Driver Support Document

Cisco Nexus Switches, 1000, 3000, 5000, 6000, 7000, & 9000 series, NX-OS version 4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, 8.x

• Internal Driver Name: CiscoNexus
• Driver Package: CiscoNexus.rdp
  
• Driver Tier: 3
• Vendor: Cisco
• Family: Cisco NXOS
• IPv6 Support: Yes

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Driver Features Support Grid

General Access

Release Notes

Virtual Device Context IP interface detection

Cisco Nexus devices support creating contexts that can be independently addressible. When the inventory diagnostic is run, the driver will detect virtual device contexts (VDC) and log into to each context to determine its IP address. The first address reported for the external interface (default: "mgmt0") will be recorded as the address by which the context can be reached. To change this default, set the device access variable "extinterface" to the name of the interface that contains the IP address desired to reach the context. If no suitable IP address can be found, the context device will be managed through the admin context.

Disabling context management

The context management feature adds independent device entries for contexts on the device automatically by using the inventory diagnostic. This feature can be disabled by adding the access variable "disable_context" and setting it to true. Disabling the feature will remove any previously created context devices permanently and will result in the inability to directly manage contexts with NA. Changes will take effect the next time the NA Module Status diagnostic task is run.

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Retrieve Running Configuration

Release Notes

Startup-config reordered

The Nexus 7000 series saves the startup-config with the commands in a different order than in the running-config. Because of this, the system will always detect a difference between the running-config and the startup-config, even when there is no difference. If the access variable "ignore_startup" is set to true, then all differences between running and startup will be ingnored.

Disconnected interfaces

Nexus devices sometimes store configuration information for disconnected interfaces in the startup configuration, which can cause differences with running that are meaningless. If the access variable "ignore_interfaces" is set to "true", NA will ignore interface sections when determining configuration differences. Any legitimate changes in the interface sections will be ignored when this flag is set.

Show Running All

Nexus devices can return the running configuration in an 'all' format, which includes even the default settings on the device. The device does not allow this setting for startup configurations, or for configurations gathered through transport protocols, so using this option will cause NA to report spurious configuration differences. To activate this option, set the device access variable "showConfigAll" to "true".

Premature TFTP completion

Nexus device have a known device bug that can cause the device to return s "completed" prompt from a TFTP transfer before the transfer is actually complete, causing a truncated copy of the configuration to be captured. Since this delay can change depending on the network, a variable timeout can be set to allow for correct behavior. Set the custom device access variable "tftp_timeout" to a value in seconds, and a delay will be enacted after the TFTP transfer to allow it to properly complete.

Handling of whitespace when comparing configurations

Nexus devices are known to introduce differences in whitespace between the running and startup configuration. As a result, whitespace is stripped from the configurations before any comparison. This process can be time- consuming and slow snapshots dramatically in some cases. To skip the stripping/ignoring of whitespace, set the device access variable "dont_skip_blanks" to "true".

Use the show inventory PID as the device model

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General Access

Release Notes (inherited)

Password Assignment when creating Virtual Device Contexts

When creating a device context, the option is offered to specify a default password for the admin account. If left blank, the context will be created but not initialized, meaning that manual login must be performed to step through the device's configuration setup process. If a password is specified when the context is created, then the setup will be done automatically as part of the context creation task. Note that if this password does not meet the device's password criteria, the context setup process will be abandoned with a warning message.

Virtual Routing Context for Device Management

The Nexus series of switches support named routing contexts. NA uses the name "management" by default; if NA must connect to the device through another routing context, set the "vrf" custom access variable to contain the context used for device access.

Startup configuration deployment with reboot deprecated

The Nexus 7000 supports deployment of configuration to startup with reboot. However, the CLI command is reported as deprecated. Because the alternative provided is already doable by executing a Reboot task, followed by a Deploy to Running task, Deploy to Startup implementation is disabled.

Bulk command scripts require a trailing line

Nexus devices seem to ignore the last line in a script deployed by the bulk method, due to an apparent device bug. It is recommded to end your bulk scripts with a line containing only the comment character "!" to workaround this seeming device bug.

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Software Center

Release Notes

Using Image Synchronization with an Update Device Software task

Some Nexus devices do not seem to allow the copying of a full image from the device, leaving 512 bytes uncopied and resulting in an invalid image file. If the image set resulting from an Image Synchronization does not install properly, download copies of the image from Cisco.com.

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General Access

Release Notes (inherited)

Extra support for drivers that use HTTP

This note applies only for drivers that use HTTP requests for driver functions. HTTP proxy operations are supported by setting the device access variable "http_proxy" to "ip:port", replacing with the IP and port values of the proxy server. SNI-requiring devices (e.g CloudGenix & Cisco Meraki) can be supported by using the device access variable "alternate_host" to contain the DNS name of the host. The host name will be used rather than the normal management IP address for all HTTP requests, effectively supporting SNI.

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Driver Discovery

Release Notes

More prompt causes an unexpected disconnection

Discovery tasks for Javascript drivers handle More prompts by using timeouts, which can cause problems with the third-party SSH client code, which interprets the timeout as a disconnection. There are two options to work around the problem. Setting the RCX option [<option name="Driver/Discovery/UsePollRead">true</option>] in site_options.rcx will effect the workaround for all affected devices. Alternatively, it could be applied to a single device by setting the device access variable "PollRead" to "true".

Wakeup Ctrl-U character can cause discovery to fail

Discovery tasks for Javascript drivers use wakeup characters are sent during device connection, to ensure that the device is responding. Normally, these characters do not echo to the console, but some devices may echo them. In this case, this causes the prompt detection phase to fail, which in turn can cause More prompts to not be handled properly, and discovery may fail. If these characters are echoed from the device [check the session log to see this], then set the device access variable "skip_ctrl_u" to skip the sending of the wakeup characters. Note that setting this option on a previously working device could cause discovery tasks to fail, but it only affects CLI discovery. SNMP discovery is unaffected.

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Syslog Triggering

Trigger Patterns

Devices supported by this driver trigger changes using the following patterns:
SYSLOG_CONFIG
SYSTEM_RESET


User Patterns

These patterns are used to determine the username/IP responsible for a change:
/Configured from vty by (\S+)/

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