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README v1.1.2 2024-08-29

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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

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1. General

This document describes the cisco-ise NED.

Additional README files bundled with this NED package

Common NED Features

Verified target systems

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1.1 Extract the NED package

It is assumed the NED package ncs-<NSO version>-cisco-ise-<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:

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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:

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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:cisco-ise-<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:

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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

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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):

  • Optionally set the ssl to accept-any

  • Finally commit the configuration

  • Verify configuration, using a sync-from.

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

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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-cisco-ise-gen-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.

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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)

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4. Sample device configuration

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4.1 Perform a sync-from

Perform a sync-from to get the configuration from the device:

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4.2 Configure cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set

Define 'ned_test_policy_set_01':

When ned_test_policy_set_01 will be created on the device the Default authorization will be also created. To avoid a diff in config between NSO and the device we create this Default configuration:

Define 'ned_test_policy_set_02':

Since the device allows adding new policy sets only above the Default one the newly created entries need to be moved:

Commit:

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4.2 Modify policy network-access policy-set

Modify the condition of the newly created 'ned_test_policy_set_02'. We will create a more complex condition with multiple children.

Please note that the name of the condition children is an integer and it must represent the position of the child within the list. For more details about this please see the Limitations section 7.5 from this document.

Another example is to replace a condition child:

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4.4 Create a cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set authorization

Define 'ned_test_authorization_pol_00' under the Default policy-set:

Please note that the name of the condition children is an integer and it must represent the position of the child within the list. For more details about this please see the Limitations section 7.5 from this document.

Since the device allows adding new authorization rules only above the Default one the newly created entries need to be moved:

Commit the changes:

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5. Built in live-status actions

NONE

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6. Built in live-status show

NONE

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7. Limitations

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7.1 cisco-ise:ise networkdevicegroup limitation

The NED user must mimic the behavior of the device API when creating resources under "/ers/config/networkdevicegroup" endpoint.

When a POST is done to /ers/config/networkdevicegroup endopint with body:

the device will create not one but three resources under /ers/config/networkdevicegroup endpoint:

To avoid a difference between the NED configuration and the device configuration the NED user needs to mimic this behavior when using the NED by creating all the hierarchy:

The same care must be taken when deleting entries from this hierachy. For example, if we whant to delete "Location#All Locations#HRN" we must also delete "Location#All Locations#HRN#3rd Floor" and "Location#All Locations#HRN#3rd Floor#SE Lab":

For for both creation and deletion the NED will asure the right order of REST API calls.

Failing to mimic this device API behavior will result in a out of sync between the device and the NED (there will be differences between the device config and NED config).

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7.2 Default authorization rule limitation

When creating an entry in cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set,the ISE device will automatically create a default authorization rule:

This will cause an out of sync situation where the device config will differ NSO config. To mitigate this device behavior you need to create the Default rule in the same commit with the policy-set like below.

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7.3 Default policy-set must be the last in the list

For the cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set list the device is supporting adding new entries only before the Default (so Default policy-set must remain the last item in the list).

To mitigate this requirement you must first create the desired policy sets, then move it in the desired position in the list and after that commit the changes. The NED will automatically generate the "rank" parameter that is used to inform the ISE device about the policy position within the list.

Failing to move the policy-sets somewhere above the Default will result in following error:

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7.4 Default policy-set authorization rule must be the last in the list

For the cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set <policy_set_name> authorization list the device is supporting adding new entries only before the Default (so Default authorization must remain the last item in the list).

To mitigate this requirement you must first create the desired authorization, then move it in the desired position in the list and after that commit the changes. The NED will automatically generate the "rank" parameter that it is used to inform the ISE device about the authorization position within the list. Because of this the NED does not support creating a policy-set and a policy-set/authorization in the same commit.

Failing to move the policy-sets somewhere above the Default will result in following error:

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7.5 Condition children name limitation

Conditions used in : "cisco-ise:ise policy network-access condition ", "cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set condition" and "cisco-ise:ise policy network-access policy-set authorization condition" can be also defined using a series of children conditions.

In the cisco ISE REST API these children are defined in a list and these children do not have any name field. Since NSO yang lists need to have an index, at sync-from, the NED will generate this index in form of an integer that specifies the position of the child in the list.

When creating a condition that has childrens you must copy this behavior and specify an increasing index that represents the position of the child in the list like bellow:

Failing to specify the children index as in the above example will result in an error when a commit is issued. Also as it can be seen in the above example that there is a hierarchy of children that define a condition. For now the NED only supports a depth of 4 in this hierarchy.

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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.

  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. A detailed use case description, with details like:

    • Data of interest

    • The kind of operations to be used on the data. Like: 'read', 'create', 'update', 'delete' and the order of the operation

    • Device APIs involved in the operations (For example: REST URLs and payloads)

    • Device documentation describing the operations involved

  2. Run sync-from # devices device dev-1 sync-from (if relevant)

  3. Attach the raw trace to the ticket (if relevant)

  4. 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.

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