Zero Touch Provisioning

Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) automates the initial configuration of switch systems at boot time. It helps minimize manual operation and reduce customer initial deployment costs. ZTP allows for automatic upgrade of the switch with a specified OS image, setting up the initial configuration database, and to load and run a container from an image file.

ZTP is based on DHCP and is enabled by default. For ZTP to work, the software enables DHCP by default on all its management interfaces.

The initial configuration is applied using a regular text file. The user can create such a configuration file by editing the output of a “show running-config” command.

Flow

1. Switch OS sends request to the DHCP server, to get image to upgrade to, initial configuration to apply, and docker image to run a container.

   • For IPv4, the switch OS sends ‘tftp-server-name’ (option 66) and ‘bootfile-name’ (option 67) requests from the DHCPv4 server

   • For IPv6, the switch OS sends ‘bootfile-url’ (option 58) from the DHCPv6 server

2. DHCP server responds with URLs (e.g. scp url) to the required items (OS image, configuration file, docker image).

3. Switch OS downloads and uses the components using the URLs for the required actions (upgrade/apply configuration/run docker).

Configuration

To make ZTP work over the network, the DHCP server must be configured to respond with the desired URLs for the requests mentioned above.

For DHCPv4:

• Option 66 contains the URL prefix to the location of the files

• Option 67 contains the name of files

• Option 58 contains the complete URLs of files

DHCPv4:

Set options 66 and 67 in the DHCP server configuration file.

• option 66 URLs should be the prefix to the desired file location (without the filename itself)

• in option 67, specify the desired filenames accordingly

            

            
option tftp-server-name "<image server url>, <config server url>, <docker container server url>";
option bootfile-name "<image file>, <config file>, <docker container file>";
        

DHCPv6:

Set option 58 in the DHCP server configuration file.
Specify full URLs to the desired files

            

            
option dhcp6.bootfile-url "<image server url/image file>, <config server url/config file>, <docker container server url/docher container file>"
        

The item value can be empty, but the comma shall not be omitted.

For further information on MLNX-OS, see Configuring the Switch with ZTP.