Getting Started

Logging In to the ESC Portal


Note

  • The ESC portal is enabled by default. You must ensure that the ESC portal is not disabled during installation. For more information on enabling or disabling the ESC portal, see Installing ESC in the Cisco ESC Install and Upgrade Guide.

  • When you log in to the ESC portal for the first time you are prompted to change the default password.

To log in to the ESC portal, do the following:

Before you begin

Procedure

Step 1

Using your web browser, enter the IP address of ESC.

Example:

For example, if the IP address of ESC is 192.0.2.254, enter:

https://192.0.2.254 [ login via https]. The portal runs on default security port 443.

A Security Alert message is displayed.

Step 2

Click Yes to accept the security certificate. The Login page is displayed.

Step 3

Enter the username and password and click Login .

If you are logging in for the first time, the login page reappears, prompting you to change your password.

Step 4

Enter the old password in the Old Password field, then enter a new password in the New Password and Confirm Password fields.

Step 5

Click Update Password or press Enter.

Note 

  • If the portal becomes unresponsive, restart the portal by executing the escadm portal restart from the escadm tool.

  • ESC portal only supports one user.

  • Currently, a pre-installed self-signed certificate supports HTTPS. The user must confirm the self-signed certificate before proceeding with the ESC portal.

  • In HTTPS communication mode, if the URL protocol type returned by OpenStack is not HTTPS, the access to the VNF Console may be disabled. For security reasons, while running in HTTPS more non-secure communication will be rejected.

Changing the ESC Password

You will be forced to change the default password on first time login. Portal will not let you bypass this step and will keep returning you to this page until you change the default password. After the first time password change, you can change your password using the procedures described in this section. Also, if the user has multiple browsers or tabs or the SAME user is logged on by 2 or more computers and one of the user changes the password then everyone will be logged off and asked to re-enter the new password. If the user is idle in the portal for more than 20 minutes, then the user is logged out. You can configure the user idle timeout in the portal environment file. If you forgot your password, you can also reset the password.

This section discusses how to change the portal password.

Changing the ESC Portal Password

To change an existing ESC portal password from the portal, do the following:

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to ESC portal using your username and password.

Step 2

Click the user icon on the upper right corner of the screen.

Step 3

Choose Account Settings. The page to update account information and password appears.

Step 4

Click Update Password.

Step 5

Enter the old password in the Old Password field, then enter a new password in the New Password and Confirm Password fields.

Step 6

Click CREATE.

What to do next

For information on how to change the password using the CLI and so on, see Cisco Elastic Services Controller Install and Upgrade Guide

ESC Portal Dashboard

The Cisco Elastic Services Controller dashboard provides a tabular representation of all the managed ESC resources such as tenants, flavors, and images, deployments, incoming requests, notifications, and visual indicators of system health. The following dashboard elements help you track, monitor and diagnose data and system health over time.

The dashboard is best used in a monitoring desk context, where the system displaying the dashboard is dedicated for that purpose and might be distinct from the systems running the portal servers. The dashboard system should point its browser to the system running the portal servers.

If you notice unusual spikes or drops in activity, there could be communication failures or power outages on the network that you need to investigate.

In case of HA Switchover, the user must log out and log in to view the portal resources.

Table below lists the details you can view in the portal:


Note
These tasks can also be performed using the NB APIs. See the Elastic Services Controller NB APIs for more details.
Table 1. Portal Details

Task

Navigate

Description

To view Dashboard

Choose Dashboard

View the summary of all the managed ESC resources, notifications, system configuration and the system health.

To view notifications

Choose Notifications or Click the notification icon on the top right corner of the portal.

Displays notifications received on the Portal from ESC.

To deploy a VNF

Choose Deployments
Important 
To deploy a VNF in the VMware vCenter using a form, see Deploying Using a Form .

Deploys a VNF.

The drag and drop feature allows you to grab an existing deployment data model and to re-use it by dragging the file to the deployment table. You can even use the upload xml on the table toolbar, which allows you to browse appropriate file from your file system.

Note 
Only xml files are accepted.

The drag and drop feature executes a REST call as of now and does not execute NETCONF calls.

To view existing deployments (for both OpenStack and VMware vCenter)

Choose Deployments, and select a deployment from the table.

  • Click View VM Groups. You can view further details such as monitoring, scaling, and other information on the corresponding tabs.

Displays a high level summary of deployments that are currently being deployed. You can view the name and status of the deployments, and the number of VMs that are deployed in the deployment.

To view VIMs

Choose Resources > VIMs

Provides a list of VIMs with its VIM id, the type of VIM, status of the VIM, properties and the VIM users.

To view tenants (OpenStack only)

Choose Resources > Tenants

Provides a list of tenants, along with its name, description and ID.

Important 

ESC does not support multi-tenancy on VMware vCenter.

Portal does automatic rollback of resources if the resources failed to be created on the VIM. In some cases (because of conflicting dependencies), the tenant has to be deleted manually after getting a rollback failure notification.

To view VNF Images

Choose Resources > Images

Provides a list of images for the selected resources.

To view VNF deployment flavors (OpenStack only)

Choose Resources > Flavors

Provides a list of flavors for the selected resources.

To view networks

Choose Resources > Networks

Displays details of network, tenant name, network ID, network type and so on for each network. of sub-network and interfaces. You can find details such as name, network ID, tenant ID and so on for each of them.

To view subnetworks (OpenStack only)

Choose Resources > Subnetworks

Displays details of subnetwork, network ID, subnet ID and so on for each subnetwork.
Note 

Subnetwork and interfaces tabs are available only on OpenStack.

On initial booting of ESC VM, the network and sub-network creation forms may show an empty tenant combo box. Refresh the page to load the tenants correctly.

To view interfaces (OpenStack only)

Choose Resources > Interfaces

Displays details of interfaces, network ID, subnet ID, VM name and so on for each interface.

To view the switch details (VMware vCenter only)

Choose Resources > Switches

Provides a list of switches, its names, descriptions, UUIDs and hosts.

To deploy VNFs using a deployment template

Choose System > Deployment Template

Creates preconfigured deployment templates

To view incoming requests to ESC

Choose System > Incoming Requests

Lists all the incoming requests to ESC such as Transaction ID and request details.

To view configurations

Choose System > Configuration

Lists all the configuration parameters used for configuring VMs, monitoring rules, applying policies during VM deployments, and so on.

To view boot parameters (OpenStack only)

Choose System > Boot Parameters

Lists all the boot parameters used to boot ESC.

To view host details (OpenStack only)

Choose System > Host Details

Lists the host details such as Operating System (OS), version of the OS, System uptime , RAM, Storage and other details.

To view the health of ESC (OpenStack only)

Choose System > Health

Show the health of ESC, Confd status, Operational status and other details.

To download logs

Choose System > Logs

Allows you to download log messages.

To view the infrastructure details (OpenStack only)

Choose Infrasctructure > Instances

All VMs running on the virtualization infrastructure.

To view the Hypervisors (OpenStack only)

Choose Infrasctructure > Hypervisors

All hypervisors running on the virtualization infrastructure.

To undeploy a VNF

  • Choose Deployments.

  • Select a deployment from the table, and click X on the table toolbar to undeploy.

Undeploys VNF(s).

To view VDC (VMware vCenter only)

Choose Resources > Datacenters

View list of all Virtual Datacenters.


Note
The ESC portal pages might have table formatting issue, if viewed in a small screen. The browser screen must be 15 inches or more for the tables to appear correctly.

The System Panel comprises of the following tabs:

  • Performance—Displays the tabular and graphical representation of the performance data.

  • Storage—Displays the disk usage information.

  • vCPU Utilization— Displays the usage of vCPUs in the ESC VM.

  • Health—Displays the health of various ESC processes such as network, database, and tomcat.

  • Host Details—Displays the host details such as Operating System (OS), version of the OS, System uptime , RAM, and Storage details.

Notifications

The Notification page lists all the notifications for the ESC deployments:

  • Error Events—

    Select the error event from the notifications page, and click View More Info to see a complete report of the error event.


    Note

    Error events with explicit error messages do not have a detailed report.

    A complete report can also be generated using the REST API. A troubleshooting-Id is included in the ESC-Status-Message to generate a report.

  • Clear Notifications—

    You can sort the notifications by date and delete the notifications. Click Clear Notifications to delete all the notifications.