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README v1.7 2025-07-23

Table of contents

1. General
   1.1 Extract the NED package
   1.2 Install the NED package
       1.2.1 Local install
       1.2.2 System install
   1.3 Configure the NED in NSO
2. Optional debug and trace setup
3. Dependencies
4. Sample device configuration
5. Built in live-status actions
6. Built in live-status show
7. Limitations
8. How to report NED issues and feature requests
9. How to rebuild a NED
10. Configure the NED to use ssh multi factor authentication

1. General

This document describes the accedian-spp NED.

Additional README files bundled with this NED package

Common NED Features

Verified target systems

1.1 Extract the NED package

It is assumed the NED package ncs-<NSO version>-accedian-spp-<NED version>.signed.bin has already been downloaded from software.cisco.com.

In this instruction the following example settings will be used:

  • NSO version: 6.0

  • NED version: 1.0.1

  • NED package downloaded to: /tmp/ned-package-store

  1. Extract the NED package and verify its signature:

  2. In case the signature can not be verified (for instance if no internet connection), do as below instead:

  3. The result of the extraction shall be a tar.gz file with the same name as the .bin file:

1.2 Install the NED package

There are two alternative ways to install this NED package. Which one to use depends on how NSO itself is setup.

In the instructions below the following example settings will be used:

  • NSO version: 6.0

  • NED version: 1.0.1

  • NED download directory: /tmp/ned-package-store

  • NSO run time directory: ~/nso-lab-rundir

A prerequisite is to set the environment variable NSO_RUNDIR to point at the NSO run time directory:

1.2.1 Local install

This section describes how to install a NED package on a locally installed NSO (see "NSO Local Install" in the NSO Installation guide).

It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.

  1. Untar the tar.gz file. This creates a new sub-directory named: accedian-spp-<NED major digit>.<NED minor digit>:

  2. Install the NED into NSO, using the ncs-setup tool:

  3. Open a NSO CLI session and load the new NED package like below:

Alternatively the tar.gz file can be installed directly into NSO. Then skip steps 1 and 2 and do like below instead:

Set the environment variable NED_ROOT_DIR to point at the NSO NED package:

1.2.2 System install

This section describes how to install a NED package on a system installed NSO (see "NSO System Install" in the NSO Installation Guide).

It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.

  1. Do a NSO backup before installing the new NED package:

  2. Start a NSO CLI session and fetch the NED package:

  3. Install the NED package (add the argument replace-existing if a previous version has been loaded):

  4. Load the NED package

1.3 Configure the NED in NSO

This section describes the steps for configuring a device instance using the newly installed NED package.

  • Start a NSO CLI session:

  • Enter configuration mode:

  • Configure a new authentication group (my-group) to be used for this device:

  • Configure a new device instance (example: dev-1):

  • If configured protocol is ssh, do fetch the host keys now:

  • Finally commit the configuration

  • Verify configuration, using a sync-from.

If the sync-from was not successful, check the NED configuration again.

2. Optional debug and trace setup

It is often desirable to see details from when and how the NED interacts with the device(Example: troubleshooting)

This can be achieved by configuring NSO to generate a trace file for the NED. A trace file contains information about all interactions with the device. Messages sent and received as well as debug printouts, depending on the log level configured.

NSO creates one separate trace file for each device instance with tracing enabled. Stored in the following location:

$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ned-accedian-spp-cli-1.0-<device name>.trace

Do as follows to enable tracing in one specific device instance in NSO:

  1. Start a NSO CLI session:

  2. Enter configuration mode:

  3. Enable trace raw:

    Alternatively, tracing can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances:

  4. Configure the log level for printouts to the trace file:

    Alternatively the log level can be set globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.

The log level 'info' is used by default and the 'debug' level is the most verbose.

IMPORTANT: Tracing shall be used with caution. This feature does increase the number of IPC messages sent between the NED and NSO. In some cases this can affect the performance in NSO. Hence, tracing should normally be disabled in production systems.

An alternative method for generating printouts from the NED is to enable the Java logging mechanism. This makes the NED print log messages to common NSO Java log file.

$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ncs-java-vm.log

Do as follows to enable Java logging in the NED

  1. Start a NSO CLI session:

  2. Enter configuration mode:

  3. Enable Java logging with level all from the NED package:

  4. Configure the NED to log to the Java logger

    Alternatively Java logging can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.

IMPORTANT: Java logging does not use any IPC messages sent to NSO. Consequently, NSO performance is not affected. However, all log printouts from all log enabled devices are saved in one single file. This means that the usability is limited. Typically single device use cases etc.

SSHJ DEBUG LOGGING For issues related to the ssh connection it is often useful to enable full logging in the SSHJ ssh client. This will make SSHJ print additional log entries in $NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ncs-java-vm.log:

3. Dependencies

This NED has the following host environment dependencies:

  • Java 1.8 (NSO version < 6.2)

  • Java 17 (NSO version >= 6.2)

  • Gnu Sed

Dependencies for NED recompile:

  • Apache Ant

  • Bash

  • Gnu Sort

  • Gnu awk

  • Grep

  • Python3 (with packages: re, sys, getopt, subprocess, argparse, os, glob)

4. Sample device configuration

For instance, create a new user:

See what you are about to commit:

Commit new configuration in a transaction:

Verify that NCS is in-sync with the device:

Compare configuration between device and NCS:

Note: if no diff is shown, supported config is the same in NCS as on the device.

5. Built in live-status actions

The NED has support for subset of native accedian spp exec commands residing under device live-status. Presently, the following commands are supported:

To execute a command, run it in NCS exec mode like this: Example:

If the command triggers a prompt like the example below:

This will only work properly if the ned-setting live-status auto-prompt is set correctly, see README-ned-settings.md chapter 7.1.

NOTE: when using multiple commands user need to separate commands with " ; "

5.1 Execute set user password

As user password is not config that is shown on device, there is an action implemented that can simplify setting a password for specific user.

Example:

5.2 Get the cfm show mep status of a remote device

Example:

5.3 Get the number of policies existing on the VCX Controller or on a specific ANT/NANO device

Examples:

To fetch policies on a VCX Controller:

To fetch policies on a specific ANT/NANO device:

5.4 The 'inventory add' and 'inventory clear' commands

These commands affect the action that the user wants to do on the ANT modules. This is the action that takes place in the VCX inventory.

Examples: Checking the inventory status:

Checking the remote-devices status:

Once a device is discovered and available under the inventory section, then it can be transferred to the remote-devices list as below:

Checking if it was added under the remote-devices list:

The “inventory clear” command will only clear the inventory for 2 seconds and then the ANT will reappear. If the ANT is on the network, the "clear" command will make the ANT disappear, but then it will reappear, which is normal.

6. Built in live-status show

NONE

7. Limitations

7.1 remote-devices override-config not configurable

UPDATE: "override-config no" is for now not supported by the NED.

The leaf "override-config" is only configurable to the value "yes".

7.2 remote-devices context mode

Updated context mode. The remote-devices list is now modeled and used as a specific mode by the NED. This will significantly improve the speed when doing larger commits, since it won't enter the specific context mode multiple times.

Note: this is an backward incompatible change. Some scripts or user config files could have to be changed.

Example of how to config a remote-device and a virtual-connection:

7.3 inventory remote-devices

Since the device module "inventory" is not controlled by the device itself, the config it is holding is dependent on what is discovered in the device network, it is not valid to model for the NED at this stage.

Beware that if the user adds a remote-device by issuing a inventory add remote-devices with a live-status exec, the NED will need a sync-from to fetch the newly created remote-devices instance along with its sub-config.

7.4 port auto-config

When a remote-devices instance is configured on the device, four corresponding port instances will be generated/auto-configured.

Hence, when this config has to be similarly mirrored on the NED side to stay in sync.

7.5 port/state availability on device

As the "state" of a port instance can only be changed for some cases, the NED will now only read the state value from device if the port instance is connected through "SFP-2", example:

port show configuration C404-9787-UNI " Port name: C404-9787-UNI Connector : SFP-2 ... "

There are currently no restrictions from NED side when sending config towards the device regarding this "state" leaf.

7.6 remote-devices/virtual-connection/vca-vlan auto-config

When creating a instance of this node with config that has values for all three TP Z's, two TP A's, along with "contain-tunnel yes", the device will automatically create a new instance of vca-vlan. This instance will be named with the same name as the original one, only with a "VCA-" as prefix and "-Z" as suffix. This has to be mirrored from the NED side. But the NED will filter out these lines when committing to device, since an error could be thrown if, for example, try to add an instance which is already created.

Example:

When creating the following: virtual-connection vca-vlan TESTNAME tp-a-vlan-stack-size 2 tp-a-port UNI tp-z-vlan-stack-size 3 vlan-tp-z-1-tpid 0x8100 vlan-tp-z-1-id 100 tp-z-port NNI tp-a1z1-pcp-mapping 8P0D-8P0D vlan-tp-a-1-tpid 0x8100 vlan-tp-a-1-id 100 vlan-tp-z-2-id 200 vlan-tp-z-2-tpid 0x88a8 vlan-tp-a-2-tpid 0x88a8 vlan-tp-a-2-id 200 vlan-tp-z-3-id 400 vlan-tp-z-3-tpid 0x9100 contain-tunnel yes tp-z1a1-pcp-mapping 8P0D-8P0D

Will have to be mirrored by: virtual-connection vca-vlan VCA-TESTNAME-Z tp-a-vlan-stack-size 2 tp-a-port UNI tp-z-vlan-stack-size 3 tp-z-port NNI tp-a1z1-pcp-mapping none vlan-tp-z-3-id 400 vlan-tp-z-3-tpid 0x9100 contain-tunnel yes tp-z1a1-pcp-mapping none

What NED will send to device: virtual-connection add vca-vlan TESTNAME tp-a-vlan-stack-size 2 tp-a-port UNI tp-z-vlan-stack-size 3 vlan-tp-z-1-tpid 0x8100 vlan-tp-z-1-id 100 tp-z-port NNI tp-a1z1-pcp-mapping 8P0D-8P0D vlan-tp-a-1-tpid 0x8100 vlan-tp-a-1-id 100 vlan-tp-z-2-id 200 vlan-tp-z-2-tpid 0x88a8 vlan-tp-a-2-tpid 0x88a8 vlan-tp-a-2-id 200 vlan-tp-z-3-id 400 vlan-tp-z-3-tpid 0x9100 contain-tunnel yes tp-z1a1-pcp-mapping 8P0D-8P0D

Now the NED and device will still be in sync.

NOTE: Short example that does not include any extra lines that would be needed here like remote-devices context mode, or bandwidth-regulator-set auto-configuration.

7.7 virtual-connection/vca-vlan/bandwidth-regulator-envelope/rank

This is currently modeled as a leaf, this requires that when configuring it for multiple bandwidth-regulator(s) the user has to quote the values. Do not use commas, as the NED will not have those when reading from device, and the NED will automatically append those when sending config to device.

Example: remote-devices REMOTE-D-NAME virtual-connection vca-vlan VCA-VLAN-NAME bandwidth-regulator-envelope direction AtoZ rank "bwregulator1 bwregulator2 bwregulator4 bwregulator6 bwregulator3 bwregulator5" !

7.8 device prompt

Currently the NED has a requirement that the device prompt has a "-" (hyphen-sign) in it. If users encounter a scenario where this is not the case, submit a bug and the NED team will look in to it.

Examples of current acceptable prompts: 1. A631E32D-98C3-45D0-8D9C-42F6B78F885F: 2. VCX-DUMMYPROMPT:

7.9 loopback name and device-name

The VCX device requires a remote-device or port to be entered before the loopback name (list key) when creating an instance. Example: loopback add

To "mirror" this behavior, the NED requires remote-device to be entered before specifiying loopback name, both when creating and modifying. When deleting an instance, only loopback name should be used. Example NCS_CLI: create/modify: loopback delete: no loopback

The above may not be easily understood with only tab completion in NCS_CLI.

7.10 "edit"-only nodes and undeletable configs

Some config may only be modified in device, no other operations allowed. At least as of now it's not known how to delete them without doing a complete device reset.

This may make the NED unable to rollback certain scenarios, where the config is set for the first time on device.

7.11 modify port "auto-nego" and "advertisement" parameters

The "advertisement" and "auto-nego" parameters must be always provided togheter(even when the new values are similar to the old ones). It is necessary to keep the sync between device's CDB and the accedian device.

To be able to change the "advertisement", the "auto-nego" must be enabled first. To set "auto-nego" back to disabled, the "advertisement" must be provided before "auto-nego disabled".

Example: given the initial state below:

  1. enable "auto-nego"

  1. disable "auto-nego"

8. How to report NED issues and feature requests

Issues like bugs and errors shall always be reported to the Cisco NSO NED team through the Cisco Support channel:

The following information is required for the Cisco NSO NED team to be able to investigate an issue:

Do as follows to gather the necessary information needed for your device, here named 'dev-1':

  1. Enable full debug logging in the NED

  2. Configure the NSO to generate a raw trace file from the NED

  3. If the NED already had trace enabled, clear it in order to submit only relevant information

    Do as follows for NSO 6.4 or newer:

    Do as follows for older NSO versions:

  4. Run a compare-config to populate the trace with initial device config

  5. Reproduce the found issue using ncs_cli or your NSO service. Write down each necessary step in a reproduction report.

    In addition to this, it helps if you can show how it should work by manually logging into the device using SSH/TELNET and type the relevant commands showing a successful operation.

  6. Gather the reproduction report and a copy of the raw trace file containing data recorded when the issue happened.

  7. Contact the Cisco support and request to open a case. Provide the gathered files together with access details for a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED when investigating the issue.

Requests for new features and extensions of the NED are handled by the Cisco NSO NED team when applicable. Such requests shall also go through the Cisco support channel.

The following information is required for feature requests and extensions:

  1. Set the config on the real device including all existing dependent config and run sync-from to show it in the trace.

  2. Run sync-from # devices device dev-1 sync-from

  3. Attach the raw trace to the ticket

  4. List the config you want implemented in the same syntax as shown on the device

  5. SSH/TELNET access to a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED team for testing and verification of the new feature. This usually means that both read and write permissions are required. Pseudo access via tools like Webex, Zoom etc is not acceptable. However, it is ok with access through VPNs, jump servers etc as long as we can connect to the NED via SSH/TELNET.

9. How to rebuild a NED

To rebuild the NED do as follows:

When the NED has been successfully rebuilt, it is necessary to reload the package into NSO.

10. Configure the NED to use ssh multi factor authentication

This NED supports multi factor authentication (MFA) using the ssh authentication method 'keyboard-interactive'.

Some additional steps are required to enable the MFA support:

  1. Verify that your NSO version supports MFA. This is configurable as additional settings in the authentication group used by the device instance.

    Enter a NSO CLI and enter the following and do tab completion:

    If 'mfa' is displayed in the output like above, NSO has MFA support enabled. In case MFA is not supported it is necessary to upgrade NSO before proceeding.

  2. Implement the authenticator executable. The MFA feature relies on an external executable to take care of the client part of the multi factor authentication. The NED will automatically call this executable for each challenge presented by the ssh server and expects to get a proper response in return.

    The executable can be a simple shell script or a program implemented in any programming language.

    The required behaviour is like this:

    • read one line from stdin The line passed from the NED will be a semi colon separated string containing the following info:

      The elements for device name, user, password and opaque corresponds to what has been configured in NSO. The ssh server name, instruction and prompt are given by the ssh server during the authentication step.

      Each individual element in the semi colon separated list is Base64 encoded.

    • Extract the challenge based on the contents above.

    • Print a response matching the challenge to stdout and exit with code 0

    • In case a matching response can not be given do exit with code 2

    Below is a simple example of an MFA authenticator implemented in Python3:

  3. Configure the authentication group used by the device instance to enable MFA. There are two configurables available:

    • executable The path to the external multi factor authentication executable (mandatory).

    • opaque Opaque data that will passed as a cookie element to the executable (optional).

  4. Try connecting to the device.

10.1 Trouble shooting

In case of connection problems the following steps can help for debugging:

Enable the NED trace in debug level:

Try connect again

Inspect the generated trace file.

Verify that the ssh client is using the external authenticator executable:

Verify that the executable is called with the challenges presented by the ssh server:

Check for any errors reported by the NED when calling the executable

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