Nexus 9000 Smart Licensing Configuration

In this short post, I’ll give you a configuration script I put together to configure Smart Licensing on a Cisco Nexus 9000 switch.

Nexus Smart Licensing Configuration Script

In the following configuration script, I provide the CLI commands I have used to configure Smart Licensing on a Nexus 9000 switch using its out-of-band (OOB) management interface.

config terminal

ip domain-lookup

interface mgmt0
 ip address <mgmt_IP_address>/<mask_bits>
 no shut
 exit

vrf context management
 ip route 0.0.0.0/0 <default_route_next_hop>
 ip domain-name customer_domain.local
 ip name-server <your_DNS_server>
 exit

feature license smart
license smart enable
exit

license smart register idtoken <token> force <<<< see section below on how to obtain a token

Show commands that you can use to verify the configuration.

show license status
show license summary
show license all
show license tech support
show license udi
show license usage

This command allows unregistering a device.

license smart deregister

But now, how do you obtain the token to register with the Smart Account?

How to Create a Smart Account Token?

For Cisco partners, you need to request access to your customer’s Virtual Account. Your customer needs to go to https://software.cisco.com, scroll to Account Administration and click on Manage Account. Click on Users and then the Add Users button.

Once you have access, go to https://software.cisco.com and log in. You’ll need your Cisco username and password. Once on the home page, click on Manage Licenses under Smart Software Manager.

Click on the Inventory link and then on the New Token button.

Add a Description, the number of days you’d like this token active, and how many times you’d like to use this token when registering Cisco equipment. For instance, I normally use a token per device, so if I have two core switches at Site A, I create two tokens, one for Site A Core-A and another one for Site A Core-B. Each token with a Max. Number of Uses of 1; however, you could use the same token for both core switches and have a Max. Number of Uses of 2. I try to add a description that tells me in the future where I used that token.

After you click on the Create Token button, you’ll land back at the previous screen. Click on the little blue box with a white arrow to copy the token.

Now you can use this token in the script I gave you in the previous section.

Any questions, please let me know in the comments below.