VXlan lab issues

[mveytsman]

Hi

I am trying to do virtual nexus 9000v lab, to test out various VXLan scenarios.
And keep coming up against the same frustrating issue. After enabling the nve features required for the config and rebooting the switches (dont need GNS3 running when I am sleeping).
I get this error:
Module 1 is not 'feature nv overlay' capable. 'feature nve overlay' requires application leaf engine' (ALE) 1 or above based line cards. Please consult documentation.

I tried various versions of the nexus 9000v software, from 10.2.5M to 10.3.3.F. Deployed them on GNS3, then tried them on VM Workstation Pro. Even deployed a few on the ESXi (enterprise license) host, and the same error above keeps popping up.
I also tried to ignore the error and configure a vxlan environment regardless.
However, it doesnt work. The NVE interfaces come up. Underlay functions with no issues. BUM multicast registers. However the BGP EVPN part just doesnt work.
I can see the BGP peers come up between spines and leaves, on both IPV4 and L2VPN, but no mac routes are exchanged. The mac of course shows up locally with 'l2route' command. But nothing else happens. No mac routes go upto the spines or down to the other leaves.

So what am I missing? I see a number of network blogs using ESXi for the lab, and stating that it works... Please help.

[anpetit]

Hello @mveytsman , 
Hope you are doing well.
Reading your problem, this might come from memory issue.
If possible, I would tend to test this with an image like 9.3.7 ; 9.3.8 because 10.2.5/10.3.3F are brand new image and architecture is different in these images. 
Let me know if it helps. 
Kind Regards,
Antoine

[mveytsman]

I definitely see people on their blogs, running those images, and supposedly being able to run Vxlan labs... Also, I tried it on different platforms, in terms of VM types and same error. Problem with 9.x images is they are old and lack a number of features present in 10.2.x and above. 

[simonespinedi]

Hi, i had the same problem. The error "Module 1 is not 'feature nv overlay' capable. 'feature nve overlay' requires application leaf engine' (ALE) 1 or above based line cards. Please consult documentation" is cosmetic and does not prevent nve (VXLAN) features from working.

Another problem you may encounter is carving the tcam region, an operation that is used to allocate more memory to the arp-ether region, so as to be able to activate the arp suppression functionality in the nve interface.

Keep in mind that for NXOS: version 10.1(1) the carving operations fails. I've tested it with 10.3.1.F version.

You can check the tcam allocation with the command:
show hardware access list tcam region

If you are not using the vpc functionality you can carve the tcam memory using the command in global config mode:
hardware access-list tcam region vpc-convergence 0

Before allocating the space for the arp-ether region you have to reload the module 1 (this feature is not present in previous nxos version) using the command:
reload module 1

Then you can allocate space for the arp-ether with the command
hardware access list tcam region arp-ether 256 save the config and reload the device.

After the reload you should be able to issue the suppress-arp command into the nve interface

P.s. to actually receive and exchange mac route, check your bgp ipv4 unicast both on leaf and spine, check your rd and rt on the evpn configuration. If you see the route for the leaf loopback advertised in the bgp ipv4 unicast, try to attach switches or virtual pcs on both leaf, with port configured in access on the vlan you are bridging and try to sent icmp packets to trigger arp.

[mveytsman]

The issue turned out to be the VPC feature being enabled. once I disabled it, the vxlan started working with no issues. the feature overlay error turned out to be cosmetic.