Home Lab Step-by-Step Part-4-virtual router

 

In my previous post HomeLab Step-by-Step Part-3-Networking, we have completed configuration of required port groups, datastore etc. Now we are ready to start deployment of virtual router.

We will be creating a network topology shown in this image.

In any datacenter (physical/virtual) we always keep management network separate from data network. For management of our nested SDDC we have kept vlan 1611 with network range 172.16.11.x mask address 255.255.255.0 and gateway 172.16.11.254.

Hence, we will start the deployment of the CSR1000v router on the management network.

We have renamed default PG “VM network” to “External-192.168.1.x” on vSwitch0, to achieve the network topology shown in the above Image.

Let's start, Login to ESXi with root credentials, navigate to Virtual machines and select the option “Create/Register VM”.

It will open “New virtual machine” wizard, here we decide if we want to use ISO for deployment or OVA/OVF file. We will use the OVA file we downloaded in our post HomeLab Step-by-Step Part-2-Hostconfig. If you have not you can download from this link.

Name the virtual machine, select OVA file and click next.

Select storage to host virtual router, and click next.

Select the network mapping, at the moment we will keep all the network cards attached to 1611 management vlan, we will update this once we will start configuring the router. We will keep the disk provisioning as thin and we want this to power on automatically upon completion. Click next.

Review the settings and click on finish.

Once Virtual router is deployed and powered on, wait for 10 minutes before starting next step. Open VM console and once you get system configuration dialog, answer no and hit enter, let the router complete its boot process.

Once the boot process is complete, just click inside the console and hit enter once, you will be getting the screen as shown in below image. This is User EXEC mode. 

Now we will start the configuration of the router, to start we need to enter into Globalconfiguration, which can entered from PrivilegedEXEC mode, first we need to enter command enable followed by config t, now we can start putting the configuration. I would recommend running “wr mem” command after every configuration to save it.

Enter command “hostname csr01-a”, press enter.

Once hostname is configured, we will secure the router console with the password, in order to set the password for access we need to enter in to console line mode.

• line console 0
• password password (you can choose password of your choice)
• login
• Exit
• exit
• exit (Last exit will take you to console screen)

Press enter and you will be presented with login screen, enter the console password

Let’s disable the dns lookup for each word which is not a command, we will use the command “no ip domain-lookup”

In Lab environment I prefer to disable auto log off from console, using the commands

• Line console 0
• Exec-timeout 0 0
• exit

When we deployed this appliance, we had 3 NIC cards, now we will disconnect 2 of them and we will configure management range gateway.

Now check the status of all the attached interfaces, run command “sh ip int brief”

By default, all the interfaces are admin down, hence we will run the command “no shut” for the range of interfaces. Now you will see one interface has status “up” and remain are “down”.

Let’s assign the management range gateway IP on the first interface, 172.16.11.254 mask address 255.255.255.0

Int gigabitethernet 1

Ip address 172.16.11.254 255.255.255.0

Exit

Now go to the edit settings of the virtual machine and connect second adaptor to vmotion port group. And assign vMotion range gateway address to the second adaptor following the same process we used for management address. IP address 172.16.12.254 mask 255.255.255.0

Add additional adaptors and follow above steps for rest of the gateways, once completed edit setting screen and interface summary inside the router console would look something like this.

Now we have all the interfaces configured for Layer 3 of our nested SDDC, however in order to reach to the Nested networks from external network we need to create a default route in our virtual router pointing to the physical router gateway address, and create return routes on our physical router for nested networks. You need to check on your home router, how to put a return route for these networks.

Command to enter route in virtual router is "ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.254"

Enter command "copy running-config startup-config" at the end of the configuration and successful testing.

Below image shows, routes I have added in my physical router (Home Router).

After this we are ready to route traffic between these networks as well as connectivity to external world is also established, that too we are not using any physical uplink connected to our NESTED virtual switch, everything is routed thru CSR1000v router we deployed, and topology which I have shown in the beginning is achieved. Let’s do few ping tests from my base machine connected to 192.168.1.x network and validate gateway reachability.

Test 1 for vlans 1611,1612,1613,1614

Test 2 for vlans 2711, 2712, 2713

As all tests are successful, now we are good to move to the next part of the lab where we need to deploy services such as AD, DNS, DHCP and iSCSi server for shared storage of our nested environment.

You can run some additional commands on your virtual router to enable access thru SSH, I have not enabled it as I am ok accessing it thru console.

I am listing down the commands for your reference.

• ip domain-name yourdomainname (ex. ip domain-name vmwarensxcloud.com)
• crypto key generate rsa

enter the bits value as 1024

Create a user for SSH access, using command

• User “username” privilege 15 password “password”

Run below command to enable password encryption

• service password-encryption
• line vty 0 4
• transport input ssh
• login local
• exit
• exit
• copy run start

Now you should be able to SSH to your virtual router as well.

                                             

In our next post Home Lab Step-by-Step Part-5-Infrastructure Services we will deploy a windows server which will provide services such as,

• Active Directory
• DNS
• DHCP
• iSCSi server.

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Affiliate link of home router I am using for this setup.