I decided to make Netmiko the default configuration deployment method netlab uses for Cisco IOS XR. It works great, and I don’t have to worry about whether the user runs IOS XRd control-plane (in which case scripts work) or vRouter (in which case there’s a VM inside the container, so no luck).

After fixing the initial glitches (more on that another time), all integration tests passed except the OSPFv2 default origination test. It turns out the default waiting time (30 seconds) is way too low; Cisco IOS XR needs almost 90 seconds (after its reboot completes) to originate the OSPFv2 default route.

Here are the related OSPF logs. Note the long delay between “OSPF is up and running” and “Let’s advertise the default route”:

 16:34:44.252 UTC: ospf[1035]: %ROUTING-OSPF-5-HA_NOTICE_START : Starting OSPF
 16:34:44.366 UTC: ospf[1035]: %ROUTING-OSPF-6-HA_INFO : Process 1: OSPF process initialization complete
 16:34:44.377 UTC: ospf[1035]: %ROUTING-OSPF-5-HA_NOTICE : Process 1: Signaled PROC_AVAILABLE
 16:34:44.424 UTC: config[66603]: %MGBL-CONFIG-6-DB_COMMIT : Configuration committed by user 'clab'. Use 'show configuration commit changes 1000000004' to view the changes.
 16:34:44.457 UTC: config[66603]: %MGBL-SYS-5-CONFIG_I : Configured from console by clab on vty0 (192.168.121.1)
 16:34:45.684 UTC: ssh_syslog_proxy[1188]: %SECURITY-SSHD_SYSLOG_PRX-6-INFO_GENERAL : sshd[5062]: Connection closed by 192.168.121.1 port 48960
 16:34:48.062 UTC: ssh_syslog_proxy[1188]: %SECURITY-SSHD_SYSLOG_PRX-6-INFO_GENERAL : sshd[5218]: Accepted authentication/pam for clab from 192.168.121.1 port 43990 ssh2
 16:34:50.155 UTC: ospf[1035]: %ROUTING-OSPF-5-ADJCHG : Process 1, Nbr 10.0.0.3 on GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0 in area 0.0.0.0 from LOADING to FULL, Loading Done, vrf default vrfid 0x60000000
 16:36:14.380 UTC: ospf[1035]: op_defer_default_info_orig 0 vrfid 0x60000000
 16:36:14.380 UTC: ospf[1035]: Redist default check: default_route (nil)  event 0x1
 16:36:14.380 UTC: ospf[1035]:  Generate external LSA 0.0.0.0, mask 0.0.0.0, type 5, age 0, metric 40, seq 0x80000001, origin: redistributed
 16:36:20.391 UTC: ospf[1035]:  Build router LSA for area 0.0.0.0, router ID 10.0.0.1, seq 0x80000003 vrfid 0x60000000

Now for the crazy part: OSPFv3 works like a charm. The delay happens only with OSPFv2.

FWIW, here’s the relevant IOS XR OSPFv2 configuration. If you have an idea how to tweak it to reduce that delay, please leave a comment. Thank you!

router ospf 1
 ! These throttle timers are probably too aggressive for a production network but
 ! make labs run better ;)
 log adjacency changes
 router-id 10.0.0.1
 loopback stub-network enable
 timers throttle lsa all 10 20 100
 timers throttle spf 10 20 100
 default-information originate always metric 40 metric-type 2
 area 0.0.0.0
  interface Loopback0
  !
  interface GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0
   network point-to-point