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Installing the Virtual Route Reflector Image on KVM

Before you install vRR:

  1. Download the vRR software package (vrr-*.tgz) from the Virtual Route Reflector page and uncompress the package in a location accessible to the server.

  2. (For Ubuntu) Prepare the Ubuntu host by disabling APIC virtualization.

    Edit the /etc/modprobe.d/qemu-system-x86.conf file and add enable_apicv=0 to the line containing options kvm_intel.

    Reboot the host or unload and reload the kernel module.

  3. (For CentOS) Copy the vRR image to the libvirtd directory and rename it with the name of your VM.

    Note:

    For Junos Releases 15.1 >= Junos Os Releases < 16.1, use the unified package.

    Convert the vmdk image to qcow2 format using the qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 vmdk-filename qcow2-filename command. For example: qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 junos-x86-64-15.1R1.9.vmdk junos-x86-64-15.1R1.9.qcow2

    Starting with Junos OS Release 16.1, use the VRR KVM bundle: vrr-bundle-kvm-21.1R1.11.tgz. Only the qcow2 image within the KVM bundle: junos-x86-64-*.img is required to bring up VRR (you don't have to use the metadata.img).

    For example, these commands copy the download image to the vrr-VM01.img file in the libvirtd/images directory:

To install vRR, perform these tasks:

Configuring the Linux Bridges

You must set up these Linux bridges for the vRR interfaces to have proper connectivity.

  • em0 interface (for example, vrr-mgmt)

  • em1 interface (for example, vrr-ext)

Note:

The em0 interface can only function as a management interface. You cannot use the em0 interface for routing configurations.

For remote connectivity to the vRR instance, you can add physical interfaces from the host.

The bridges are not persistent across reboots. To make them permanent, you must add them to the appropriate configuration files for your Linux distribution.

To configure the bridges:

  1. Create the bridges.

    Verify that the bridges have been created with the brctl show command.

  2. For each bridge, an interface with the same name is created on the system. Make sure these interfaces are in an Admin Up state.

    Verify that the interfaces are up with the ip link show command.

  3. To provide remote connectivity for the vRR instance, add physical interfaces to these bridges.
Note:

KVM installations support virtio driver for the em1 and em2 interfaces.

Launching the vRR VM

The physical interfaces are mapped to the VM interfaces (such as em0) using Linux bridging. Figure 1 illustrates this mapping. You can use an XML template or the virt-install utility to create this interface mapping when you launch the vRR VM.

Figure 1: vRR Interface MappingvRR Interface Mapping

To launch the VRR instance:

  1. You can use the virsh create command or the virt-install utility.

    • Use the virsh create vrr-instance-name.xml command with the XML template file.

      For example: virsh create vrr.xml

      Here is a sample XML template file for vrr.xml.

    • (For Junos OS Release 14.1 or 14.2) You can use the virt-install utility.

      where:

      --name

      Specifies the name of the vRR instance.
      --disk

      Specifies the path to the image file.

      For example:

      Note:

      After you have installed and started the vRR instance, you can access the serial console port for the VM using the Telnet protocol. For example: telnet 127.0.0.1 5025

  2. You can connect to the VM console using the virsh console vrr-instance-name command.

    Wait for the system to boot and present the login prompt. You can log in and configure vRR as you would normally do on a router.

    To disconnect from the console, press Ctrl + ].

  3. Verify that your VM is installed as vRR using the show version command.
    Note:

    The model must appear as vrr.

    For example:

  4. Verify that your VM is installed using the show interfaces terse command. The added interfaces appear as em interfaces. For example:

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