Summary

Bootstrap a Nexus Dashboard cluster.

Features

• Supports IPv4 connectivity to Nexus Dashboard and ready for IPv6 if/when ND bootstrap supports it.
• Verified to work with Nexus Dashboard versions
  • 3.2(2)m
  • 4.1(1)g
• Uses environment variables for Nexus Dashboard connection and authentication
  • More secure than hardcoding credentials in the configuration file
  • Easier to integrate with CI/CD pipelines and secret management systems
  • Easier to use with shell scripts and automation tools
• Loads and validates a YAML configuration file
  • Separation of config from code
  • Create unique config file for each Nexus Dashboard setup
  • Example configuration files provided for ND versions 3.2(2)m and 4.1(1)g
• Validates that NTP servers are reachable and compatible from Nexus Dashboard's perspective prior to POST
• Retrieves node credentials from environment variables and dynamically updates the node configurations prior to POST
  • More secure and flexible than hardcoding credentials in the configuration file
• Retrieves node serial numbers from Nexus Dashboard and dynamically updates the node configurations prior to POST
  • No need to manually specify serial numbers in the configuration file
• Supports a --dry-run flag to perform all validation steps but skip the request to bootstrap the cluster
• Supports a --poll-status flag to poll for both bootstrap and services installation completion before exiting
  • polling behavior can be controlled with --retries and --interval flags
    • Default --retries is 100
    • Default --interval is 10 seconds
    • --retries and --interval are reset for each polling phase (bootstrap polling and install polling), hence:
      • Bootstrap polling timeout is 1000 seconds by default (100 x 10)
      • Install polling timeout is 1000 seconds by default (100 x 10)
• Posts the configuration to Nexus Dashboard after the terminal-based bringup is complete
  • That is, the CLI-based initial setup must still be performed manually to set the password, IP address, and gateway
• Modular design with classes for environment, login, configuration, NTP validation, and bootstrapping
• Uses requests library for HTTP interactions
• Uses PyYAML for YAML parsing
• Includes detailed error handling and informative messages

Environment Variables

The following environment variables define the connectivity parameters when connecting to Nexus Dashboard.

• ND_IP4: The IPv4 address of the Nexus Dashboard
• ND_IP6: The IPv6 address of the Nexus Dashboard
• ND_IP_PROTOCOL: The IP protocol to use, either "IP4" or "IP6". Default is "IP4".
• ND_USERNAME: The username to authenticate with Nexus Dashboard
• ND_PASSWORD: The password to authenticate with Nexus Dashboard
• ND_DOMAIN: The domain to authenticate with Nexus Dashboard. Default is "local".

Quick start

1. Repository setup

It's highly recommended to use a virtual environment, per below.

cd $HOME/repos/nd-bootstrap
python3 -m venv .venv --prompt nd-bootstrap
pip install uv
uv sync
# For development
uv sync --extra dev

Note, both of the example configuration files (322m for ND 3.2(2)m and 411g for ND4.1(1)g) are tailored to Nexus Dashboard running under KVM (aka vNd/KVM). We will include example configuration files for physical Nexus Dashboard appliances (pNd) and vNd running under VMmare ESXi once these have been tested.

2. Separately, perform initial manual CLI-based Nexus Dashboard setup

• Set and confirm the admin password
• Set the IPv4 address with mask e.g. 192.168.7.14/24
• Set the gateway e.g. 192.168.7.1
• Set whether the node is cluster leader

This will look similar to the below.

<skip stuff>

Press any key to run first-boot setup on this console...

Starting Nexus Dashboard setup utility
Welcome to Nexus Dashboard 3.2.2m
Press Enter to manually bootstrap your node...
Admin Password: ****
Reenter Admin Password: ****
Management Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.7.14/24
  Gateway: 192.168.7.1
Is Cluster Leader? Note: only one node in the cluster must be leader. (Y/n): y

Please review the config
Cluster Leader: true
Management Network:
  Gateway: 192.168.7.1
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.7.14/24

Re-enter config?(y/N): n

System configured successfully

<skip stuff>

System initialized successfully
Please wait for system to boot : [########################################] 100%
System up, please wait for UI to be online.

System UI online, please login to https://192.168.7.14 to continue.




Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS localhost ttyS0

localhost login:

3. Set the environment variables used by this script as shown below

Note, these could be set in a shell script tailored to a specific Nexus Dashboard instance, and collections of these scripts built up for your various Nexus Dashboard instances.

Nexus Dashboard bootstrap currently supports IPv4 only.

# optional, defaults to local
export ND_DOMAIN=local
# optional preferred IP protocol, defaults to IP4
export ND_IP_PROTOCOL=IP4
export ND_IP4=192.168.7.14
# optional, (mandatory if ND_IP_PROTOCOL is set to IP6)
export ND_IP6=2001:db8::1
export ND_PASSWORD=MyPassword
export ND_USERNAME=admin

4. Run the script with --dry-run to validate the configuration

Optionally use the --dry-run flag to validate the configuration, NTP server compatibility, and reachability, without posting the configuration.

cd $HOME/repos/nd-bootstrap
./nd_bootstrap.py nd_bootstrap_322m_vnode.yaml --dry-run

5. Run the script without --dry-run to post the configuration to Nexus Dashboard and poll for bootstrap and services install completion

cd $HOME/repos/nd-bootstrap
./nd_bootstrap.py nd_bootstrap_322m_vnode.yaml --poll-status --retries 200 --interval 5

Example script output

For example script output, see the files in develop/example_output.