RBFS Installation, ZTP, and Licensing

The RBFS software is available for different roles based on their functions. RBFS C-BNG, Spine, Leaf and L2BSA images are stored in the RBFS image repository from where users can download and install the images on the supported hardware platforms. When new features and software patches become available in the image store, you can upgrade the software to use them. All the latest versions of software images are stored in the RBFS image store.

The RBFS software is delivered as custom RtBrick Linux container images (also called RBFS container images) which can be used for virtual topologies on x86 servers or as custom RtBrick ONL installer images that can be used on the supported white box switches.

Image stores containing the container and ONL installer images are published on https://releases.rtbrick.com/ and updated when new image versions are available.

In addition to RBFS, other RtBrick software is delivered in the Debian package format that can be used on Ubuntu. Currently, the only supported Ubuntu release is 22.04 LTS Jammy. This category of software is referred to RtBrick Tools. The software delivered as Debian packages is composed of a set of CLI tools and/or daemons intended to facilitate working with RBFS containers and the RBFS API.

Debian package repositories containing the packages are available on https://releases.rtbrick.com/ and updated whenever a new version of the package is available.

The RtBrick managed software download functionality enables authenticated users to download and install the RtBrick software (packages or images). Access to image stores and Debian package repositories on https://releases.rtbrick.com/
is restricted through the use of TLS mutual authentication with TLS client certificates (TLS client certificates can be self-signed).

To access the restricted image stores and Debian package repositories on https://releases.rtbrick.com/, perform the following steps:

RtBrick provides the rtb-apt tools to generate a client certificate. For more information, see the section The RtBrick APT tool (rtb-apt).

The rtb-apt tool is an APT (https://wiki.debian.org/Apt)
utility application that provides an easier way for managing the system configuration of RtBrick package repositories (https://wiki.debian.org/DebianRepository)
which can be used with the usual apt commands to install RtBrick software.

Some RtBrick package repositories require authentication via TLS client certificates and the rtb-apt tool provides commands for managing those specific repositories and the required apt authentication configuration.

The rtb-apt tool is a statically compiled Linux 64-bit executable file. Currently, it is verified to run on Ubuntu 22.04. It is available through a direct download link.

An RBFS release can be defined as a set of software packages (currently, in the Debian package format). However, it is delivered as an image, either a container (LXC/LXD) image or as a complete ONL installation image. The ONL installation image may or may not contain a container image pre-installed in it. An image can be defined as the archived root file system of a Linux OS installation with the needed software packages pre-installed and with a default configuration. In the current context, the terms 'RBFS release' and 'image' are used interchangeably.

RtBrick uses a versioning scheme called rtbver for RBFS release versioning. An rtbver version string is syntactically similar to SEMVER 2.0, but semantically different. For the RBFS releases, the first two numbers of a version is YEAR.MONTH (corresponding to the MAJOR.MINOR of SEMVER). For example, the first RBFS release in a calendar month is 22.4.1. If a second RBFS release occurs in the same calendar month gets version as 22.4.2. The RBFS release in the next calendar month will have a version (for example) 22.5.1 irrespective of how many RBFS releases occurred in the previous calendar month.

The rtbver scheme also supports four-number versioning, such as 22.4.1.1. This four-number version is used for maintenance releases. Maintenance releases are built only when required, based on and for an already existing RBFS release (such as 22.4.1.1 for 22.4.1.).

The installation of RtBrick tools is split into several steps, as follows:

Some of the RtBrick tools Debian packages have changed and have been upgraded several times. If any of the RtBrick tools packages are already installed, it is essential to remove any existing package.

apt list --installed | egrep -i rtbrick | awk -F '/' '{print $1;}' | xargs sudo apt remove -y

In the output, you can see the following:

The following packages are removed.

Update the local apt package cache using the command: sudo apt update

Some RtBrick tools or packages have dependencies on third-party software such as Ansible. These third-party software packages are not delivered through the RtBrick package repositories.

Currently, the rtbrick-ansible package depends on Ansible software. For information about installing Ansible, see https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html#installing-ansible-on-ubuntu.

Install a particular RtBrick tool package, run the command:

sudo apt install <tool name>

For example, to install the rtbrick-ansible package, run the following command:

sudo apt install rtbrick-ansible

RtBrick images delivered through the RtBrick image store and the rtb-image utility have three main attributes:

RtBrick images intended to be used as containers in a virtualized environment contains format == lxd and platform == virtual.

RtBrick images intended to be installed on supported hardware devices contain format == onl-installer and platform set accordingly to the specific switching hardware.

The rtb-ssh command allows you to connect to a container that is already running.

The command was previously called rssh, and it was renamed as it confused with Linux’s restricted shell rssh package which is available in the official Ubuntu apt package repositories.

Besides renaming, a few changes have been made to the rtb-ssh / rssh script.

The script is installed automatically as part of the rtbrick-imgstore package installation.

The script uses lxc-attach to establish a connection to the container specified as the argument. While doing so, it uses the ubuntu user (currently, the default user inside an RBFS container) to connect to the container, and uses the bash shell after opening the connection.

Before connecting, it clears the environment before attaching, so no undesired environment variables leak into the container. The variable container=lxc is the only environment with which the attached program starts.

It only keeps the TERM variable, to have the same strings the user is currently using for clear screen, move cursor, and so on.

The rtb-ssh is installed in the /usr/local/bin/ path (alongside rtb-image, etc.). For convenience and backward compatibility the script is still also installed as rssh.

You can install open network Linux (ONL) manually on a bare-metal switch. Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) should be installed on the switch. The Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) is an open-source utility that provides an installation environment for bare-metal switches. ONIE is used to install different network operating systems (NOS) on a device.

The RtBrick ONL installer images are compatible with ONIE and can be used by ONIE to install an RtBrick ONL (Open Network Linux) on a bare-metal switch.