Cisco NSO Download and Installation – Explained in Detail

Introduction

Cisco NSO is a very flexible and intuitive application that will significantly assist any network administrator by assisting in minimizing their work time as well as cutting down on the possibility of mistakes. In order to get started, you first have to download and install Cisco NSO on your device. In this blog, we will walk you through the step-by-step instructions for Cisco NSO download and the installation process. We will break down the installation process into easy-to-follow steps, ensuring a smooth experience, regardless of your experience level.

Whether you are a network professional or new to the field, this blog will provide you with the information you need to get started with Cisco NSO. For those looking to deepen their knowledge, Cisco NSO Training is available to help you enhance your skills.

Let us begin with the Cisco NSO download and installation process.

Cisco NSO Download

The first step is to download the Cisco NSO and Cisco NEDs. You can download it from the Cisco official website by clicking on the link – https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286331591/type/286283941/release/6.3

Save the installer and Cisco NEDs to a convenient location on your system.

Cisco NSO can be installed in two modes:

• Local Installation
• System Installation

Before you begin with Cisco NSO installation, it’s crucial to understand as well as fulfill the requirements.

Cisco NSO Installation Requirements

Before starting the Cisco NSO installation, ensure your system meets these minimum requirements:

• Operating System: Cisco NSO supports various 64-bit operating systems. Check the official Cisco documentation for the most up-to-date compatibility list. Cisco NSO is compatible with macOS and Linux. Linux for x86_64 or arm64 and macOS Darwin for x86_64 or arm64. Windows users, or those preferring a non-native installation, can run NSO within a Linux virtual machine or container. Pre-built system install images are available if you use docker.
• Processor: A 64-bit processor is mandatory.
• RAM: At least 8 GB of RAM is recommended; 16 GB or more is highly suggested for production environments.
• Disk Space: Allocate at least 20 GB of free disk space for a basic installation. Depending on your NSO architecture configuration and the number of Network Elements (NEs) you manage, more space will be needed.
• Java: NSO requires a compatible JRE. Ensure you download and install the correct JRE before beginning the NSO installation. It is highly recommended that JAVA JRE 17 or higher be used, and the same is true for Java JDK 17 or higher.
• Python: A compatible Python version is also required. It is mandatory to have Python 3.7 or higher.
• Network Connectivity: You will need a stable network connection to download the installer and potentially access Cisco’s license servers.

It is time for installation after the Cisco NSO downloads and meets all the requirements.

Local Cisco NSO Installation

This installs NSO within your user’s home directory. It’s ideal for testing and development, but only the user who installed NSO can directly access and utilize it.  It minimizes potential system-wide conflicts.

Unpack the Installer

To unpack the installer, first, you have to open a terminal and navigate to the directory where you saved the installer.

Run the following command to unpack the installer:

You can make use of “sh” command in order to run the signed.bin and verify the certificate. This will also assist in installing binary and other files.

It is important to note that if the output of the above command comes green, you are ready to install it.

For your own convenience, it is highly suggested to check whether the extraction is successful or not.

The NSO installation package includes the following additional files:

• README.signature: This file provides further details on the unpacked content and instructions on how to run the signature verification program.
• cisco_x509_verify_release.py: This is a Python program that can be used to verify the 3-tier X.509 certificate chain and signature.
• nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.installer.bin: The NSO installer.
• nso-VERSION.OS.ARCH.installer.bin.signature: The signature was generated for the NSO image.
• tailf.cer: It is a Cisco-signed X.509 end-entity certificate. It contains the public key that is used to verify the signature.

For Local Installation process

1. The recommended installation directory, or LocalInstallDir, is in your home directory ($HOME) in a folder named ~/nso-VERSION, where VERSION is the specific version of NSO you are installing. For example, if the version is 6.0, the directory would be ~/nso-6.0.
2. To install NSO locally, run the installer with the –local-install option followed by the desired installation directory, e.g., –local-install ~/nso-6.0. This will install NSO in the specified home directory location.

Wait for the installation to be completed. Once the installation is complete, you will see a confirmation message.

Creating an Instance of NSO

The key points are:

• A local NSO installation sets up the necessary files on your system but does not actually start NSO.
• The local installation allows you to create an “instance” of NSO, which is a self-contained environment tied to a specific project.
• The ncs-setup script is used to create these NSO instances. It has two important options:
  • –dest: Specifies the directory where the NSO instance will be created. If the directory doesn’t exist, it will be created.
  • –package: Defines the Network Element Drivers (NEDs) to be included in the NSO instance. You can specify this option multiple times to include multiple NEDs.
• To set up an NSO instance in the current directory with the IOS, NX-OS, IOS-XR, and ASA NEDs, you can run the ncs-setup command with the appropriate –dest and –package arguments.
• Even if you have multiple versions of an NED in your installer, you only need to specify one NED per platform that you want NSO to manage.

After running the nso-intance command to create the NSO instance, you will see several new files and folders in the specified directory. While we won’t go into detail on all of them, a few are worth noting:

1. ncs.conf: This is the configuration file for the NSO application. It can be used to customize aspects of the NSO instance, such as changing ports, enabling/disabling features, etc. However, the default settings are often sufficient for projects like this.
2. packages/: This directory contains symbolic links to the Network Element Drivers (NEDs) that were specified when setting up the instance using the –package option.
3. logs/: This directory stores all the logs generated by the NSO instance, which can be useful for troubleshooting.

To start the NSO instance, you need to navigate to the nso-instance directory and run the ncs command. This will start the NSO instance, and it may take a few seconds to complete. Unless there is a problem, you won’t see any explicit output.

It’s important to note that you need to be in the nso-instance directory each time you want to start or stop the NSO instance. If you have multiple NSO instances, you must navigate to each instance’s directory and use the ncs command to start or stop them individually.

Note: You can verify that NSO is running by using the ncs –status | grep status command, which has a large amount of information, so we use grep to just search for the status:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is NSO in Cisco?

NSO, or Network Service Orchestrator, is a Cisco software platform. With its help, network administrators can easily automate as well as manage network devices, services, and, most importantly, configurations across different network environments.

Q2. Where to download Cisco license?

One can download the Cisco license from the Cisco Software Center website. The only thing required is to have a Cisco account and the appropriate product in order to access and download the licenses.

Q3. How to run NSO?

To run NSO, you need to first set up an NSO instance. This involves using the nso-instance command to create the instance directory. Then, you can navigate to the instance directory and run the ncs command to start NSO.

Q4. What is the full form of NSO?

The full form of Cisco NSO is Network Service Orchestrator.

Conclusion

In this comprehensive guide, we walked through the Cisco NSO download and installation process. We covered the minimum system requirements and installation mode (local installation) and provided step-by-step instructions for the installation process.

After completing the installation, you can start exploring Cisco NSO’s features and capabilities. If you encounter any issues during the installation process, refer to the Cisco NSO documentation or contact Cisco support for assistance.

By following this guide, you should now have a fully functional Cisco NSO installation, ready to streamline your network automation and management tasks.