docker Images on GitHub

In this release, Docker images will be released via GitHub with updates for container images. This approach is beneficial for images that are fast-moving, like Chrome and Firefox, and will include all CML Docker-based node and image definitions that are built from open source, It will also include Docker images that are publicly available on hub.docker.com, like ThousandEyes and Splunk.

New Reference Platform Images

Starting with CML 2.10, the updated reference platform content includes additional images to support expanded lab scenarios and newer product workflows. The image set now includes IOS XRd, Meraki vMX, Snort3, and wireless images aligned with the 2.10 feature set. The 2.10 documentation cycle also includes FAQ and reference-platform page refreshes to keep image/version guidance consistent, including dedicated page updates for each newly added image.

API Changes

CML 2.10 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.

APIs Removed in CML 2.10

APIs Deprecated in CML 2.10

APIs to be Removed in CML 2.11

New APIs in CML 2.10

APIs Changed in CML 2.10

systemctl stop virl2.target docker.socket docker containerd
rm -rf /var/lib/{docker,containerd}
mkdir -p /etc/docker
echo '{ "storage-driver": "overlay2" }' >/etc/docker/daemon.json
systemctl start virl2.target docker.socket docker containerd