How to exclude ports from port assignment

[JL421-Retired]

I haven't been able to find any documentation, but is there a way to reliably exclude a switchport from being able to have port assignments configured in host onboarding? I know that having a description of "Fabric Physical Link" is a keyword used by LAN Automation to exclude ports, but that seems kind of kludgy to rely on and doesn't seem to work reliably in all cases. I ask because we have some sites with a single fusion router and a switch running as a fabric in a box. The switch connects to the router from port Gi1/0/1. When our techs setup a site they sometimes click that port when setting up ports, and end up bringing the switch down.

Is there currently any way to exclude those types of ports from the port assignment screen, reliably?

[Preston Chilcote]

I'll be interested to see if anyone else chimes in to say that this scenario has been considered, but I suggest you use the "Make a Wish" feature to let the product managers know directly that there is a worthwhile enhancement needed to prevent someone from accidentally taking out their fusion link.

[JL421-Retired]

I kind of figured that making a wish would be where this would go, but figured I'd ask the question to see if I just missed it somewhere in the documentation or if it's an undocumented feature. It's a problem a bit unique to fabric in a box scenarios.

I'll mark that as the solution in a couple days, just to give this a little bit of time for more replies.

Thank you Preston

[usaf_27]

This can be done from a template (using the programming language) during the day 2 provisioning.  Is that what your looking for or is it strictly during the onboarding process?

Thanks. 

[JL421-Retired]

I haven't seen any template option that removes a port from the Fabric > Host Onboarding > Port Assignment selection page for devices that have the edge node role assigned to them. How are you suggesting a template would accomplish this?

[willwetherman · Accepted solution]

This is an interesting issue as DNA Center should prevent you from configuring a switchport that it is currently using for L2/L3 handoff (I'm assuming that you are using border handoff automation to extend the VNs to your fusion router?)

I have a fiab currently setup that connects to a fusion router using a single trunk interface that carries a manually configured VLAN for the underlay (VLAN 101) and then VLANs 3001+ for the overlays using border handoff automation. This interface is still listed under host onboarding -> port assignment. I can try and assign this interface to an IP pool, however when I apply the configuration, DNAC generates the following error which prevents overwriting the config and breaking access to the switch

Is this not happening in your scenario or is your setup/the actions that cause the issue slightly different?

[rasmus.elmholt]

I'm using DNAC v1.3.3.7 and when I configure the port on a switch as a L3 port I cannot select it.

Port configuration:

#show run int gi 1/0/24
Building configuration...

Current configuration : 115 bytes
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/24
 no switchport
 vrf forwarding CLIENT1
 ip address 10.32.4.10 255.255.254.0
end

And the screen under Host Onboarding:

[JL421-Retired]

I noticed it happen a couple of times in 1.3.3.7. We still got the error, but it also provisioned the port anyway. That does seem to be resolved in 1.3.3.8 though.