How to install containerlab from scratch using Ubuntu 20.04?

[thinghacker]

Hi,

I am trying to run containerlab in a brand new Ubuntu 20.0.4 install but my problem is that while the srlinux NE instance starts up, it seems to fail shortly afterwards, I'm guessing maybe its something I'm doing wrong (perhaps related to permissions or a missing module?)

The only package option I selected was OpenSSH server

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam/clab-quickstart# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

From then on, I started to use the guidance from https://containerlab.srlinux.dev/install/ which mentions installing docker, and linking to the docker site, so used the instructions on https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/ and it seemed to be fine

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam# docker --version
Docker version 20.10.6, build 370c289

After checking the "sudo docker run hello-world" was successful, I installed containerlab using the install script option, and it seemed to be happy

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam# containerlab version

                           _                   _       _
                 _        (_)                 | |     | |
 ____ ___  ____ | |_  ____ _ ____   ____  ____| | ____| | _
/ ___) _ \|  _ \|  _)/ _  | |  _ \ / _  )/ ___) |/ _  | || \
( (__| |_|| | | | |_( ( | | | | | ( (/ /| |   | ( ( | | |_) )
\____)___/|_| |_|\___)_||_|_|_| |_|\____)_|   |_|\_||_|____/

version: 0.13.0
 commit: fa230f6
   date: 2021-04-13T17:37:22Z
 source: https://github.com/srl-labs/containerlab

I obtained srlinux:20.6.3-145 and the license.key via the appropriate channel and import into docker

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam# docker images
REPOSITORY    TAG          IMAGE ID       CREATED        SIZE
ubuntu        latest       7e0aa2d69a15   25 hours ago   72.7MB
hello-world   latest       d1165f221234   7 weeks ago    13.3kB
srlinux       20.6.3-145   33ce87bb0e66   4 months ago   1.33GB

I intend to use the quickstart example https://containerlab.srlinux.dev/quickstart/ however I don't have and am not interested in the ceos image, so I just comment it and the links from the topology file

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam/clab-quickstart# cat srlceos01.clab.yml
# topology documentation: http://containerlab.srlinux.dev/lab-examples/srl-ceos/
name: srlceos01

topology:
  nodes:
    srl:
      kind: srl
      image: srlinux:20.6.3-145
      license: license.key
      #    ceos:
      #      kind: ceos
      #      image: ceos:4.25.0F

      #  links:
      #    - endpoints: ["srl:e1-1", "ceos:eth1"]

When I launch clab, it appears to have started successfully

+---+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| # |        Name        | Container ID |       Image        | Kind | Group |  State  |  IPv4 Address  |     IPv6 Address     |
+---+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| 1 | clab-srlceos01-srl | 9efb6aef16c3 | srlinux:20.6.3-145 | srl  |       | running | 172.20.20.2/24 | 2001:172:20:20::2/64 |
+---+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+

but shortly after is no longer running

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam/clab-quickstart# containerlab inspect --all
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+--------+--------------+--------------+
| # |     Topo Path      | Lab Name  |        Name        | Container ID |       Image        | Kind | Group | State  | IPv4 Address | IPv6 Address |
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+--------+--------------+--------------+
| 1 | srlceos01.clab.yml | srlceos01 | clab-srlceos01-srl | 9efb6aef16c3 | srlinux:20.6.3-145 | srl  |       | exited | /0           | NA           |
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+--------+--------------+--------------+

Below is an extract from my syslog if this helps at all to help point out where I am going wrong

syslog.txt

Edit - Included launching clab in debug mode if that provides any additional insight

clab-debug.txt

One more thing I noticed is that /etc/hosts seemed to end up with duplicated entries of clab devices - possibly related to this problem and the unclean shutdown?

[hellt]

Hi @thinghacker
Can you check the logs of the exited container with 'docker logs $containerName" command?

And check how many CPU & ram you have

The installation steps look ok

[thinghacker]

Hi @hellt

Thanks for that - it pointed me in the right direction (I have 4 CPUs - 8 reported) and 32GB of RAM

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam/clab-quickstart# docker logs clab-srlceos01-srl | tail -1
No/Invalid license found!

The file is there but it must have expired (was in the same directory as the image from the example) - replacing it with a license with a more recent timestamp, things are good

root@m4600-cl:/home/adam/clab-quickstart# containerlab inspect --all
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| # |     Topo Path      | Lab Name  |        Name        | Container ID |       Image        | Kind | Group |  State  |  IPv4 Address  |     IPv6 Address     |
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| 1 | srlceos01.clab.yml | srlceos01 | clab-srlceos01-srl | e0b39d8088c6 | srlinux:20.6.3-145 | srl  |       | running | 172.20.20.2/24 | 2001:172:20:20::2/64 |
+---+--------------------+-----------+--------------------+--------------+--------------------+------+-------+---------+----------------+----------------------+```

Thanks for your help!