Some operators use third-party or self-build NMS and need to discover the nodes using OSPF and its Type 10 opaque LSA TLV.When a node is discovered through OSPF, the NMS will push the new configuration to the node and perform any other required modifications using CLI (SSH and/or Telnet).
A node is configured with a network element profile. A network element profile has all of the necessary information for node discovery, including the node NEID, NEIP, Vendor Identifier, chassis type, and MAC address. The network element profile can be added to an OSPF area in VPRN and when it is, the network element information is advertised using OSPF type 10 opaque LSA to the rest of the network. These discovery procedures are only available in VPRN.
An aggregation node (node closest to the NMS) gathers all of the network element information received using OSPF and converts this information into a MIB. The aggregation node also generates traps as necessary to update the NMS when the configure system network-element-discovery generate-traps command is configured. In addition to the traps, the NMS can walk the MIB table to update its new view of the network.
The node can be discovered using an IPv4 or IPv6 NEIP but the advertisement protocol is always OSPFv2; OSPFv3 is not supported. If the NMS wants to discover a node in an IPv6 network, both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 must be enabled. OSPFv2 will advertise the node information to the aggregation node to generate the traps and build the MIB table but OSPFv3 will be used to provide the routing information needed to reach that node using an IPv6 network.
The minimum configuration required on the node so that it can be discovered includes:
As all discovery is done using the VPRN SAP, there is no need for GRT configuration.
A network element profile is created for the system with all the information needed for node discovery using the commands below. This information will be flooded to the network using IGP.
This profile can be assigned to a VPRN OSPFv2 area for advertisement. Only one profile can be created for each node.
If a value is not set, the following default values are used for these optional parameters:
When a network element profile is assigned to OSPFv2, its information will be advertised using LSA type 10 opaque. Use the following commands to assign a network element profile to OSPFv2:
The network element information will not be added to the routing table (RIB) or forwarding table (FIB), this includes the NEIP. If the NEIP of the profile needs to be visible to the network then a loopback interface or a physical interface must be configured with the same IP address as the NEIP and added to the OSPFv2 area.
For example, if the following profile is created, the NEIP is duplicated in a loopback interface address. This is because the NEIP is only used in type 10 LSA and is not added to the RIB or FIB. Type 10 LSA is only used to relay the information to the NMS. As such, the loopback interface with the same IP address as the NEIP, must be assigned to the same OSPF area to ensure the address is injected into the RIB and FIB of all nodes and is reachable. If this loopback interface is not configured and not added to OSPF then SR OS will not have any route entry in the RIB or FIB for the NEIP.
OSPF Opaque LSA packets are made up of the following, as shown in Figure 20.

| Note: Type 10 opaque LSA can only be added to OSPFv2 and not OSPFv3. |
OSPF Opaque LSA type 10 TLV contains the following information:
Both IPv4 and IPv6 node discovery is supported. However, LSA type 10 is only advertised on OSPFv2 and not OSPFv3. If the operator wants to use IPv6 or dual-stack, OSPFv2 must be configured under VPRN to advertise the node information using LSA type 10 opaque. In addition, OSPFV3 can also be enabled to advertise IPv6 routes and interfaces for IPv6 reachability. If both IPv4 and IPv6 are configured on the loopback interface within the VPRN (dual-stack) then both values are sent in the OSPFv2 LSA type 10, NMS will prefer one over the other. In this case, all discovered routers must be configured with dual-stack OSPFv2 and OSPFv3.
SR OS supports the OSPF option for ZTP. The network element identifier (NEID) is configured using the chassis MAC address and the network element IP address (NEIP) is derived from the NEID. The first few slots and ports are auto-provisioned and the ZTP process tries to establish OSPF adjacency on these slots and ports to communicate the node information using type 10 opaque LSAs.
On a data communication network (DCN), a network element (NE) is uniquely identified by an ID (NEID), not by an IP address. Each NE is assigned a default NEID manually or through the auto-provisioning process.
The assigned NEIDs on a specific DCN must be different from each other because they represent the unique identities of the NEs on that DCN. If the NEIDs of two NEs on a DCN are identical, route flapping occurs.
The NEID range is from 0x10001 to 0xFEFFFE and consists of a subnet ID and basic ID. The first 8 most significant bits represent the subnet ID, which ranges from 0x1 to 0xFE. The 16 least significant bits represent the basic ID, which ranges from 0x0001 to 0xFFFE.
NEIP addresses help managed terminals to access the NEs and allow addressing between NEs in IP networking. An NEIP address consists of a network number and a host number. A network number uniquely identifies a physical or logical link. All NEs along the same link have the same network number. A network number is obtained using the AND operation on the 32-bit IP address and corresponding subnet mask.
The NEIP address is derived from the NEID when the NE is initialized. The NEIP address is in the format 140.subnet number.basic ID. The vendor has assigned 140.x.y.z for Nokia routers.
For example, if the NEID is 0x09BFE0, which is 1001.10111111.11100000 in binary format, the NEIP address is derived as follows.
Until the NEIP is configured manually, the NEIP address is derived from the NEID; changes to the NEID cause the associated NEIP address to change. After the NEIP address is configured manually, that NEIP no longer changes when the associated NEID changes.
The IPv4 format of NEIP is x.y.a.b. Where:
x is the vendor ID value
y is NEID subnet
a.b is the host portion of the NEID.
The following CLI commands configure the auto-generation of NEID and NEIP.
The node is auto-provisioned using OSPF if the auto-boot ospf flag is set in the BOF. When this flag is set, the node automatically creates the necessary configuration for a management VPRN and automatically generates the NEIP as described in Auto-generate Configuration. The NEID must be configured and staged as described in NEIP and NEID Auto-generate CLI Configuration.
When the auto-boot ospf flag is set in the BOF, the node is configured in the following sequence:
Node discovery is done through a VPRN and SAP interface. A GRT configuration is not required.
When the auto-boot ospf flag is used without any options, the NEID is auto-generated from the chassis MAC address. The least significant bytes of the chassis MAC address can be 00 or FF. These values are invalid as least significant bytes of an IP address. SR OS uses the following methods to mitigate these invalid bytes.
If the auto-boot ospf flag is set in the BOF, the node enters auto-discovery mode and automatically creates the management VPRN and its required configuration.
The auto-boot ospf flag has options that can be set manually in the BOF or by editing the bof.cfg file. For information about the options, see the auto-boot ospf command description in the Classic CLI Command Reference Guide.
The loopback address and the Router ID in the management VPRN are set to the NEIP address automatically. When auto-boot ospf is executed, the configuration is generated automatically.
After node connectivity has been established, these addresses can be changed by an administrator account. If these addresses are changed using the CLI, OSPF renegotiates its neighboring session and uses the new addresses.
The only way to regenerate these addresses automatically is to change the bof auto-boot ospf option and to reboot the node.
If no options are specified for auto-boot ospf, the management VPRN configuration is set as follows.
If options are specified for auto-boot ospf, they are used when the management VPRN CLI is created automatically. The mapping of the auto-boot ospf options to CLI commands is as follows:
option neid—command: configure system network-element-discovery profile neid hex-string
option:neip-ipv4—command: configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv4 a.b.c.d
option: neip-ipv6—command: configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv6 x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x
option: no explicit neip-ipv4 or neip-ipv6 set—commands: configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv4 auto-generate and configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv6 auto-generate
option: vendor-id set and no explicit neip-ipv4 or neip-ipv6 value—commands: configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv4 auto-generate [vendor-id-value value] and configure system network-element-discovery profile neip ipv6 auto-generate [vendor-id-value value]
option: ospf-mtu—command: configure service vprn ospf area interface mtu
option: port-mtu—command: configure port ethernet mtu
The node is shipped with the default bof.cfg file. The operator must stage the node and execute auto-boot ospf and the NEID accordingly.
At bootup, the application reads the ospf flag and performs the following functions.
This configuration process forces the node to generate its auto-discovery profile and to advertise it through OSPF to the rest of the network.
An aggregation node must be configured manually and cannot be auto-discovered. This is because the node is connected to the NMS and must have an SNMP configuration to connect to the NMS.
The node can be configured to generate the NEIP automatically using configuration under the NE profile:
If auto-boot ospf vendor-id 140 or configure system network-element-discovery profile profile-name vendor-id Nokia is set, the IP address is 140.9.c.d.
When the NMS has discovered the nodes, the NMS or the user can SSH to the node and clear the auto-boot ospf flag manually. In addition, the following operational guidelines apply.
Most access topologies are ring-based, for which two interfaces are required with OSPF adjacency in VPRN. Two ports based on the chassis and auto-boot ospf options must be created and used to establish OSPF neighbor adjacencies. These interfaces should be created with VLAN 4094 for the auto-discovery process.
The node declares auto-provisioning success when the OSPF adjacency is created and the node has advertised the type 10 opaque LSA TLV with the node information using OSPF. When a single OSPF adjacency is created, the auto-boot ospf process declares success and does not reboot the node; the node resumes normal operational mode. However, the process tries indefinitely to bring up OSPF on other ports with link up.
If the NMS has discovered the node, the operator can log in to the node and disable auto-boot ospf.
To terminate auto-boot ospf, the user must telnet or SSH to the node and use the option in the user prompt or the tools command.
If auto-boot ospf is not successful (that is, no OSPF adjacency is found) for 30 minutes, the node is rebooted and auto-boot is retried.
The auto-boot command without the ospf flag executes ZTP with DHCP discovery. The ospf flag forces the node discovery using OSPF.
Detailed auto-provisioning logs are gathered in a dedicated log queue that can be displayed with the tools dump auto-boot log command. At the end of ZTP, these logs are also written to the autoboot.log file.
While the node is running auto-provisioning, the console is accessible and node configuration is possible and accepted. If the configuration is saved during the auto-provisioning, the save operation is honored.If ZTP is running in the background, a warning message is displayed on each login to notify the user that the system can reboot as a result of ZTP.
If the node is executing auto provisioning (auto-boot), a warning message is displayed when the user logs in. The warning message gives the user the option of terminating the auto-boot process. The auto-boot ospf flag is cleared only if the user logs into the discovered node and disables the flag using telnet/SSH or SNMP.
Auto-boot OSPF provisioning is a one-step process. If the OSPF adjacency is successfully initiated to the neighbor and goes operationally up, OSPF advertises the NE profile to the neighbor.
The management VPRN is deleted only if the user explicitly deletes it using VPRN configuration commands.
The NE information is configured under the configure system network-element-discovery context using profiles. More than one profile can exist and each profile can be assigned to a different VPRN. Each VPRN can only have a single profile and, as such, a single NEID and NEIP.
The advertise-ne-profile can be assigned under service vprn ospf area. When this profile is assigned, OSPF advertises the NE information to its neighbors through type 10 opaque LSA.
An aggregation node, attached to NMS through a VPRN service, aggregates all nodes to be discovered using the same VPRN. The node is configured with:
This node converts the OSPF LSA type 10 opaque information arriving from the discovered nodes into an SNMP MIB table and updates the NMS with the MIB. The NMS uses the MIB to discover the node and opens a SSH or Telnet session to configure the node accordingly.
The node to be discovered is provisioned with a management VRF as described in Node Discovery Procedure. All of the necessary node information needed for the node discovery is advertised by OSPF using LSA type 10 opaque. Nodes can be chained together, so the LSA type 10 needs to be forwarded all the way to the aggregation node.
NMS discovers the node using SNMP MIB traps or it can walk the MIB table.
NMS connects to the discovered node using SSH or Telnet to update the configuration by CLI. The operator must ensure that none of their commands will disable the management VPRN and disconnect the discovered node from NMS.
A new vendor-proprietary MIB table for node discovery, tmnxVRtrNeInfoTable, is defined as part of TIMETRA-VRTR-MIB.mib. This MIB table is used by the NMS to gather all node information by walking the table, for example, after an NMS reboot.
This MIB table is built on any node that receives OSPF type 10 LSA.
The MIB table should be built with a key of VRF and NEID and a data portion of neid, vendor identify, platform type, system-mac, neip-v4, and neip-v6.
The MIB parameters are:
The MIB walk is as follows:
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeidHex.7.0.65.66.67 = STRING: 0:41:42:43
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV4Type.7.0.65.66.67 = INTEGER: ipv4(1)
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV4.7.0.65.66.67 = Hex-STRING: 80 09 0A 01
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV4PrefixLen.7.0.65.66.67 = Gauge32: 32
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV6Type.7.0.65.66.67 = INTEGER: ipv6(2)
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV6.7.0.65.66.67 = Hex-STRING: 3F FE 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 09 0A 01
tmnxVRtrNeInfoNeipV6PrefixLen.7.0.65.66.67 = Gauge32: 128
tmnxVRtrNeInfoSystemMac.7.0.65.66.67 = STRING: e:0:0:0:0:1
tmnxVRtrNeInfoPlatformType.7.0.65.66.67 = STRING: Dut-B,7750 SR-12e_ndef
tmnxVRtrNeInfoVendorId.7.0.65.66.67 = STRING: NokiaNotDefault
The discovery table should be walkable by the NMS. The NMS can walk the entire table or get a specific row using the appropriate key. This is required when the NMS is rebooted or needs to update its entire database.
In addition, every time a node is updated, added, or removed from the OSPF opaque database (using LSA type 10 opaque update) a trap is sent to the NMS to notify the NMS of the change if the configure system network-element-discovery generate-traps command is configured. These traps are: