Cisco Nexus 1000v licenses not freed after removing hosts

Post date: Jan 20, 2016 6:26:39 PM

Hosts are new, Cisco 1000v VSM has run out of licensed modules.

Using the "show log" command on the VSM, we could see the log message in plain English

"cannot be inserted because all vem slots are in use"

According to this doc:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus1000/sw/4_2_1_s_v_2_1_1/license/configuration/guide/b_Cisco_Nexus_1000V_License_Configuration_Guide_2_1_1/b_Cisco_Nexus_1000V_License_Configuration_Guide_2_1_1_chapter_011.html

64 licensed modules across 512 CPUs can be configured on the Essential edition.

Since some hosts have been deprecated, licenses should be available, but were not since they were in use by the deprecated hosts.

to rectify the issue we deleted the definitions for hosts which were not connected to the Cisco Nexus 1000v VSM using the following process:

Identify VEM modules which are not connected (be sure all expected hosts are connected to the VSM first)

VSM-1# show module vem license-info | include "n/a"

36 2 - - n/a

37 2 - - n/a

39 2 - - n/a

41 2 - - n/a

43 2 - - n/a

45 2 - - n/a

47 2 - - n/a

50 2 - - n/a

51 1 - - n/a

59 2 - - n/a

60 2 - - n/a

61 2 - - n/a

62 2 - - n/a

63 2 - - n/a

64 2 - - n/a

Find the port channel for the module you are going to remove... for example, to remove VEM 36, look for the port channel with ports on Eth36. In this case Po34. Note the(SD) means that the port channel is down... so we shouldn't be impacting traffic by removing it.

VSM-1# show port-channel summa | include Eth36

34 Po34(SD) Eth NONE Eth36/3(r) Eth36/4(r)

Switch to config mode

VSM-1# conf t

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.

Delete the port channels first:

VSM-1(config)# no int po34

Delete the vem definition:

VSM-1(config)# no vem 36

VSM-1(config)# exit

VSM-1#

Write the running config to startup

This frees up the available vem slots.

You should now be able to see on an ESXi host that `vemcmd show card` shows the VEM as licensed.