Cisco CSR 1000v Programming manual

Troubleshooting Cisco CSR 1000v VM Issues
•Verifying the Cisco CSR 1000v Hardware and VM Requirements, on page 1
•Troubleshooting Network Connectivity Issues, on page 1
•Troubleshooting VM Performance Issues, on page 2
Verifying the Cisco CSR 1000v Hardware and VM Requirements
To help troubleshoot issues with the Cisco CSR 1000v, make sure that the router is installed on supported
hardware and that the VM requirements are being met:
• Verify that the server hardware is supported by the hypervisor vendor.
If using VMware, verify that the server is listed on the VMware Hardware Compatibility List. See the
VMware documentation for more information.
• Verify that the I/O devices (for example, FC, iSCSI, SAS) being used are supported by the VM vendor.
• Verify that sufficient RAM is allocated on the server for the VMs and the hypervisor host.
If using VMware, make sure the server has enough RAM to support both the VMs and VMware ESXi.
• Verify the hypervisor version is supported by the Cisco CSR 1000v.
• Verify that the correct VM settings for the amount of memory, number of CPUs, and disk size are
configured.
• Verify that the vNICs are configured using a supported network driver. See Installation Overview.
Also see Cisco CSR 1000v Release Notes.
Troubleshooting Network Connectivity Issues
To troubleshoot network connectivity issues for the Cisco CSR 1000v, do the following:
• Verify that there is an active and unexpired license installed on the VM.
Enter the show license command. The License State should be shown as “Active, In Use”.
• Verify that the vNIC for the VMs are connected to the correct physical NIC, or to the proper vSwitch.
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• If using virtual LANS (VLANs), make sure the vSwitch is configured with the correct VLAN.
• If using static MAC addresses, or VMs that are cloned, make sure there are no duplicate MAC addresses.
Duplicate MAC addresses can cause the Cisco CSR 1000v feature license to become invalidated, which
will disable the router interfaces.
Troubleshooting VM Performance Issues
The Cisco CSR 1000v operates within a set of supported VM parameters and settings to provide certain levels
of performance that have been tested by Cisco. Use the vSphere Client to view data to troubleshoot VM
performance. If you are using vCenter, you can view historical data. If you are not using vCenter, you can
view live data from the host.
This is a list of troubleshooting tips for performance issues:
Troubleshooting—MTU
Verify that the router has the correct setting for maximum MTU.
By default, the maximum MTU on the router is 1500. To support jumbo frames, edit the default VMware
vSwitch settings. For more information, see the VMware vSwitch documentation.
ESXi 5.0 supports a maximum MTU of 9000, even if jumbo frames are enabled on the router.
Note
Troubleshooting—Memory
The Cisco CSR 1000v does not support memory sharing between VMs. On the ESXi host, check the memory
counters to find out how much used memory and shared memory is on the VM. Verify that the balloon and
swap used counters are zero.
If a given VM does not have enough memory to support the Cisco CSR 1000v, increase the size of the VM’s
memory. Insufficient memory on the VM or the host can cause the Cisco CSR 1000v console to hang and be
non-responsive.
When troubleshooting performance issues, note that other VMs on the same host as the Cisco CSR 1000v
can impact the performance of the Cisco CSR 1000v VM. Verify that other VMs on the host are not causing
memory issues that are impacting the Cisco CSR 1000v VM.
Note
Troubleshooting—Network Packets
Verify that no network packets are being dropped. On the ESXi host, check the network performance and
view the counters to measure the number of receive packets and transmit packets dropped.
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Troubleshooting Cisco CSR 1000v VM Issues
Troubleshooting VM Performance Issues

Troubleshooting—Throughput
Verify the current maximum throughput level with the show platform hardware throughput level command.
Troubleshooting—Instruction Extensions
Some x86 processors support instruction extensions for performing certain cryptographic transforms. Using
these instructions is more efficient than not using them. The Cisco CSR 1000v/ISRv detects at runtime if the
instruction extensions are available and will use them if they are available. To determine if the extensions are
available, enter the show platform software system all command. (See the example below.)
If the output shows that "Crypto Supported" is "No", then the Cisco CSR 1000v/ISRv may not exhibit the
expected throughput. This is an issue with either the underlying physical hardware or the hypervisor. Check
to see if the underlying physical hardware is capable of exposing the extensions and also check to see if the
hypervisor can expose the extensions.
If the output shows that "Crypto Supported" is "Yes", then the Cisco CSR 1000v/ISRv should provide the
expected throughput, because the physical hardware and the hypervisor can expose the extensions.
In the following example, "Crypto Supported" is "Yes". Therefore the cryptographic transforms can use
instruction extensions, and perform efficiently.
CSR1# show platform software system all
Processor Details
=================
Number of Processors : 4
Processor : 1 - 4
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu MHz : 3192.307
cache size : 20480 KB
Crypto Supported : Yes
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Troubleshooting Cisco CSR 1000v VM Issues
Troubleshooting—Throughput

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Troubleshooting Cisco CSR 1000v VM Issues
Troubleshooting—Instruction Extensions