Adding New Non-Configurable Device

Adding a new non-configurable device is almost as easy as adding a virtualization provider for an existing device.

Here’s what you have to do:

  • Choose a short name for the new device type (examples: ios, eos, cumulus…)

  • Select one or more virtualization providers you want to work with.

  • Build a Vagrant box from whatever image your vendor supplies. It’s not as hard as it sounds, there are tons of recipes on codingpackets.com. If you want to build a container to use with containerlab, please refer to their documentation.

  • Document the process in a blog post or GitHub gist.

  • Add new device type to netlab settings in netsim/topology-defaults.yml

  • Update Supported Platforms and box building documentation (libvirt, VirtualBox)

  • Hopefully Submit a PR

  • Enjoy!

Adding New Device Settings

  • Add a new key (device type) within devices dictionary

  • For every supported virtualization provider, define device box (or container) to use with image parameter within the provider dictionary (example libvirt.image).

  • Define interface names as used by the new device with interface_name, mgmt_if and optionally ifindex_offset (more details)

  • Add group_vars dictionary with Ansible variables specific to the new device. Set at least the ansible_connection and ansible_network_os variables. ansible_user and ansible_ssh_pass are highly recommended unless you’re using docker connection type. The group variables are required even if you don’t plan to implement a configurable device; they are used by netlab connect command to figure out how to connect to a device.

Example: Mikrotik RouterOS

devices:
  routeros:
    interface_name: ether%d
    mgmt_if: ether1
    ifindex_offset: 2
    libvirt:
      image: mikrotik/chr
    group_vars:
      ansible_network_os: routeros
      ansible_connection: network_cli
      ansible_user: admin
      ansible_ssh_pass: admin