[c-nsp] ASR901 - L2 tunneling

[Pshem Kowalczyk]

Hi,

I'm trying to asses if we could use asr901 for our usual metro-E
deployments (where we currently use ME3600x). L3 on the ASR901 seems
to work well enough, but with L2 I've encountered some issues,
especially around L2 tunneling.
I've already managed to confirm with Cisco, that some of the
functionality is not there yet, but determining what actually works
proven to be more difficult. So I'm looking for any input regarding
the subject.

I've tried to set up a simple dot1q to dot1q (both ends ASR901) xconnect:

interface GigabitEthernet0/4
 description tester (slave)
 no ip address
 negotiation auto
 l2proto-forward tagged
 service-policy output PM-CUST-DEFAULT-10M-OUT
 service instance 1 ethernet
  encapsulation dot1q 17
  xconnect 10.122.129.254 4545 encapsulation mpls
   mtu 9000

(and identical setup on the other device)
The xconnect comes up fine and forwards standard ethernet frames no
issues. I can't get any of the L2 (STP, LLDP) stuff to work though.
The frames simply don't leave the box (I don't think there is a way to
do port-mirror on ASR901, so I have to capture the frames on the next
device).

I've got confirmation from Cisco that this wouldn't work with
encapsulation 'default', but I hoped to get it going with explicit
tag, especially with the ' l2proto-forward tagged' command. But
documentation is scarce.
Has anyone managed to configure this and get it working?

kind regards
Pshem