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Local Install

Install NSO for non-production use, such as for development and training purposes.

Installation Steps

Complete the following activities in the given order to perform a Local Install of NSO.

Prepare

1. Fulfill System Requirements 2. Download Installer/NEDs 3. Unpack the Installer

Install

4. Run the Installer

Finalize

5. Set Environment Variables 6. Runtime Directory Creation 7. Generate License Token

Step 1 - Fulfill System Requirements

Start by setting up your system to install and run NSO.

To install NSO:

  1. Fulfill at least the primary requirements.

  2. If you intend to build and run NSO examples, you also need to install additional applications listed under Additional Requirements.

Where requirements list a specific or higher version, there always exists a (small) possibility that a higher version introduces breaking changes. If in doubt whether the higher version is fully backwards compatible, always use the specific version.

Primary Requirements

Primary requirements to do a Local Install include:

  • Linux for x86_64 architecture is required for production. Linux or macOS Darwin for x86_64 or macOS Darwin for arm64 is required for development purposes.

  • GNU libc 2.24 or higher.

  • Java JRE 8 (version 1.8) or higher. Used by Cisco Smart Licensing.

  • Required and included with many Linux/macOS distributions:

    • tar command. Unpack the installer.

    • gzip command. Unpack the installer.

    • ssh-keygen command. Generate SSH host key.

    • openssl command. Generate self-signed certificates for HTTPS.

    • find command. Used to find out if all required libraries are available.

    • which command. Used by the NSO package manager.

    • libpam.so.0. Pluggable Authentication Module library.

    • libexpat.so.1. EXtensible Markup Language parsing library.

    • libz.so.1 version 1.2.7.1 or higher. Data compression library.

Additional Requirements

Additional requirements to, for example, build and run NSO examples, and services, include:

  • Java JDK 8 or higher.

  • Ant 1.9.3 or higher.

  • Python 3.7 or higher.

  • Python Setuptools is required to build the Python API.

  • Often installed using the Python package installer pip:

    • Python Paramiko 2.2 or higher. To use netconf-console.

    • Python requests. Used by the RESTCONF demo scripts.

  • xsltproc command. Used by the support/ned-make-package-meta-data command to generate the package-meta-data.xml file.

  • One of the following web browsers is required for NSO GUI capabilities. The version must be supported by the vendor at the time of release.

    • Safari

    • Mozilla Firefox

    • Microsoft Edge

    • Google Chrome

  • OpenSSH client applications. For example the ssh and scp commands.

Step 2 - Download the Installer and NEDs

To download the Cisco NSO installer and example NEDs:

  1. Go to the Cisco's official Software Download site.

  2. Search for the product "Network Services Orchestrator" and select the desired version.

  3. There are two versions of the NSO installer, i.e. for macOS and Linux systems. Download the desired installer.

Identifying the Installer

You need to know your system specifications (Operating System and CPU architecture) in order to choose the appropriate NSO Installer.

NSO is delivered as an OS/CPU-specific signed self-extractable archive. The signed archive file has the pattern nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.signed.bin that after signature verification extracts the nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.installer.bin archive file, where:

  • VERSION is the NSO version to install.

  • OS is the Operating System (linux for all Linux distributions and darwin for macOS).

  • ARCH is the CPU architecture, for example, x86_64.

Step 3 - Unpack the Installer

If your downloaded file is a signed.bin file, it means that it has been digitally signed by Cisco, and upon execution, you will verify the signature and unpack the installer.bin.

If you only have installer.bin, skip to the next step.

To unpack the installer:

  1. In the terminal, list the binaries in the directory where you downloaded the installer, for example:

  2. Use the sh command to run the signed.bin to verify the certificate and extract the installer binary and other files. An example output is shown below.

  3. List the files to check if extraction was successful.

Description of Unpacked Files

The following contents are unpacked:

  • nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.installer.bin: The NSO installer.

  • nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.installer.bin.signature: Signature generated for the NSO image.

  • tailf.cer: An enclosed Cisco signed x.509 end-entity certificate containing the public key that is used to verify the signature.

  • README.signature: File with further details on the unpacked content and steps on how to run the signature verification program. To manually verify the signature, refer to the steps in this file.

  • cisco_x509_verify_release.py: Python program that can be used to verify the 3-tier x.509 certificate chain and signature.

NED packages

The NED Packages that are available with the NSO Installation are netsim-based example NEDs. These NEDs are used for NSO examples only.

Fetch the latest production-grade NEDs from Cisco Software Download using the URLs provided on your NED license certificates.

Manual pages

The installation program unpacks the NSO manual pages from the documentation archive in $NCS_DIR/man. ncsrc makes an addition to $MANPATH, allowing you to use the man command to view them. The manual pages are available in HTML and PDF formats and from the online documentation located on NCS man-pages, Volume 1 in Manual Pages.

Following is a list of a few of the installed manual pages:

  • ncs(1): Command to start and control the NSO daemon.

  • ncsc(1): NSO Yang compiler.

  • ncs_cli(1): Frontend to the NSO CLI engine.

  • ncs-netsim(1): Command to create and manipulate a simulated network.

  • ncs-setup(1): Command to create an initial NSO setup.

  • ncs.conf: NSO daemon configuration file format.

For example, to view the manual page describing the NSO configuration file you should type:

Apart from the manual pages, extensive information about command line options can be obtained by running ncs and ncsc with the --help (abbreviated -h) flag.

Installer help

Run the sh nso-VERSION.darwin.x86_64.installer.bin --help command to view additional help on running binaries. More details can be found in the ncs-installer(1) manual page included with NSO.

Notice the two options for --local-install or --system-install. An example output is shown below.

Step 4 - Run the Installer

Local Install of NSO Software is performed in a single user-specified directory, for example in your $HOME directory. It is always recommended to install NSO in a directory named as the version of the release, for example, if the version being installed is 6.1, the directory should be ~/nso-6.1.

To run the installer:

  1. Navigate to your Install Directory.

  2. Run the following command to install NSO in your Install Directory. The --local-install parameter is optional.

    An example output is shown below.

Step 5 - Set Environment Variables

The installation program creates a shell script file named ncsrc in each NSO installation, which sets the environment variables.

To set the environment variables:

  1. Source the ncsrc file to get the environment variables settings in your shell. You may want to add this sourcing command to your login sequence, such as .bashrc.

    For csh/tcsh users, there is a ncsrc.tcsh file with csh/tcsh syntax. The example below assumes that you are using bash, other versions of /bin/sh may require that you use . instead of source.

  2. Most users add source ~/nso-x.x/ncsrc (where x.x is the NSO version) to their ~/.bash_profile, but you can simply do it manually when you want it. Once it has been sourced, you have access to all the NSO executable commands, which start with ncs.

Step 6 - Create Runtime Directory

NSO needs a deployment/runtime directory where the database files, logs, etc. are stored. An empty default directory can be created using the ncs-setup command.

To create a Runtime Directory:

  1. Create a Runtime Directory for NSO by running the following command. In this case, we assume that the directory is $HOME/ncs-run.

  2. Start the NSO daemon ncs.

Runtime vs. Installation Directory

A common misunderstanding is that there exists a dependency between the Runtime Directory and the Installation Directory. This is not true. For example, say that you have two NSO installations .../ncs-2.3.1 and .../ncs-2.3.2. The following sequence runs ncs-2.3.1 but uses an example and configuration from ncs-2.3.2.

Since the Runtime Directory is self-contained, this is also the way to move between examples. And since the Runtime Directory is self-contained including the database files, you can compress a complete directory and distribute it. Unpacking that directory and starting NSO from there gives an exact copy of all instance data.

Step 7 - Generate License Registration Token

To conclude the NSO installation, a license registration token must be created using a (CSSM) account. This is because NSO uses Cisco Smart Licensing, as described in the Cisco Smart Licensing to make it easy to deploy and manage NSO license entitlements. Login credentials to the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM) account are provided by your Cisco contact and detailed instructions on how to create a registration token can be found in the Cisco Smart Licensing. General licensing information covering licensing models, how licensing works, usage compliance, etc., is covered in the Cisco Software Licensing Guide.

To generate a license registration token:

  1. When you have a token, start a Cisco CLI towards NSO and enter the token, for example:

    Upon successful registration, NSO automatically requests a license entitlement for its own instance and for the number of devices it orchestrates and their NED types. If development mode has been enabled, only development entitlement for the NSO instance itself is requested.

  2. Inspect the requested entitlements using the command show license all (or by inspecting the NSO daemon log). An example output is shown below.

Evaluation Period

If no registration token is provided, NSO enters a 90-day evaluation period and the remaining evaluation time is recorded hourly in the NSO daemon log:

Communication Send Error

During upgrades, if you experience the 'Communication Send Error' with license registration, restart the Smart Agent.

If You are Unable to Access Cisco Smart Software Manager

In a situation where the NSO instance has no direct access to the Cisco Smart Software Manager, one option is the Cisco Smart Software Manager Satellite which can be installed to manage software licenses on the premises. Install the satellite and use the command call-home destination address http <url:port> to point to the satellite.

Another option when direct access is not desired is to configure an HTTP or HTTPS proxy, e.g., smart-license smart-agent proxy url https://127.0.0.1:8080. If you plan to do this, take the note below regarding ignored CLI configurations into account:

If ncs.conf contains configuration for any of java-executable, java-options, override-url/url or proxy/url under the configure path /ncs-config/smart-license/smart-agent/, then any corresponding configuration done via the CLI is ignored.

License Registration in High Availability (HA) Mode

When configuring NSO in HA mode, the license registration token must be provided to the CLI running on the primary node. Read more about HA and node types in NSO High Availability.

Licensing Log

Licensing activities are also logged in the NSO daemon log as described in Monitoring NSO. For example, a successful token registration results in the following log entry:

Check Registration Status

To check the registration status, use the command show license status An example output is shown below.

Local Install FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Local Install.

Is there a dependency between the NSO Installation Directory and Runtime Directory?

No, there is no such dependency.

Do you need to source the ncsrc file before starting NSO?

Yes.

Can you start NSO from a directory, which is not a NSO runtime directory?

No. To start NSO, you need to point to the run directory.

Can you stop NSO from a directory, which is not a NSO runtime directory?

Yes.

Can we move NSO Installation from one folder to another?

Yes. You can move the directory where you installed NSO to a new location in your directory tree. Simply move NSO's root directory to the new desired location, and update this file: $NCS_DIR/ncsrc (and ncsrc.tcsh if you want). This is a small and handy script that sets up some environment variables for you. Update the paths to the new location. The $NCS_DIR/bin/ncs and $NCS_DIR/bin/ncsc scripts will determine the location of NSO's root directory automatically.

Next Steps

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