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Joe LeVeque edited this page Mar 6, 2017 · 9 revisions

Description

This guide details the steps to install a SONiC image on your supported switch.

Download Image

We have one SONiC Image per ASIC vendor. You can download SONiC Image here

You can also build SONiC from source and the instructions can be found here.

Installation

Install SONiC ONIE Image

  1. Connect to switch via serial console.

  2. (Optional) Some switches may come with a NOS which will require you to uninstall the existing NOS first before you install SONiC. To do so, simply boot into ONIE and select Uninstall OS:

                         GNU GRUB  version 2.02~beta2+e4a1fe391
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |*ONIE: Install OS                                                           | 
 | ONIE: Rescue                                                               |
 | ONIE: Uninstall OS  <----- Select this one                                 |
 | ONIE: Update ONIE                                                          |
 | ONIE: Embed ONIE                                                           |
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

      Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.          
      Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands       
      before booting or `c' for a command-line.

  3. Reboot the switch into ONIE and select Install OS:

                         GNU GRUB  version 2.02~beta2+e4a1fe391
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |*ONIE: Install OS    <----- Select this one                                 | 
 | ONIE: Rescue                                                               |
 | ONIE: Uninstall OS                                                         |
 | ONIE: Update ONIE                                                          |
 | ONIE: Embed ONIE                                                           |
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

      Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.          
      Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands       
      before booting or `c' for a command-line.

  4. Install SONiC. Here, we assume you have uploaded SONiC image onto a http server (192.168.2.10). Once you are in ONIE, you can first configure a management IP (192.168.0.2/24)and default gateway (192.168.0.1) for your switch, and then install the SONiC image from the http server.

    ONIE:/ # ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0
ONIE:/ # ip route add default via 192.168.0.1
ONIE:/ # onie-nos-install http://192.168.2.10/sonic-broadcom.bin

Note: There are many options to install SONiC ONIE image on a ONIE-enabled switch. For more installation options, visit the ONIE Quick Start Guide.

When NOS installation finishes, the box will reboot into SONiC by default.

                    GNU GRUB  version 2.02~beta2+e4a1fe391

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*SONiC-OS-7069cef                                                           | 
| ONIE                                                                       | 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

SONiC Login prompt. Use username admin and password YourPaSsWoRd to login for the first time.

Debian GNU/Linux 8 sonic ttyS0

sonic login:

Note: By default, the SONiC console baud rate is 9600. You may need to change the baud rate in case you cannot see anything from the console after reboot.

SONiC Welcome Message of the Day:

You are on
  ____   ___  _   _ _  ____
 / ___| / _ \| \ | (_)/ ___|
 \___ \| | | |  \| | | |
  ___) | |_| | |\  | | |___
 |____/ \___/|_| \_|_|\____|

-- Software for Open Networking In the Cloud --

Unauthorized access and/or use are prohibited.
All access and/or use are subject to monitoring.

admin@sonic:~$

Install SONiC EOS Image

  • This section is only applicable if you plan to install a SONiC image on Arista switches.

Installing SONiC EOS uses the same steps you would use to upgrade a normal EOS image. You simply download a SONiC EOS image to an Arista box, select to boot from the image and reload the box.

localhost#copy http://192.168.2.10/sonic-aboot-broadcom.swi flash: 
Copy completed successfully.                                                    
localhost(config)#boot system flash:sonic-aboot-broadcom.swi  
localhost(config)#reload 
System configuration has been modified. Save? [yes/no/cancel/diff]:no 
Proceed with reload? [confirm] [type enter] 
 
Broadcast message from root@localhost 
        (unknown) at 8:22 ... 

..... (boot messages)

 
Debian GNU/Linux 8 sonic ttyS0 
 
sonic login:

Configuration

SONiC uses a device minigraph file to configure the box. The minigraph file is at /etc/sonic/minigraph.xml. SONiC generates the actual configuration for each docker based on this file.

The device minigraph contains all the information about a given device. In particular, it has all the information required to generate the device configuration as well as other data plane and control plane related information. At a high level, the device minigraph contains following information. You can find a detailed description of the device minigraph here

  • Device information
    • Type/Role
    • SKU
    • Loopback address (IPV4 and IPV6)
    • Management address (IPV4 and IPV6)
  • Device Metadata
    • Syslog servers
    • DHCP relay servers
    • NTP servers
  • Device Links
    • All the links start and end at the device.
    • Link Metadata
      • Metadata associated with all the links (name value pairs).
  • DeviceDataPlaneInfo
    • Port channel
    • Vlan
    • ACL
    • IP addresses
  • BGP information
    • BGP AS Number
    • Peers and Peering sessions

Command line

SONiC includes commands that allow user to show platform, transceivers, L2, IP, BGP status, etc.

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