Cisco SSM On-Prem - IOS XE Smart Licencing Using Policy (SLP)

In a previous blog post I explained how to setup IOS XE, IOS XR, and NX-OS for Smart Licencing using SSM On-Prem, and explained both the Smart Transport and Smart Call Home methods with IOS XE. Finally, Cisco have released a version of SSM On-Prem that supports the IOS XE 17.3.2 and onwards licencing method of Smart Licencing Using Policy (SLP).

This post is just a quick update on how to configure IOS XE devices for SLP using SSM On-Prem.

For other devices and earlier IOS XE versions, take a look at my previous blog post.

https://cznolan.github.io/2020/11/08/ssm-onprem-deviceconfig.html

Smart Software Manager On-Prem

You will need at least SSM On-Prem version 8-202102 to support SLP, which was released in May 2021 (contrary to the Feb 2021 build date). I would however recommend using version 8-202105 as the earlier build introduced a bug affecting Smart Licencing for Prime Infrastructure and UC applications.

Smart Licencing using Policy (SLP)

SLP is configured similar to both the Smart Transport and Cisco Smart Licencing Utility (CSLU) methods. In the SSM On-Prem web interface, if you navigate to Smart Licencing > Inventory > General, you will find some text under the Product Instance Registration Tokens heading which will include a link for the CSLU Transport URL. Presumably, you will find the name of the virtual account being managed by SSM On-Prem must be appended to the standard CSLU URI along with -1. So, if your virtual account is called myaccount, your URL would look something like the following.

https://ssm-onprem.example/cslu/v1/pi/myaccount-1

ip name-server vrf Mgmt-vrf 10.10.10.10

license smart url https://ssm-onprem.example/cslu/v1/pi/<account>-1
license smart transport cslu

ip http client source-interface GigabitEthernet0/0

crypto pki trustpoint SLA-TrustPoint
 revocation-check crl none

Troubleshooting

If you have not yet upgraded SSM On-Prem to a version supporting SLP, you will see the following syslog message on devices running IOS XE 17.3.2 and above.

%SMART_LIC-4-REPORTING_NOT_SUPPORTED: Smart Agent for Licensing CSSM OnPrem is down rev and does not support the enhanced policy and usage reporting mode.

If you have misconfigured the devices, such as still having Smart Transport configured on a device running an IOS XE version requiring SLP, you are likely to see the following syslog message.

%SMART_LIC-3-COMM_FAILED: Communications failure with the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM) : Received empty response from server

Once everything is configured correctly, you should see the following syslog message.

%SMART_LIC-5-COMM_RESTORED: Communications with Cisco Smart License Utility (CSLU) restored

Additionally, if your CRL check is failing you are likely to see periodic syslog messages reporting this. You can disable the CRL check entirely by configuring revocation-check none to avoid these messages as desired.