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System Requirements for GCP Deployment

Read this section to understand the system, resource, port, and licensing requirements for installing Juniper Cloud-Native Router on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Minimum Host System Requirements

This section lists the host system requirements for installing the cloud-native router.

Note:

The settings below are pre-configured when you deploy JCNR via the Google Cloud Marketplace.
Table 1: Cloud-Native Router Minimum Host System Requirements
Component Value/Version Notes
GCP Deployment VM-based  
Instance Type n2-standard-16  
CPU Intel x86 The tested CPU is Intel Cascade Lake
Host OS Rocky Linux 8.8 (Green Obsidian)
Kernel Version

Rocky Linux: 4.18.X

 The tested kernel version is 4.18.0-477.15.1.el8_8.cloud.x86_64
NIC VirtIO NIC  
Kubernetes (K8s) Version 1.25.x The tested K8s version is 1.25.5.

The K8s version for Google Cloud Marketplace JCNR subscription is v1.27.5.
Calico Version 3.25.1  
Multus Version 4.0  
Helm 3.9.x  
Container-RT containerd  

Resource Requirements

This section lists the resource requirements for installing the cloud-native router.

Table 2: Cloud-Native Router Resource Requirements
Resource Value Usage Notes
Data plane forwarding cores 2 cores  
Service/Control Cores 0  
UIO Driver VFIO-PCI To enable, follow the steps below:
cat /etc/modules-load.d/vfio.conf
vfio
vfio-pci
Enable Unsafe IOMMU mode
echo Y > /sys/module/vfio_iommu_type1/parameters/allow_unsafe_interrupts
echo Y > /sys/module/vfio/parameters/enable_unsafe_noiommu_mode
Hugepages (1G) 6 Gi Add GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT values in /etc/default/grub and reboot the host. For example: 
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty1 console=ttyS0 default_hugepagesz=1G hugepagesz=1G hugepages=64 intel_iommu=on iommu=pt"

Update grub and reboot the host. For example:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Verify the hugepage is set by executing the following commands:

cat /proc/cmdline
grep -i hugepages /proc/meminfo
JCNR Controller cores .5  
JCNR vRouter Agent cores .5  

Miscellaneous Requirements

This section lists additional requirements for installing the cloud-native router.

Table 3: Miscellaneous Requirements
Cloud-Native Router Release Miscellaneous Requirements
Set IOMMU and IOMMU-PT in /etc/default/grub file. For example: 
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty1 console=ttyS0 default_hugepagesz=1G hugepagesz=1G hugepages=64 intel_iommu=on iommu=pt"

Update grub and reboot the host. For example:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg 

Additional kernel modules need to be loaded on the host before deploying JCNR in L3 mode. These modules are usually available in linux-modules-extra or kernel-modules-extra packages. Run the following commands to add the kernel modules:

cat /etc/modules-load.d/crpd.conf
tun
fou
fou6
ipip
ip_tunnel
ip6_tunnel
mpls_gso
mpls_router
mpls_iptunnel
vrf
vxlan
Note:

Applicable for L3 deployments only.

Run the ip fou add port 6635 ipproto 137 command on the Linux host to enable kernel based forwarding.
Enable IP Forwarding for VMs in GCP. Use one of the two methods to enable it:

  1. Specify it as an option while creating the VM. For example:

    gcloud compute instances create instance-name --can-ip-forward

  2. For an exisiting VM, enable IP forwarding by updating the compute instance via a file. For example:

    gcloud compute instances export transit-jcnr01 --project jcnr-ci-admin --zone us-west1-a --destination=instance_file_1

    Edit the instance file to set the value canIpForward=true.

    Update the compute instance from the file:
    gcloud compute instances update-from-file transit-jcnr01 --project jcnr-ci-admin --zone us-west1-a --source=instance_file_1 --most-disruptive-allowed-action ALLOWED_ACTION
Enable Multi-IP subnet on Guest OS:
gcloud compute images create debian-9-multi-ip-subnet \
     --source-disk debian-9-disk \
     --source-disk-zone us-west1-a \
     --guest-os-features MULTI_IP_SUBNET
Add firewall rules for loopback address for VPC.

Configure the VPC firewall rule to allow ingress traffic with source filters set to the subnet range to which JCNR is attached, along with the IP ranges or addresses for the loopback addresses.

For example:

Navigate to Firewall policies on the GCP console and create a firewall rule with the following attributes:

  1. Name: Name of the firewall rule

  2. Network: Choose the VPC network

  3. Priority: 1000

  4. Direction: Ingress

  5. Action on Match: Allow

  6. Source filters: 10.2.0.0/24, 2.51.2.0/23, 2.51.1.0/24, 2.2.2.2/32, 3.3.3.3/32

  7. Protocols: all

  8. Enforcement: Enabled

where 10.2.0.0/24 is the subnet to which JCNR is attached and 2.51.2.0/24, 2.51.1.0/24, 2.2.2.2/32, 3.3.3.3/32 are loopback IP ranges.

JCNR supports only IPv4 for GCP.

JCNR deployment on GCP supports only N8-standard for VM deployments. The N16-standard is not supported.

NetworkManager is a tool in some operating systems to make the management of network interfaces easier. NetworkManager may make the operation and configuration of the default interfaces easier. However, it can interfere with the Kubernetes management and create problems.

To avoid the NetworkManager from interfering with the interface configurations, perform the following steps:

  1. Create the file, /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/crpd.conf.
  2. Add the following content in the file. 
    [keyfile]
 unmanaged-devices+=interface-name:enp*;interface-name:ens*
    Note: enp* indicates all interfaces starting with enp. For specific interface names, provided a comma-separated list.
  3. Restart the NetworkManager service by running the command, sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.
  4. Edit the sysctl file on the host and paste the following content in it: 
    net.ipv6.conf.default.addr_gen_mode=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.addr_gen_mode=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.autoconf=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.autoconf=0
  5. Run the command sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf to load the new sysctl.conf values on the host.
Verify the core_pattern value is set on the host before deploying JCNR:
sysctl kernel.core_pattern
kernel.core_pattern = |/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-coredump %P %u %g %s %t %c %h %e

You can update the core_pattern in /etc/sysctl.conf. For example:

kernel.core_pattern=/var/crash/core_%e_%p_%i_%s_%h_%t.gz

Port Requirements

Juniper Cloud-Native Router listens on certain TCP and UDP ports. This section lists the port requirements for the cloud-native router.

Table 4: Cloud-Native Router Listening Ports
Protocol Port Description
TCP 8085 vRouter introspect–Used to gain internal statistical information about vRouter
TCP 8072 Telemetry Information-Used to see telemetry data from JCNR control plane
TCP 9091 vRouter health check–cloud-native router checks to ensure contrail-vrouter-dpdk process is running, etc.
TCP 50052 gRPC port–JCNR listens on both IPv4 and IPv6
TCP 8081 JCNR Deployer Port
TCP 22 cRPD SSH
TCP 830 cRPD NETCONF
TCP 666 rpd
TCP 1883 Mosquito mqtt–Publish/subscribe messaging utility
TCP 9500 agentd on cRPD
TCP 21883 na-mqttd
TCP 50051 jsd on cRPD
TCP 51051 jsd on cRPD
UDP 50055 Syslog-NG

Download Options

To deploy JCNR on GCP you can either download the helm charts from the Juniper Support Site or subscribe via the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Note: Before deploying JCNR on GCP via helm charts downloaded from the Juniper support site, you must whitelist https://enterprise.hub.juniper.net as the JCNR image registry.

JCNR Licensing

Starting with Juniper Cloud-Native Router (JCNR) Release 22.2, we have enabled our Juniper Agile Licensing (JAL) model. JAL ensures that features are used in compliance with Juniper's end-user license agreement. You can purchase licenses for the Juniper Cloud-Native Router software through your Juniper Account Team. You can apply the licenses by using the CLI of the cloud-native router controller. For details about managing multiple license files for multiple cloud-native router deployments, see Juniper Agile Licensing Overview.

Note:

Starting with JCNR Release 23.2, the JCNR license format has changed. Request a new license key from the JAL portal before deploying or upgrading to 23.2 or newer releases.