• Ensure you have a backup of your ACI Fabric. This should be a no-brainer, but is often overlooked. The rule of thumb is to always have a backup based on your current running version of code. Need help with creating a backup? Just go to the Creating a backup for your APIC Cluster post.
• Make sure you have console access to the Spine and Leaf Switches in the event it is needed.
• Make sure you have CIMC access, which should be used for wiping the APICs.
• Have Serial-over-Lan enabled on your CIMC, to avoid having to use Java to KVM into the APICs. If you want to learn how to use Serial-over-Lan, check out this post.

Wiping your Fabric

This procedure will allow you remove your ACI switches from the controller, and once they are all removed, you can go about wiping the APICs.

Removing your Switches from the Fabric

With a working Fabric, wiping the switches from the fabric is straightforward; we will initiate a “remove from controller” in the GUI for each switch, which will erase the configuration and the node-ID from the switch, and make it available for discovery. (NOTE – Ensure you remove the switches attached to your APIC last, otherwise, you will cut yourself off)

Step 1 – Select your switches in the Fabric Membership Folder, Right click on the switch, and select “Remove from Controller”.

Erasing the APICs

1. (optional) Ensure you have a backup configuration for your fabric. Need help with creating a backup? Just go to the Creating a backup for your APIC Cluster post.
2. Login to the the CIMCs for your APICs (preferably using Serial-Over-Lan) or via KVM, and access the APICs from there.
3. From each APIC, execute the following commands:
   1. APIC1# acidiag touch clean 
   2. APIC1# acidiag touch setup
   3. APIC1# acidiag reboot 

Now just wait for the APICs to come back up to the Setup Prompt!

Wiping your Fabric which is not in working order

NOTE – I’d only recommend this procedure if you cannot perform the “remove from controller” command from the GUI towards a Fabric node. 

If your Fabric is not in working order, (i.e., you cannot see your Leaf and Spine switches from your APIC, or the “remove from controller” option is not working), you’ll have to go with this alternate way of wiping the fabric.

For this method, I’d recommend performing the wipe of the APICs first, then, on a switch-by-switch basis, initiate the setup-clean command.