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Create vEdge Cloud VM Instance on KVM

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To start a software vEdge Cloud router, you must create a virtual machine (VM) instance for it. This article describes how to create a VM instance on a server running the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Hypervisor software. You can also create the VM on Amazon AWS or on a server running the vSphere ESXi Hypervisor software.

For server requirements, see Server Hardware Recommendations.

Create vEdge Cloud VM Instance on the KVM Hypervisor

To create a vEdge Cloud VM instance on the KVM hypervisor:

  1. Launch the Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager) client application. The system displays the Virtual Machine Manager screen.

  1. Click New to deploy the virtual machine. The system opens the Create a new virtual machine screen.

  1. Enter the name of the virtual machine. The figure below specifies a name for the vEdge Cloud instance.
    1. Select Import existing disk image.
    2. Click Forward.

  1. In Provide the existing storage path box, click Browse to find the vEdge Cloud software image.
    1. In the OS Type field, select Linux.
    2. In the Version field, select the Linux version you are running.
    3. Click Forward.

  1. Specify Memory and CPU based on your network topology and the number of sites. Click Forward.

  1. Select Customize configuration before install. Then click Finish.

  1. Select Disk 1 in the left navigation bar. Then:
    1. Click Advanced Options.
    2. In the Disk Bus field, select IDE.
    3. In the Storage Format field, select qcow2.
    4. Click Apply to create the VM instance with the parameters you just defined. By default, this includes one vNIC. This vNIC is used for the management interface.

Note that the Viptela software supports E1000 and Virtio vNICs. It is recommended, however, that you use the Virtio vNICs.

  1. In the vEdge Cloud Virtual Machine screen, click Add Hardware to add a second vNIC for the tunnel interface.
  2. In the Add New Virtual Hardware screen, click Network.
    1. In the Host Device field, select an appropriate host device.
    2. Click Finish.

The newly created vNIC is listed in the left pane. This vNIC is used for the tunnel interface.

  1. Create an ISO file to include a cloud-init configuration for the vEdge Cloud router.

  1. In the Virtual Machine Manager screen, click Add Hardware to attach the ISO file you created.

  1. In the Add New Virtual Hardware screen:
    1. Click Select managed or other existing storage.
    2. Click Browse and select the ISO file you created.
    3. In the Device type field, select IDE CDROM.
    4. Click Finish.

  1. To allow the interface to carry jumbo frames (packets with an MTU of 2000 bytes), configure the MTU for each virtual network (vnet) and virtual bridge NIC-containing VNET (virbr-nic) interface to a value in the range of 2000 to 9000:
    1. From the VM shell, issue the following command to determine the MTU on the vnet and virbr-nic interfaces:
      user@vm:~$ ifconfig -a
      virbr1-nic Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 52:54:00:14:4e:6f
                BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric
                RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovreruns:0 frame:0
                TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovreruns:0 carrier:0
                collisions:0 txqueuelen:500
                RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0B)
      ...
      vnet0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr fe:50:56:00:10:1e
                inet6 addr: fe80::fc50:56ff:fe00:11e/64 Scope:Link
                UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
                RX packets:167850 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
                TX packets:663186 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
                collisions:0 txqueuelen:500
                RX bytes:19257426 (19.2 MB)  TX bytes:42008544 (42.0 MB)
      ...
    2. Change the MTU of each vnet:
      user@vm:~$ sudo ifconfig vnetnumber mtu 2000
    3. Change the MTU of each virbr-nic:
      user@vm:~$ sudo ifconfig virbr-nicnumber mtu 2000 
    4. Verify the MTU value:
      user@vm:~$ ifconfig -a
  2. In the vEdge Cloud Virtual Machine screen, click Begin Installation in the top upper-left corner of the screen.

  1. The system creates the virtual machine instance and displays the vEdge Cloud console.

  1. At the login prompt, log in with the default username, which is admin, and the default password, which is admin. To view the vEdge Cloud router default configuration, enter the following command:

vEdge# show running-config

Mapping vNICs to Interfaces

When you create a vEdge Cloud router VM instance on KVM in the procedure in the previous section, you create two vNICs: vNIC 1, which is used for the management interface, and vNIC 2, which is used as a tunnel interface. From the perspective of the VM itself, these two vNICs map to the eth0 and eth1 interfaces, respectively. From the perspective of the Viptela software for the vEdge Cloud router, these two vNICs map to the mgmt0 interface in VPN 512 and the ge0/0 interface in VPN 0, respectively. You cannot change these mappings.

You can configure up to five additional vNICs, numbered 3 through 7, on the VM host. You can map these vNICs to interfaces eth2 through eth7 as desired, and to Viptela interfaces ge0/1 through ge0/7, as desired.

The table below summarizes the mapping between vNICs, VM host interfaces, and vEdge Cloud interfaces.

vNIC Interface on VM Host Interface in vEdge Cloud Configuration
vNIC 1 eth0 mgmt0 in VPN 512
vNIC 2 eth1 ge0/0
vNIC 3 through 7 eth2 through eth7 ge0/1 through ge0/7
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