CiscoDevNet/iosxr Terraform provider error on IOS-XR ≥ 24.4.x

[TomVr]

Hi all,

We are preparing to upgrade our ASR 9902 routers from IOS-XR 24.2.2 to a newer release.
During testing in CML, we found that starting in IOS-XR 24.4.2, the official Cisco IOS-XR Terraform provider (CiscoDevNet/iosxr) fails when applying a VRF configuration that includes a Route Distinguisher (RD) in the same transaction as the VRF creation.
The same applies to other resources like iosxr_router_bgp_vrf.

This behavior:

• Works on 24.2.2 and 24.3.2.

• Fails consistently on 24.4.2 and 25.1.2.

• Does not appear to be documented in public release notes.

I’ve reported the issue in GitHub (#289) and opened a TAC case, but I’d like to know:

1. Has anyone seen any internal or public release note references about this change between 24.3.2 and 24.4.2?

2. Has anyone else run Terraform automation against IOS-XR ≥ 24.4.x and experienced similar failures?

3. Any advice or insights on whether this is an intended YANG/NETCONF/gNMI change or a regression?

We run a strict Infrastructure-as-Code/GitOps workflow, so configuration must be fully Terraform-driven — workarounds outside Terraform aren’t an option for us.

Any input, experiences, or pointers to documentation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

[bigevilbeard]

This is great and really helpful for the community, hopefully someone can approve and merge the changes.

[TomVr]

I compared the YANG models in YANG Suite and noticed that between 24.3.2 and 24.4.2, the RD container changed:

Previously:

{ "as-number": ..., "index": ... }

Now:

{ "two-byte-as-number": ..., "asn2-index": ... }

This could explain the breakage, since the provider continues to send the old field names.
However, no changes to `um-router-bgp-cfg` are mentioned in the public release notes, which makes this difficult to anticipate.

I’ve opened #289 and a TAC case, asking Cisco to align with the BU and provider maintainers, but i'd like to ask the comminity:

• Have others experienced similar issues with Terraform on IOS-XR >= 24.4.x?
• Do you know of any unpublished YANG changes that might explain this?
• Most importantly: is the `CiscoDevNet/iosxr` Terraform provider still positioned by Cisco as the future-proof method of integrating IOS-XR into Infrastructure-as-Code? It does not seem very actively maintained. If not, what alternative approach do you recommend?

[bigevilbeard]

@Jesus Illescas do you know what will/is happening with this module from the Cisco side please?

[Jesus Illescas]

thanks for the ping @bigevilbeard I will dig internally.

[TomVr]

@Jesus Illescas Were you able to get some internal info on this? FYI the TAC case i created for this is 699598932.
Thanks in advance!

[Jesus Illescas]

Hi @TomVr I pinged some folks to see your request, but I can see on the github issue the maintainer of the terraform provider already shared with you the semantic version didn't change and therefore there shouldn't be any breaking changes but there are.

I can also see the TAC engineer is working with engineering about this breaking change.

I suggest to continue working with TAC on this to have a better answer, they are engaging the right folks.

[TomVr]

Thanks @Jesus Illescas! Appreciate your response and confirmation. I’ll continue to track this through the TAC case and the GitHub issue.

— Tom