Tutorial - Dell Sonic Enterprise and Dell servers in a spine-leaf configuration¶
This tutorial walks you through the steps required to register and use a setup that uses the following physical configuration:
- 3 x Dell Enterprise SONiC 4.0.2
- 2 x Dell R250 servers
This tutorial also assumes you have completed the configuration part of MetalSoft. Follow the Deploying MetalSoft using OVAs for more details on how to configure deploy MetalSoft.
Cabling¶
# management links
ESXi server, port 01 <---> OOB switch, port 15
leaf01, port MGMT <---> OOB switch, port 01
leaf02, port MGMT <---> OOB switch, port02
spine01, port MGMT <---> OOB switch, port03
#spine-leaf links
leaf01, port 11 <---> spine01, port 01
leaf02, port 11 <---> spine01, port 02
# server links leaf1
leaf01, port 01 <---> server01, port01
leaf01, port 02 <---> server01, port02
leaf01, port 03 <---> server02, port01
leaf01, port 04 <---> server02, port02
# server management ports
server01, port iDRAC <---> OOB switch, port 11
server02, port iDRAC <---> OOB switch, port 12
Registering switches¶
Pre-requisites:
- Deploy Dell Enterprise Sonic 4.x on the switches
- Configure a management IP reachable from the Agent OVA
- RESTCONF is enabled on the switch
- The BGP underlay configuration is done between the switches.
Note that MetalSoft can provision servers via ZTP but tht process is not covered in this tutorial.
To register the 3 switches, for each switch go to Switches > Add Switch
- From the
Driver
dropbox selectsonic_enterprise
- From the
Switch role
dropbox selectLeaf
for leaf switches other for spine - From the
Management protocol
dropbox selectRESTCONF
- From the
Management address
textbox input the IP of the switch management port - From the
Management username
textbox input the username of the switch - From the
Management password
textbox input the password of the switch
All other fields can stay the same.
At the end of the process the switches should all show as Active
.
Note that it is normal for them not to show any network connections as those will be populated as we add servers.
Registering servers¶
Pre-requisites:
- The servers have an IP on the iDRAC interface reachable from the agent VM.
To register the 2 servers go to Servers > Add Server
- Select Vendor Dell
- Select Type Server
- IPMI Host -> input the ip of the server
- IPMI username -> input the IPMI username
- IPMI password -> input the IPMI password
- Click Add Server
Note that the IPMI protocol should not necessarily be activated as this mechanism uses Redfish instead.
This process can take up to 30 min depending on the type of drives and NICs.
At the end of this process you should be able to use the servers in the infrastructure editor as usual.
For more information consult: Consult the following for more information: