Sandbox access confusion

[Aggron]

New to Sandbox / Cisco DevNet. Looking to learn about Restconf / Netconf and trying to follow videos found on YouTube. Was watching a Jeremy's IT lab video and Kevin Wallace video they directed me to DevNet. I got my account DevNet account, launched / generated login info for the Cat 8k 'always-on' sandbox lab, got the e-mail with my login info.

But, now the confusion, the e-mails say I need Cisco VPN / Anyconnect. But, other info says the "always-on" are open / public and freely accessible by only SSH alone. However, I can't SSH or Ping the Cat8k host I was given (devnetsandboxiosxec8k.cisco.com). Can't download "Secure Client 5" / Anyconnect, seems like I need a service contract.

What am I doing wrong or what am I missing?

[Martin L · Accepted solution]

Yes, unfortunately Cisco VPN / Anyconnect is no longer Free! but u can use other any of VPN software; I used free one that comes with Win 10

Regards, ML
**Have fun labbing!!!***
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[Jesus Illescas]

I agree the mails need an update, I will share with the team this feedback to avoid more confusions.

On most of the always-on sandboxes ping will not work, but if they say ssh works, then it should. 

if you can't ssh, in most cases, someone disabled ssh or miss configured it. The XE, XR based always-on sandboxes are shared, meaning anyone can change the configuration and this causes issues sometimes. The best is to grab a reservable sandbox so the enviornment is only yours while the reservation is active

[bigevilbeard]

@Aggron it can be slightly confusing as you coming from a 3rd party vendor who might not have updated their training as the sandboxes have changed. You have done the correct thing, in her for this sandbox, now you have your dynamic username/password (fyi these uses to be static user/pass), in this one check the instructions and you will see you can use ssh, restconf and netconf.

As you can’t get anyconnect if you do need a vpn client try openconnect which is free.

[Aggron · Accepted solution]

Thanks for all the helpful feedback everyone. Looks like I've got this sorted now though.

Reached out to a co-worker - they put me in touch with someone who does have a service contract on their Cisco account. Also, apparently, the network where I work is blocking the connection to the Cat8k sandbox. Had someone off network verify to me that they could reach the Cat8k sandbox by just SSH alone (no vpn).

In the in-between time here, I powered up and setup a Cat 9300L. I'll see how much I can follow along.

[bigevilbeard]

@Aggron Good you are sorted, the mix of issues you had doesn’t help! I used to run an xe device in a container locally for testing.