2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Introduction to Cisco IOS XR Cisco Next-Generation Operating System
Jorge Alonso Ayala CCIE SP # 28.145
BRKARC-3980
jorayala@cisco.com
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Agenda
IOS-XR Architecture and Feature Overview Modularity, Distributed Architecture, HA, Security, Manageability, SDRs
IOS-XR Boot images and Installation Config Management using CLI Protocol Configuration and Verification
RPL, OSPF, Static, BGP IOS XR Operation and Monitoring Tools
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Acronyms
SDR Secure Domain Router RPL Route Policy Language SMU Software Maintenance Unit LPTS Local Packet Transport Protocol IMDB In Memory Data Base DRP Distributed Route Processor AIB Adjacency Information Base IDB Interface Data base ISSU In Service Software Upgrade
IFIB Internal Forwarding Information Base
pIFIB- Pre-IFIB
PIE Package Installation Envelope
IPFRR - IP Fast Reroute
LFA Loop Free Alternate
NSF Non- Stop Forwarding
BCDL- Bulk Content Downloader
dSDRSC Designated SDR Shelf Controller
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
History of IOS XR
IOS originally optimized for slow CPUs (1987) CPUs performing all switching operations No pre-emptive multitasking No process memory protection
IOS XR started in 1997 as IOS NG Engineering-initiated clean up project Initially focused on 7200
Called ENA in 2000 focused on GSR 2001 refocused on CRS-1 2004 Official release on CRS-1 (version 2.0) 2005 Released on 12000 (version 3.0) 2009 Released on ASR 9000
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Router OS Evolution
Control Plane Applications
Forwarding Plane Applications
Network Stack
System Infrastructure
Forward Infrastructure
OS Scheduler Man
agem
ent P
lane
App
licat
ions
HA
Infr
astr
uctu
re
Control Plane Data Plane Management Plane
Control Plane Data Plane Management Plane
Control Plane Data Plane Management Plane
BG
B
RIP
ISIS
OSP
F
Rou
ting
PIM
IGM
P
RIB
L2 D
river
s
AC
L
FIB
QoS
LPTS
Hos
t Ser
vice
PFI
Inte
rfac
e
CLI
SNM
P
XML
Net
flow
Ala
rm
Per.f
Mgm
t
SSH
SSH
SSH
Checkpoint DB Multicast IPC System DB
Distributed Infrastructure
Memory Mgmt IPC Mech Synch. Services Scheduler
Kernel System Services
Monolithic Kernel Centralized Infrastructure Integrated Network stack Centralized applications
Micro Kernel Distributed Infrastructure Independent Network stack Distributed applications
2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential BRKARC-3980 5
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
IOS XR Modular Packaged Software
Upgrade specific packages/Composites Across Entire system
Useful once a feature is qualified and you want to roll it without lot of cmd Targeted Install to specific cards
Useful while a feature is being qualified Reduces churn in the system to card boundary
Point Fix for software faults
DRP LC RP
SC
Manage- ability Security
GMPLS Multi-cast
Optl
Mandatory
Optl
Mand
Optl
Mand
Mand
Mand
RPL BGP
ISIS OSPF
Forwarding
Base
Admin
OS
Base
OS
Forwarding
Forwarding
Manage- ability Security
GMPLS Multi-cast
RPL BGP
ISIS OSPF Base
OS
Line Card
GMPLS Multi-cast
Base
Admin
OS
2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential BRKARC-3980 6
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Distributed Control Plane
Routing protocols and signaling protocols can run in one or more (D)RP
Each (D)RP can have redundancy support with standby (D)RP
Out of resources handling for proactive planning
RP2 RP3 RP4 RPn RP1
RESILLIENT SYSTEM PROCESS DISTRIBUTION
BGP IS-IS MPLS Multi-cast BGP
2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential BRKARC-3980 7
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Distributed Forwarding Infrastructure
Single stage forwarding Single global Adjacency Information
Base (AIB) distributed to all line cards Single global Interface Management DB
distributed to all line cards Only Ingress FIB forces forwarding
features to be run in RP
Two stage forwarding Each line card has independent AIB only
for local interfaces Each line card has independent Interface
DB for local interfaces Both Ingress and Egress FIB allows
forwarding features to be independently run in LCs
LC
RP
LC
FIB
Global IDB & AIB
CPU
CPU
Switching Fabric
IP Stack IM Netflow
PPP ARP VLAN
Drivers
RP
LC LC
CPU
CPU Ingress FIB
Ingress AIB & IDB
Egress FIB
Egress AIB & IDB
Switching Fabric
Global Int. Mgr.
LC-CPU
IM VLAN PPP
HDLC Netflow ARP
2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential BRKARC-3980 8
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Protected Process Memory Space
Each process has a virtual memory space Kernel/MMU maps virtual address to physical address (at page level) Threads share the memory space
One process cannot corrupt anothers memory Process can only access virtual space In IOS all processes shared same virtual space
Communication between processes via controlled APIs Limited use of shared memory 0x000000
OSPF
1
2
3
0x00000 0x10000 0x20000
0x100000
0x200000
0x300000
0x400000
0x500000
0x600000
0x700000
0x800000
0xa00000
0x900000
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Process Restart Microkernel Architecture Enables Restart of Most Processes
Microkernel IOS XR
Kernel BSD based routers
Monolithic IOS (7200, 12k (IOS)
Timers Scheduler Timers Scheduler Timers Scheduler
BGP OSPF
EIGRP ISIS
RIP VPN
SSH Telnet Server
IPv4 Forwarding
ACLs LDP
TCP/IP Drivers
BGP OSPF ISIS
RIP VPN
SSH Telnet Server
IPv4 Forwarding
ACLs
LDP BGP OSPF
EIGRP ISIS
RIP VPN
SSH Telnet Server
IPv4 Forwarding
ACLs LDP
TCP/IP Drivers TCP/IP Drivers
Green areas cannot restart
Microkernel includes minimal functionality Non-kernel processes can be restarted Critical to HA, ISSU, and MDR functions Restarting many processes can be tricky
Dependent processes may also need to restart
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
Local Packet Transport Protocol (LPTS) Interoffice Mail for Data Plane
Enables delivery of data to distributed processes across the system hardware (RPs, DRPs) Used for for_us packet prioritization and filtering
Sends for us packets only to the nodes that want them Uses HW policers to throttle for us traffic Applies to data plane traffic, not IPC
Integral firewall to protects router resources - Packet forwarding executed in HW - no impact on Line Card CPU
Dynamic adjustment - Flow types reflect both application type (OSPF, BGP, ) and trust (established, configured or unknown peer) - Additional bandwidth allowed once neighbor up
LC
RP DRP
LPTS
LC LC
Interoffice Mail for Data Plane LC/RP CPU guard
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
IOS-XR Key Features
Modular Runtime SW upgrade/downgrade support
Distributed scaleable with multi chassis support Platform Independent POSIX compliant
Management Interface Unified Data Model (SNMP/XML)
High Availability Hot Standby and Process Restart
Security Control, Data and Management Plane Logical Router Router Partitioning
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Presentation_ID Cisco Public
What is a Secure Domain Router- SDR?
Independent/isolated physical routing instance within a common (multi-) chassis
Each RP & LC in chassis uniquely allocated to a specific LR
Resource sharing between LRs is limited to fabric, power, cooling
Acts as an independent router Processors not shared CPU
resources not in contention Memory not shared Memory
leaks can only affect that SDR Hardware Failures Isolated
Multicast BGP/IGP Multicast
SPA/SIP
n
SPA/SIP
SPA/SIP
Carrier Class IOS XR
Rou
