Cumulus Linux from Basics to Advanced VXLAN EVPN - 2020

Learn to use the network command line utility (NCLU) in Cumulus Linux, configuring devices with a staging area, viewing pending changes, and committing to the running configuration.

Explore the NCLU network command line utility interface to configure the basic system setup, hostname, interface, log servers, AP servers, and static routing protocols, including staging and commit workflows.

Learn how to use NCLU for interface configuration, including adding IP addresses, altering M2 values, committing changes, and rolling back configurations in the network interface system.

Configure routing with NCLU on Linux, enabling and managing routing daemons, setting static routes, and verifying routing behavior across interfaces and connected networks.

Master the staging area in Cumulus Linux, learn net commit and net rollback for interface IP configurations, and review net history to see who changed what and when.

Explore interface configuration on linux devices, compare physical and virtual ports, and examine loopback interfaces within a leaf and spine topology with external connectivity and port naming conventions.

Learn about the loopback interface in Linux and network devices, including default ip assignment, multiple ip addresses, anycast loopback addresses, testing, routing, latency, and high availability.

Configure the loopback interface on leaf devices by assigning a unicast IP address and validating the configuration for VXLAN EVPN with BGP traffic.

Compare physical and logical interfaces on Cumulus Linux devices, explaining how management ports (e0) and production ports (swp1–swp48) differ from logical virtual ports used in configuration and routing.

Explore the differences between physical and logical interfaces on Linux devices. Learn how bonding combines two physical interfaces into a logical one and how IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are assigned.

Explore switch port types—access ports for end users, transport ports for multiple VLANs, and switchport virtual interfaces enabling inter-VLAN routing—covering untagged and tagged traffic, IP phones, and servers.

Configure access and trunk switch ports, assign VLANs 13 and 24, and set up switch interfaces with proper IP addressing, then verify with show commands.

bond interfaces aggregate multiple physical links into a single logical interface, increasing bandwidth and providing redundancy. Learn about link aggregation and balanced modes and their port configurations.

Configure bond interfaces in the Cumulus Linux lab, creating bond one and bond two with member ports, and assign them to VLANs 13 and 24 toward servers 01 and 02.

Explore unnumbered interfaces on Cumulus Linux, where interfaces have no IP address and use automatic link-local IPv6 addresses, requiring interface selection for traffic between leaf and spine.

Learn to configure unnumbered interfaces in cumulus linux for a leaf-spine network. Examine link-local addresses, neighbor discovery, and how changes to discovery intervals can speed convergence.

Explore multi-chassis link aggregation (mlag) across two switches and understand interoperability challenges between vendors. Configure bonded uplinks to increase bandwidth and redundancy with unique ids and switch priorities.

Explore multi-chassis link aggregation group configurations across two leaves, establishing peer links, port channels, and exchanging routing information between the leaves, while using multicast protocols to prevent loops.

Configure a multi-chassis link aggregation between leaves, create a bond with a peer link, assign subinterfaces and ip addresses, and map vlans 13 and 24 to a bridge domain.

Execute a multi-chassis link aggregation group lab across leaf and spine, configure at least two interfaces with matching IP schemes, and verify reachability and fast convergence.

Explore the first hop redundancy protocols that keep servers connected to upstream switches. Learn how alternate redundancy and virtual router redundancy protocol modes determine gateway placement.

Learn how virtual redundancy protocols let multiple switches share the same default gateway, keep the gateway MAC address and IP unchanged on fail, and enable active-active interfaces and port aggregation.

Configure virtual router redundancy to provide a shared default gateway across two servers and switches, using vlan 13, bonded interfaces, and a virtual ip and virtual mac to ensure failover.

Discover how the virtual router redundancy protocol creates a single virtual default gateway by designating an active master and standby peers, with pre-emption for deterministic failover.

Compare traditional data center topology with access and core layers, where blocking links waste fabric bandwidth and slow convergence. Learn why east-west traffic and subsecond convergence drive modern designs.

Discover modern data center architectures with leaf-spine topologies, vxlan/evpn tunneling, and a layer 3 fabric that enables scalable, low-broadcast traffic and fast, control-plane learned connectivity.

Explore underlay routing with BGP on spine-to-leaf links, advertise loopback addresses via EVPN, and configure spine-leaf sessions to support scalable VPNs.

Learn how route reflectors shape BGP in a spine-leaf topology, with eBGP and iBGP sessions, client relationships, and reflected routes, guiding best-path selection across leaves.

Learn how to establish bgp sessions on unnumbered interfaces using link-local ip addresses, with neighbor discovery, and how reflector devices can function in spine–leaf topologies.

Configure and verify IPv6 BGP unnumbered peering with spine switches using link-local addresses, establish internal and external BGP sessions, redistribute connected routes, and confirm neighbor stability and route propagation.

Discover how VXLAN separates endpoint identity from location by encapsulating traffic between leaves, enabling VM mobility while preserving IPs in a static setup without a control plane.

Explore how vxlan overlay supports flexible, multitenant data-center fabrics by virtualizing networks. Servers can move locations without changing identities, while BGP EVPN enables dynamic tunnel learning across leaf-spine topologies.

Configure static vxlan tunnels between two servers, setting local and remote tunnel ips and encapsulation to enable unicast traffic.

Observe icmp traffic between servers in a static vxlan tunnel. Verify encapsulation on the leaf-to-spine path, and explore anycast addresses and vxlan evpn mappings.

Learn static vxlan tunnels and data-plane learning, where traffic is encapsulated and MAC addresses are learned in the data plane, with no control-plane protocols yet.

Learn how bgp evpn control plane enables scalable vxlan data center fabrics by distributing routing and topology information across leaves, with centralized control for vxlan deployment.

Explore how EVPN control plane extends BGP to carry MAC and IP information for VXLAN, enabling bridging and routing in multi-tenant networks while disabling data-plane learning.

Configure the evpn control plane for a single customer with two subnets with two servers; enable the evpn address family in bgp and advertise routes using tenant rd and rt.

Analyze autogenerated rd and rt in an evpn lab using a single customer. Inspect bgp evpn routes, mac-to-vni mappings, and import/export rules.

Learn to assign manual route distinguisher and route targets in a vxlan evpn deployment on Cumulus Linux, ensuring unique rds and rts per customer and correct export/import across leaves.