Guidelines and Limitations
Be aware of the following general guidelines and restrictions before installing the Cisco CSR 1000v in your
network:
•
If the hypervisor does not support vNIC Hot Add/Remove, do not make any changes to the VM hardware
(memory, CPUs, hard drive size, and so on) while the VM is powered on.
•
(Cisco IOS XE Release 3.11S and later) The GigabitEthernet0 interface is no longer available. You can
designate any interface as the management interface.
•
(Cisco IOS XE Release 3.10S and earlier) The GigabitEthernet0 interface is the default management
port and cannot be changed.
•
The Cisco IOS XE CLI can be accessed either through the virtual VGA console or the console on the
virtual serial port. The console can be selected from GRUB mode during the first-time installation, or
it can be changed using the Cisco IOS XE
platform console
command after the router boots. For more
information, see
Booting the Cisco CSR 1000v as the VM, on page 145
.
Some hypervisors may not support serial console access. Verify support using your hypervisor
documentation.
Note
ROMMON and the Cisco CSR 1000v
The Cisco CSR 1000v, which is software-based, does not include a ROMMON image. This differs from many
Cisco hardware-based routers. During the initial bootloader process, the installation script creates a clean
version of the Cisco CSR 1000v software image known as the Golden Image and places it in a non-accessible
partition. This clean version can be used if the software image is not working properly or is not bootable.
Note that although the Cisco CSR 1000v does not include ROMMON, the platform does include a GNU
GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB)-based bootloader. The GRUB function on the Cisco CSR 1000v provides
more limited functionality compared to the ROMMON available on other Cisco platforms.
Note that although ROMMON is not present on the Cisco CSR 1000v, some Cisco IOS XE commands such
as
show version
may show references to ROMMON in the command output.
After the Cisco CSR 1000v completes the first-time installation, you can configure the router to
automatically enter GRUB mode when the router is booted. For more information, see
CSR 1000v Licenses, on page 156
and subsequent licensing sections.
Note
Where to Go Next
See the information in the sections below, about installing the Cisco CSR 1000v in different hypervisor
environments:
•
VMware ESXi Support Information, on page 69
Cisco CSR 1000v Series Cloud Services Router Software Configuration Guide
66
Installation Overview
Guidelines and Limitations