ios xrd vrotuer image

[stsfred]

Hello Team,
I tried to use Cisco XRD vRouter ( https://containerlab.dev/manual/kinds/cisco_xrd_vrouter/ ) in netlab, although it is not listed as a supported platform. I just wanted to share with you my findings.
I used chatgpt to help install it under containerlab, and run it, then tried to create topologies. Chatgpt guides through nicely from step 1 and interact correctly in case any error bumps up.
Containerlab on the link above, gives a quite good summary about the specialties of the xrd vrouter image. E.g.: interfaces (vmxnet3 vs igb) and the connection to interface naming.
It is a quite interesting image, as it runs inside an Ubuntu VM as a container :) So nested virtualization is a must.
So after installation we should 2 xrd-vrouter images (i already had xrd-control plane):

mylab:~/mylab/vrnetlab/cisco/xrd-vrouter$ docker image ls | grep -Ei 'xrd|vrouter'
ios-xr/xrd-control-plane:7.11.2               5afe65d79028        2.7GB         1.32GB        
ios-xr/xrd-vrouter:26.2.1                     9c1b9873fd2e       2.79GB         1.37GB        
vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1             c264cea009df        7.8GB         1.88GB    

We need to update containerlab to the latest version (0.79) to support kind: cisco_xrd_vrouter.
After all prerequisites were met, as a quick test, I created the following simple topology file containing 2 xrd routers:

xrd2ospf.yml

---
name: xrd2ospf
provider: clab

module: [ ospf ]

defaults:
  device: iosxr

nodes:
  XR1:
    image: vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1

  XR2:
    image: vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1

links:
  - XR1-XR2

Then:
(mylab) mylab :~/ContainerLabs$ netlab create xrd2ospf.yml

[CONFIG]  XR1: netlab-config,initial,ospf
[CONFIG]  XR2: netlab-config,initial,ospf
[CREATED] provider configuration file: clab.yml
[CREATED] pickled transformed topology data into netlab.snapshot.pickle
[GROUPS]  group_vars for all
[GROUPS]  group_vars for modules
[GROUPS]  group_vars for iosxr
[HOSTS]   host_vars for XR1, XR2
[CREATED] minimized Ansible inventory hosts.yml
[CREATED] Ansible configuration file: ansible.cfg

in the generated clab.yml file, there are few things that need to be fixed, before running it:

1. We need to change the kind to "cisco_xrd_vrouter"
2. Interface naming: we need to change 2 things here:
   2.1: add to each node:

      env:
         CLAB_MGMT_VRF: management
         XRD_NIC_TYPE: igb

2.2: interface naming - change to:

  - endpoints:
  - "XR1:Gi0/0/0/0"
  - "XR2:Gi0/0/0/0"

Note:
the difference here:
XRd control-plane: Gi0-0-0-0
XRd vRouter: Gi0/0/0/0 (NIC type: igb)
XRd vRouter: Te0/0/0/0 (NIC type: vmxnet3)
I used NIC type igb for now. I don't know if there any features that are missing if we use igb instead of vmxnet3.

Now our corrected .yml looks like this:

---
name: xrd2ospf
prefix: "clab"

mgmt:
  network: netlab_mgmt
  ipv4-subnet: 192.168.121.0/24
  ipv6-subnet: fd00:df:1ab::/64
topology:
  nodes:
    XR1:
      mgmt-ipv4: 192.168.121.101
      kind: cisco_xrd_vrouter
      env:
        CLAB_MGMT_VRF: management
        XRD_NIC_TYPE: igb
      runtime: 'docker'
      image: vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1
      binds:
      - node_files/XR1/netlab-config:/config/netlab/netlab-config.sh
    XR2:
      mgmt-ipv4: 192.168.121.102
      kind: cisco_xrd_vrouter
      env:
        CLAB_MGMT_VRF: management
        XRD_NIC_TYPE: igb
      runtime: 'docker'
      image: vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1
      binds:
      - node_files/XR2/netlab-config:/config/netlab/netlab-config.sh


  links:
  - endpoints:
    - "XR1:Gi0/0/0/0"
    - "XR2:Gi0/0/0/0"

---

Run it:
(mylab) fred@fred-lnx:~/ContainerLabs$ sudo containerlab deploy -t clab.yml

After nodes were booted up (become healthy after ~5 mins):

(mylab) fred@fred-lnx:~/ContainerLabs$ docker ps --format 'table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Image}}'
NAMES                   STATUS                   IMAGE
**clab-xrd2ospf-XR2       Up 5 minutes (healthy)   vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1
clab-xrd2ospf-XR1       Up 5 minutes (healthy)   vrnetlab/cisco_xrd-vrouter:26.2.1**
edgeshark-edgeshark-1   Up About an hour         ghcr.io/siemens/packetflix
edgeshark-gostwire-1    Up About an hour         ghcr.io/siemens/ghostwire

issue:
netlab initial
...

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************************************************************************************
XR1                        : ok=14   changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=4    rescued=0    ignored=0   
XR2                        : ok=14   changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=4    rescued=0    ignored=0  

Lets check the routers (clab / clab@123):

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:XR1#show ver
Tue Aug 25 19:32:51.781 UTC
Cisco IOS XR Software, Version 26.2.1 LNT
Copyright (c) 2013-2026 by Cisco Systems, Inc.

Build Information:
 Built By     : cisco
 Built On     : Sun Jun 07 13:01:37 UTC 2026
 Build Host   : iox-lnx-060
 Workspace    : /auto/srcarchive13/prod/26.2.1/xrd-vrouter/ws/
 Version      : 26.2.1
 Label        : 26.2.1

cisco XRd vRouter
cisco XRd-vRouter-C-01 processor with 10GB of memory
XR1 uptime is 6 minutes
XRd vRouter Container

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:XR1#show ip ospf neighbor 
Tue Aug 25 19:33:06.237 UTC

* Indicates MADJ interface
# Indicates Neighbor awaiting BFD session up

Neighbors for OSPF 1

Neighbor ID     Pri   State           Dead Time   Address         Interface
10.0.0.2        1     FULL/  -        00:00:34    10.1.0.2        GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0
    Neighbor is up for 00:01:11

Total neighbor count: 1
RP/0/RP0/CPU0:XR1#

1 router takes 2 full cpu cores and 8-10GB of RAM, but it is still a bit lighter than a xrv9k image.

So the image works fine, but we need to fine tune few things for netlab.
I am wondering if it is possible in the future for you/your team to implement the specialities of xrd-vrouter in netlab, so that manual modifications would not needed?
To be honest, I would help, but I am not a coder, I am nowhere near on that level of knowledge for such tasks, but I am willing to help in testing.
Best Regards,
Ferenc

[ipspace]

Thanks a million for all the details! We don't have a good mechanism to support two variants of a device container, and we already use "iosxr" with "clab" for the XRD control-plane image (the "real" container).

I will, however, add all the details you provided (and how to implement them with system defaults) to the docs/labs/iosxr.md document. Will copy you on the PR (so you can test the settings) when it's ready.

Thanks again, Ivan