CML Reference Platform ISO Install
This page will go over the processes and issues when installing the refplat files on CML.
This will include VM based and baremetal.
Reference platform images are the images that CML uses to add the device nodes to your simulations. Without reference images/nodes it will not start labs. Third party images/nodes will allow it to start. For example, if you only added the custom juniper nodes from: CML Custom Images/Nodes it would start but you would only have those nodes.
Baremetal
The current way to install the refplats on CML baremetal installs is to use scp.
This is a protocol used to copy files over ssh.
I will be using pscp (putty scp) for this process as I am on a windows machine. WinSCP does not work according to the documentation.
You will need to download and install putty. Once this is installed you will either need to add the pscp executable to the system variable path or you can move the executable to the folder that the iso images are located. I'm just going to move it to that location since I am uninstalling putty once I am done.
You will want the isos extracted out of the .zip file they come in.
The CML os looks for the files named refplat_images.iso. Because of this we will need to rename the ISO files to this. I did one first, moved it. Then I renamed the other and moved that one. You MUST copy the refplat files after very move as the iso file is overrode when you copy the other one over.
Moving the ISOs with SCP
Once you have the file renamed you can now start the process to copy it.
Run powershell and navigate to the location where they are located. In my case the desktop on my Windows utility VM.
> cd desktop
We can now use the command to point to our iso and copy it to the destination folder on the remote host. The x.x.x.x is the address of your CML machine, and the username is the web UI login NOT your cockpit login. It will ask you to put in the password before it starts.
pscp scp refplat_images.iso username@x.x.x.x:/var/local/virl2/dropfolder
Once this is moved over we can copy the refplat files in the cockpit.
Issues with SCP
If you get a network error and you cannot login to the web UI anymore you have most likely ran out of space on the filesystem that it uses to move these.
It may look like this:
Once I expanded it it looked like this(notice lv_var at the bottom now has 240GB):
You may need to move the free space partition to the logical device vg00 (LVM2 Logical Vol) first before expanding the lv_var partition. You do not need to expand it that much, just enough for both files to fit however it will not affect how much space is available for labs/VMs.
Virtual Machines
When using virtual machines, you can create a cd device and add the IOSs. This can be done at startup, and the system will find them and install or it can be added after and you can use the copy refplat button to add them. This method is simpler, but VM CML has very specific limitations depending on your use case, namely that Juniper vSwitch/vRouter nodes will not boot if CML is a VM and will only boot if you are in a baremetal install.