Smarts NCM: Cisco IOS XR Device Fails to communicate with NCM; the device is discovered in NCM but no other information is available.

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Unable to download config or hardware information from Cisco IOS XR device

Smarts NCM is able to discover the device, however no other information is available, no configuration or hardware information is available.

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - NCM

Cause

The Cisco IOS XR device OS has a feature of "cli whitespace completion". With this feature enabled, it will automatically try and complete commands when the space bar is pressed, or some type of white/blank space. NCM keeps receiving the same command in return and then fails to understand what the device is trying to do. Its basically not understanding the received commands and then dumping the connection.

See the errors below:

ssh#1: SND>terminal length 0
ssh#1: RCV-1001>terminal   <-----See it trying to complete the command
ssh#1: RP/0/4/CPU:#terminal length    <-----See it trying to complete the command
ssh#1: RP/0/4/CPU:#termi    <-----See it trying to complete the command
ssh#1: RCV-1001>al length 0     <-----See it trying to complete the command
ssh#1: RCV-1001>

Resolution

The work around at this time is to completely disable whitespace completion. Please do so or the device will not communicate with NCM correctly. 

Please see the results with  "cli whitespace completion" disabled.

ssh#1: SND>terminal length 0
ssh#1: RCV-1002>terminal length 0
ssh#1: RCV-1002>
ssh#1: RP/0/4/CPU0:#