Nodes

By using the edit button or double clicking the node in the Nodes-grid, the Node details form will be displayed. Here most of the details of the nodes can be viewed and/or changed.

The Node forms are intended to manage the nodes that are modelled in the YCE database using service-types which are build using the building blocks like “Node-types” and “IP-plans”. These nodes are normally referred to as YCE-nodes to offset them against the Cmdb-nodes. The CMDB nodes are managed using the “Operate - CMDB” forms.

The Node details form consists of three tabs, “Data”, “Custom attributes” and “Management”. It also offers the buttons to open several sub-forms: “Ports”, “Topology”, “VRFs” and “eVPN”.

The Data tab lists information of the node, like the hostname, FQDN, IPv4 and/or IPv6 address for management, as well as the Domain, the Vendor type, the main template and the custom attribute group.

Depending on the Custom attributes group contents, its values are shown on this tab.

The Management tab allows you to select which IP(v4/v6) should be used for management if multiple are known.

The change hostname form can be accessed by the “Change”-button next to the Node's hostname in the node edit form. This allows you to edit the hostname of a node. The behavior of this form depends on what you have entered in your node types. For more information on this, refer to the node type form documentation.

You can enter a sequence number that fits within the range defined in the node type, if specified. The form validates if you entered the correct value, including the padding. If not, you will not be able to change the hostname.

If you click on the “Rename”-button, the hostname will be changed. This is a laborious process where all occurrences of the host's name in our database will be updated. Note that occurrences in templates, jobs, logs or relations are not changed. Node groups will be re-evaluated, but if you have a node group condition somewhere that mentions that specific hostname, it also will not be changed.

The Ports tab, shows an overview of the assigned ports to this specific node. Ports can be added, modified or deleted using the form.

To add a new port, a port-template for the desired port hardware-type must exist. These can be created using Port templates.

To modify a port, you may select a single or multiple entries and press edit. This will allow you to define the same set of parameters to all selected ports.

The selection can be done using the grid by control- or shift- clicking ports, or using the mouse by dragging a 'lasso' around a number of ports. The 'lasso' requires all port-types to be the same.

To remove ports from a slot the port-grid must be used. First select the desired port or ports (using control- or shift-click), then klick the 'Delete' button. The user will be prompted to delete before proceeding.

With the “Update from Node” button, all the ports from a selected source-node are copied to the current-node. The source-node must be a device within the same ClientCode.

The use of this button will update the template of the current-node to the template of the source-node, and will create the same ports as found on the source-node on the current-node.

These operations are performed in two steps. First the source node must be selected from the displayed form and confirmed using the “Copy” button.

Next, the “Update Node Ports” form is displayed. This form controls the policies by which the ports will be copied. The default selections of this from are such that only additional ports are created, existing topology, subnet assignments and port configurations will be unchanged.

The options controlling the policies are:

• Topology. Links between node ports (topo) can be removed (drop) or maintained (keep). When selecting 'drop', ALL existing topology on the current-node will be deleted.
• If “Keep topology” is selected the additional choice, For obsolete ports will direct to maintain (keep) the ports and their topology should a port become obsolete when the source-node does not include this port (same type and slot/port ids). Otherwise the obsolete port and its topo will be removed.
• Obsolete ports controls whether ports becoming obsolete will be removed (drop) or not (keep). When slots become empty they will be automatically removed.
• New ports controls if ports that only exist on the source-node will be created on the current-node. When adding ports, all attributes of these ports will be copied (template, description, speeds, etc). Subnet assignments or topology of the source-node will NOT be copied.
• Subnet assignments controls if existing subnets assigned to a port should be maintained (keep) or not (drop).
• Port attributes controls if the attributes of existing ports should be updated from the source-node (update) or maintained (keep). When selecting to “Update”, a series of checkboxes can be set to specify which attribute should be copied from the source-node or left unchanged.

After setting the various options the “Start” button will launch the change. A detailed change log is shown. Closing the form without using the “Start” button will leave the current-node unchanged.

With the “Update from Template” button, all the ports of the currently configured Template are copied to the node. This Template could be a newly assigned template or the same that was used all along. In this case the ports of the node will be updated with the port blueprint of its template.

When activated, the “Update Node Ports from Template” form is displayed. This form controls the policies by which the ports will be copied. The default selections of this from are such that only additional ports are created on the node, existing topology, subnet assignments and port configurations will be unchanged.

The options controlling the policies are:

• Topology. Links between node ports (topo) can be removed (drop) or maintained (keep). When selecting 'drop', ALL existing topology on the current-node will be deleted.
• If “Keep topology” is selected the additional choice, For obsolete ports will direct to maintain (keep) the ports and their topology should a port become obsolete when the Template does not include this port (same type and slot/port ids). Otherwise the obsolete port and its topo will be removed.
• Obsolete ports controls whether ports becoming obsolete will be removed (drop) or not (keep). When slots become empty they will be automatically removed.
• New ports controls if ports that only exist on the Template will be created on the node. When adding ports, all attributes of these ports will be copied (template, description, speeds, etc).
• Subnet assignments controls if existing subnets assigned to a port should be maintained (keep) or not (drop).
• Port attributes controls if the attributes of existing ports should be updated from the Template (update) or maintained (keep). When selecting to “Update”, a series of checkboxes can be set to specify which attribute should be copied from the Template or left unchanged.

After setting the various options the “Start” button will launch the change. A detailed change log is shown. Closing the form without using the “Start” button will leave the current-node unchanged.

Some hardware is defined using slots/modules. These can be added as well and are required to be added before a port can be added to it.

You can also add, edit and delete port slots. For now this only is used in order to specify the slot's port layout.

The port layout syntax is as follows:

• the number of rows, followed by an H(orizontal) or V(Vertical).
• If the port count should start at bottom-left (instead of top-left), include a U.
• If the port count should start at the top-right (instead of top-left), include a B
• then a dash (-)
• followed by the number of ports that should be displayed per block. Example: 2V-12.

An slot and port layout example:

And the “Edit slot” option to change the layout:

The topology tab shows all ports and if any of the ports have a connection to another device. This view includes some attributes of the ports as well, like: speed, duplex, template and topology location.

New connections can be created here as well.

The VRF tab allows to add, modify and remove VRFs to the node, including the custom attributes on the VRF.

To assist creating categories of Node VRFs, Mpls_types and Vrf_types can be used. This is explained in the Mpls_type

This form is optionally accessible to configure eVPN uplinks using a pre-entered administration. This administration can be created separately from the node deployments when it is outsourced to a service provider that defines the eVPN parameters.