The Network Arborist: port

So I decided to try out the Juniper olive I've been hearing about. I looked online and noticed how people were able to create a virtual Junos device on a virtualization platform like VMWare ESXi. The one problem that all the users were having was that the images were meant to be installed onto an actual router and configuring the device meant connecting to it via a console port. The problem there is that in a virtual platform, there is no physical access to the console port.

What you end up seeing on the video console is this message:

If only you could modify the image so that the /boot/loader.conf file so instead of reading:

console="comconsole"

it could be modify to project on the video console.

console="comconsole, vidconsole"

I found out that VMWare has the ability to allow remote serial connectivity through telnet. First you add a serial port.

Then in the pull down menu, you choose network.

Next you select Direction and choose Server. In the port URL you'll need to map the port number to a new value that is not a well know port number. I chose 10026. You add the url

telnet://:<your_port_number>

Then after you spin up the VM. You access the new VM by telneting to the Host Server's IP and the custom port number you created. It may take a while, but eventually you'll get a prompt.

My_Mac% telnet 10.11.39.145 10026
Trying 10.11.39.145...
Connected to 10.11.39.145.
Escape character is '^]'.

Amnesiac (ttyd0)

login:root

Next you can edit the /boot/loader.conf file or add an IP address and turn on telnet/ssh service on the Virtual Junos so you can directly access the device through a management port.

One of the most annoying things I find in Openstack is the lack of use of user friendly names. It's very tedious to reverse lookup information for troubleshooting and configuration.

For example, say I want to find out which tap port on my VM is connected to an openvswitch bridge. I would have to look up the VM in nova and find the corresponding IP assigned to it.

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# nova list

+--------------------------------------+------+--------+------------+-------------+---------------------+

+--------------------------------------+------+--------+------------+-------------+---------------------+

| 8b3ecae9-7b59-4b6f-a0a0-bbd5ab5aa629 | aa | ACTIVE | - | Running | net1=192.168.251.10 |

| a679f6f9-bd7d-4e31-95a6-9776c44f0a4a | bb | ACTIVE | - | Running | net1=192.168.251.12 |

Then I would list the ports in neutron.

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# neutron port-list

+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| 014d6bba-7ab9-4028-9cd9-dbe27bd51b83 | | fa:16:3e:1b:19:7d | {"subnet_id": "8942189b-8fbf-44e9-adbb-d62dd0d27015", "ip_address": "192.168.250.10"} |

| 1d3246d7-adb1-4b18-a911-b36562c278e0 | | fa:16:3e:bd:e9:69 | {"subnet_id": "0147052f-2a0b-4a5b-9930-1d4e258e0c1a", "ip_address": "192.168.251.10"} |

| 40b988aa-c016-4e85-b9cf-beeb4332ab04 | | fa:16:3e:e1:7e:57 | {"subnet_id": "0147052f-2a0b-4a5b-9930-1d4e258e0c1a", "ip_address": "192.168.251.12"} |

| cb867d96-a4ed-449d-a35a-f3670a14e710 | | fa:16:3e:ce:a5:7e | {"subnet_id": "0147052f-2a0b-4a5b-9930-1d4e258e0c1a", "ip_address": "192.168.251.11"} |

| d267267b-5630-43df-8a07-05793fd831d0 | | fa:16:3e:61:84:91 | {"subnet_id": "8942189b-8fbf-44e9-adbb-d62dd0d27015", "ip_address": "192.168.250.11"} |

| f434c257-5bbf-42a6-9136-072d1104fa19 | | fa:16:3e:24:18:08 | {"subnet_id": "0147052f-2a0b-4a5b-9930-1d4e258e0c1a", "ip_address": "192.168.251.1"} |

+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Next I would need to look at the mac address and do a lookup in ip address

After coming through the list I can then verify the tap address with ip address show tapxxxx

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# ip a show tap40b988aa-c0

30: tap40b988aa-c0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN qlen 500

link/ether fe:16:3e:e1:7e:57 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

inet6 fe80::fc16:3eff:fee1:7e57/64 scope link

valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

And now I can do something useful like see which bridge the tap interface belongs to and verify the mac in the mac table.

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# brctl show

bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces

qbr1d3246d7-ad 8000.4a04d0b90d18 no qvb1d3246d7-ad

tap1d3246d7-ad

qbr40b988aa-c0 8000.de752effa37c no qvb40b988aa-c0

tap40b988aa-c0

qbr7316a274-16 8000.8671bda4d699 no qvb7316a274-16

tap7316a274-16

qbrd06fccba-ad 8000.4613c3848432 no qvbd06fccba-ad

tapd06fccba-ad

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# brctl showmacs qbr40b988aa-c0

port no mac addr is local? ageing timer

1 de:75:2e:ff:a3:7c yes 0.00

2 fe:16:3e:e1:7e:57 yes 0.00

or look at the openvswitch table and find out which bridge it belongs to

[root@centos-6-5-openstack ~(keystone_admin)]# ovs-vsctl list-ifaces br-int

int-br-ex

qr-87202226-14

qr-ba3e1c3b-49

qr-f2b01b2b-ad

qr-f434c257-5b

qvo1d3246d7-ad

qvo40b988aa-c0

qvo7316a274-16

qvod06fccba-ad

tapafe229a7-2e

tapca265ec6-29

tapcb867d96-a4

tape4751034-2c

This looks like a to do scripting project to get this information.

Here I could create a table that would give me:

Nova ID

VM name

VM IP

VM Mac address

Neutron ID

tap interface

bridge mac table

openvswitch bridge

The Network Arborist

Friday, August 29, 2014

Juniper olive console port issue

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Doing reverse lookups of information in order to find things in Openstack