Cisco Nexus 9000 Series User manual

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Catena Configuration Guide, Release
7.x
First Published: 2017-05-16
Last Modified: 2017-12-08
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CONTENTS
Preface Preface v
Audience v
Document Conventions v
Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches vi
Documentation Feedback vi
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request vii
CHAPTER 1 New and Changed Information 1
New and Changed Information 1
CHAPTER 2 Configuring the Catena Solution 3
About the Catena Solution 3
Catena Feature Overview 3
Benefits of Catena 4
Licensing Requirements for Catena 4
Guidelines and Limitations for Catena 5
Enabling Chaining using Deployment Modes 5
Transparent Mode 6
TCAM Based Load Balancing 6
Hash-Load Balancing 6
Routed Mode 7
VRF Support 7
Catena Configuration Process 7
Enabling or Disabling the Catena Solution 8
Configuring a Port Group 8
Configuring a VLAN Group 9
Configuring a Device Group 10
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Configuring an IP ACL 12
Configuring a Port ACL 13
Configuring a Catena Instance 14
Enabling a Catena Instance 15
Verifying the Catena Configuration 16
Displaying Catena Analytics 17
Configuration Examples of Catena Instances 17
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Contents

Preface
This preface includes the following sections:
•Audience, page v
•Document Conventions, page v
•Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches, page vi
•Documentation Feedback, page vi
•Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request, page vii
Audience
This publication is for network administrators who install, configure, and maintain Cisco Nexus switches.
Document Conventions
Command descriptions use the following conventions:
DescriptionConvention
Bold text indicates the commands and keywords that you enter literally
as shown.
bold
Italic text indicates arguments for which the user supplies the values.
Italic
Square brackets enclose an optional element (keyword or argument).[x]
Square brackets enclosing keywords or arguments separated by a vertical
bar indicate an optional choice.
[x | y]
Braces enclosing keywords or arguments separated by a vertical bar
indicate a required choice.
{x | y}
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DescriptionConvention
Nested set of square brackets or braces indicate optional or required
choices within optional or required elements. Braces and a vertical bar
within square brackets indicate a required choice within an optional
element.
[x {y | z}]
Indicates a variable for which you supply values, in context where italics
cannot be used.
variable
A nonquoted set of characters. Do not use quotation marks around the
string or the string will include the quotation marks.
string
Examples use the following conventions:
DescriptionConvention
Terminal sessions and information the switch displays are in screen font.screen font
Information you must enter is in boldface screen font.boldface screen font
Arguments for which you supply values are in italic screen font.
italic screen font
Nonprinting characters, such as passwords, are in angle brackets.< >
Default responses to system prompts are in square brackets.[ ]
An exclamation point (!) or a pound sign (#) at the beginning of a line
of code indicates a comment line.
!, #
Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches
The entire Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switch documentation set is available at the following URL:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps13386/tsd_products_support_series_home.html
Documentation Feedback
To provide technical feedback on this document, or to report an error or omission, please send your comments
to [email protected]. We appreciate your feedback.
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Preface
Related Documentation for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service
request, and gathering additional information, see What's New in Cisco Product Documentation at: http://
www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html.
Subscribe to What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, which lists all new and revised Cisco technical
documentation as an RSS feed and delivers content directly to your desktop using a reader application. The
RSS feeds are a free service.
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Catena Configuration Guide, Release 7.x
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Preface
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

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Preface
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

CHAPTER 1
New and Changed Information
This chapter provides release-specific information for each new and changed feature in the Cisco Nexus
9000 Series NX-OS Catena Configuration Guide, Release 7.x..
•New and Changed Information, page 1
New and Changed Information
This table summarizes the new and changed features for the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Catena
Configuration Guide and where they are documented.
Table 1: New and Changed Features
Where DocumentedChanged
in
Release
DescriptionFeature
Configuring the Catena
Solution, on page 3
7.0(3)I7(1)Introduced this feature.Hash load balancing
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
NX-OS Catena Configuration
Guide
7.0(3)I6(1)Introduced this feature.The Catena solution
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New and Changed Information
New and Changed Information

CHAPTER 2
Configuring the Catena Solution
This chapter describes how to configure Catena on a Cisco NX-OS device.
This chapter includes the following sections:
•About the Catena Solution, page 3
•Licensing Requirements for Catena, page 4
•Guidelines and Limitations for Catena, page 5
•Enabling Chaining using Deployment Modes, page 5
•Catena Configuration Process, page 7
•Configuration Examples of Catena Instances, page 17
About the Catena Solution
Catena provides hardware (TCAM) based application chaining solution for Cisco Nexus devices so that
packets can be redirected through multiple physical or virtual devices without changing the topology or the
existing configuration. The solution works with all L4-L7 virtual and physical devices, such as firewalls, IPS,
IDS, DOS Protection, WAAS, SSL offload engines, networking monitoring devices, switches, virtual appliances,
and containers.
Catena Feature Overview
Catena allows you to create several chains with multiple elements in each chain. You can configure security
policies to specify segments of traffic through a particular chain. For example, an element could be a cluster
of devices, in which case, catena load-balances to the cluster. Catena performs health monitoring and failure
handling of devices.
Some of the key features of Catena are as follows:
Catena supports IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.Note
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•Increases wire-speed performance.
•Adds zero-latency to traffic.
•Allows you to insert additional appliances with minimal configuration changes to existing device
architecture, and so not require complex changes to the wiring.
•Deploys appliances with zero-touch feature. Catena does not need special header or data path packet
modification that is compatible with your existing hardware and software. As a result any appliance
works without any special certification or support from the vendor.
•Provides selective traffic chaining using ACLs. For example, any traffic entering at the ingress port is
matched against your ACL. If the traffic matches your ACL it is ingested into the traffic chain.
•Redirects line-rate traffic to multiple appliances.
•Monitors health of the devices using PING (ICMP), TCP, UDP, or DNS probes. Catena sends periodic
probe packets to all the appliances. When an appliance responds in a healthy manner within a specified
time, it is used to load balance traffic. Catena also handles automatic failure. Note that at the time of
failure, you do not need to intervene.
Benefits of Catena
Catena offers a range of features for chaining devices without affecting the existing topology or configuration.
Catena provides you the following benefits:
•Segmentation of traffic.
•CAPEX savings.
•OPEX savings: without catena, you need to perform VLAN stitching or create a default gateway, which
is hard to deploy and hard to add or remove devices.
•Provides Telemetry and analytics.
•Without catena, either all traffic is in a chain or not in a chain. Catena allows secure traffic partitioning
through multiple chains. Without catena, you cannot create multiple chains using the same network
elements.
•Catena is also a platform, for which users can write applications.
Licensing Requirements for Catena
License RequirementProduct
Catena requires a Network Services license. For a complete explanation
of the Cisco NX-OS licensing scheme and how to obtain and apply
licenses, see the Cisco NX-OS Licensing Guide.
Cisco NX-OS
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Configuring the Catena Solution
Benefits of Catena

Guidelines and Limitations for Catena
Catena has the following guidelines and limitations:
•Catena is supported for the Cisco Nexus 9200, 9300, and 9300-EX Series switches.
•When configuring a catena instance in routed mode, you must enable PBR and IP SLA features.
•Does not support IPv6 probes in catena chains.
•Supports only one instance per port or VLAN groups.
•You must shut down a catena instance before making changes to either VLAN, port, or device groups.
•Ensure that you have installed the network services license.
Enabling Chaining using Deployment Modes
You can create multiple chains, each comprising multiple functions and services; configure each chain to run
on multiple devices; and apply network policies to these elements. You can create two types of chains using
the following deployment modes:
•Transparent mode
•Routed mode
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Guidelines and Limitations for Catena

Transparent Mode
The following figure shows the traffic flow between appliances in the transparent mode when catena is enabled,
enabled with bad traffic, and disabled.
Figure 1: Transparent Mode
TCAM Based Load Balancing
Catena uses a cross function of IP-ACL entries along with TCAM FIB to bucket the traffic streams to multiple
egress interfaces.
Hash-Load Balancing
Catena uses source IP or destination IP to determine the egress interface. Egress interface ports are bundled
using the link aggregation control protocol (LACP), and hash algorithms are used for symmetric load balancing.
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Transparent Mode

Routed Mode
The following figure shows the traffic flow between appliances in the routed mode when catena is enabled,
enabled with bad traffic, and disabled.
Figure 2: Routed Mode
VRF Support
You can configure catena service in the default VRF or in non-default VRFs.
For the catena service to successfully redirect traffic, all the ingress interfaces and device-group nodes must
belong to the same VRF. You must ensure that all ingress interfaces and node members within the associated
device group are reachable in the configured VRF.
Catena Configuration Process
You can configure Cisco Nexus devices such that packets can be redirected through multiple devices using
Catena.
To configure catena:
1Enable catena.
2Create a port group.
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Routed Mode

3Create a VLAN group.
4Create a device group.
5Create an IP ACL.
6Create a Port ACL.
7Create a catena instance.
Enabling or Disabling the Catena Solution
By default, catena is disabled on the Cisco NX-OS device. You must explicitly enable catena to configure
and verify authentication commands.
Before You Begin
Ensure that you have installed the network services license.
SUMMARY STEPS
1. configure terminal
2. [no]feature catena enabling or disabling
3. (Optional) copy running-config startup-config
DETAILED STEPS
PurposeCommand or Action
Enters global configuration mode.configure terminal
Example:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)#
Step 1
Enables catena. Use the no form of this command to disable
catena.
[no]feature catena enabling or disabling
Example:
switch(config)# feature catena
Step 2
When you disable catena, all related configurations
are automatically discarded.
Note
(Optional)
Copies the running configuration to the start up
configuration.
copy running-config startup-config
Example:
switch(config)# copy running-config
startup-config
Step 3
Configuring a Port Group
A port group consists of a set of interfaces. You must configure port groups for both routed and transparent
modes.
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Enabling or Disabling the Catena Solution

If the egress port has multiple ports, then traffic is load balanced.Note
SUMMARY STEPS
1. configure terminal
2. catena port-group port-group-name
3. interface interface-reference
4. (Optional) copy running-config startup-config
DETAILED STEPS
PurposeCommand or Action
Enters global configuration mode.configure terminal
Example:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)#
Step 1
Creates a catena port group, and enters port group
configuration mode.
catena port-group port-group-name
Example:
switch(config)# catena port-group pg1
Step 2
Configures active catena ports, with link-based
tracking enabled by default.
interface interface-reference
Example:
switch(config-port-group)# interface Eth 2/2
switch(config-port-group)# interface Eth 2/3
Step 3
switch(config-port-group)# interface Eth 2/4
switch(config-port-group)# interface Eth 2/5
(Optional)
Copies the running configuration to the startup
configuration.
copy running-config startup-config
Example:
switch(config)# copy running-config startup-config
Step 4
Configuring a VLAN Group
To create and configure a VLAN group:
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Configuring a VLAN Group

SUMMARY STEPS
1. configure terminal
2. catena vlan-group vlan-group-name
3. vlan vlan-range
4. (Optional) copy running-config startup-config
DETAILED STEPS
PurposeCommand or Action
Enters global configuration mode.configure terminal
Example:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)#
Step 1
Creates a catena VLAN group, and enters VLAN
configuration mode.
catena vlan-group vlan-group-name
Example:
switch(config)# catena vlan-group vg1
Step 2
Assign a VLAN to the configured VLAN group.
Repeat this step to specify all VLANs.
vlan vlan-range
Example:
switch(config-vlan-group)# vlan 10
switch(config-vlan-group)# vlan 20
Step 3
switch(config-vlan-group)# vlan 30-40
switch(config-vlan-group)# vlan 50,55
(Optional)
Copies the running configuration to the startup
configuration.
copy running-config startup-config
Example:
switch(config)# copy running-config startup-config
Step 4
Configuring a Device Group
A device group contains a list of node IP addresses. If you are creating a Layer 3 routed mode deployment
you must create a device group.
To create and configure a device group:
If there are multiple nodes, then traffic is load balanced accordingly.Note
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Configuring a Device Group

SUMMARY STEPS
1. configure terminal
2. catena device-group device-group-name
3. node {ip ipv4-address |IPv6 ipv6-address }
4. probe probe-id [control status] [host host-name] [frequency frequency-number |timeout timeout |
retry-down-count down-count |retry-up-count up-count |ip ipv4-address]
5. (Optional) vrf vrf-name
DETAILED STEPS
PurposeCommand or Action
Enters global configuration mode.configure terminal
Example:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)#
Step 1
Creates a device group and enters the device group configuration mode.
catena device-group device-group-name
Example:
switch(config)# catena device-group s-dg-1
Step 2
Configures a list of node IP addresses. These are the IP addresses of
your appliances. Traffic is redirected to the appliances that can perform
node {ip ipv4-address |IPv6 ipv6-address }
Example:
switch(config-device-group)# node ip
1.1.1.1
Step 3
load balancing. These devices must be in active mode. In the example,
node ip 1.1.1.1, node ip 2.2.2.2, and node ip 3.3.3.3 are the IP addresses
of the appliances.
switch(config-device-group)# node ip
2.2.2.2
switch(config-device-group)# node ip
3.3.3.3
Example:
switch(config-device-group)# node ipv6
210::10:10:11
switch(config-device-group)# node ipv6
210::10:10:12
Configure the device group probe.
probe probe-id [control status] [host host-name]
[frequency frequency-number |timeout timeout |
Step 4
You can specify an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP),
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP),
or Domain Name System (DNS) probe for the catena instance.
retry-down-count down-count |retry-up-count
up-count |ip ipv4-address]
Example:
switch(config-device-group)# probe icmp
The following describe some of the keyword-argument pairs:
•control status—Specifies the control protocol status.
•frequency frequency-number—Specifies the time interval, in
seconds, between successive probes sent to the node.
•timeout timeout—Specifies the number of seconds to wait for
the probe's response.
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Configuring a Device Group

PurposeCommand or Action
•retry-down-count down-count—Specifies the consecutive
number of times the probe must have failed prior to the node
being marked as DOWN.
•retry-up-count up-count—Specifies the consecutive number of
times the probe must have succeeded prior to the node being
marked as UP.
IPv6 probes are not
supported.
Note
(Optional)
Configures VRF for a device group.
vrf vrf-name
Example:
switch(config-device-group)# vrf vrf1
Step 5
Configuring an IP ACL
Before You Begin
You will need to determine the type of traffic you want to induce into the chain. For more information about
access lists, see The Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Security Configuration Guide, Release 7.x.
SUMMARY STEPS
1. configure terminal
2. ip access-list
•ip access-list acl-name
•IPv6 access-list acl-name
3. sequence-number {permit | deny} protocol source destination
DETAILED STEPS
PurposeCommand or Action
Enters global configuration mode.configure terminal
Example:
switch# configure terminal
switch(config)#
Step 1
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Configuring an IP ACL