1. Automating Legacy Network Devices
Jason Edelman
@jedelman8

2. Who Am I? Jason Edelman Traditional Network Engineer
Worked for Cisco, VARs, etc.
CCIE 15394, VCDX-NV 167
Shifted to software and systems ~4 years ago
Provide training and consulting services on network automation technologies
Blog: jedelman.com

3. Agenda Why Automation? Network Device Programmability
Python Libraries & Ansible Modules
Ansible (Red Hat)
Live Demo (Ansible)

4. Network Device Programmability
How do you connect to the device?
Nexus NX-API
NETCONF
Arista eAPI
REST APIs
API du jour
15-20% of all devices?

5. Network Device Programmability
If there is an API, use it…
If not, we have old faithful…SSH
85-90% of devices
Legacy or Traditional?

6. It’s OKAY to use SSH

7. Python => Ansible Python Library Description Ansible Modules
Specialty/Focus
napalm
Multi-vendor library. Uses APIs when possible, but uses SSH (netmiko) for IOS
napalm_install_config
Note: there are also “get” modules
Managing device configurations
pyntc
ntc_file_copy
ntc_save_config
ntc_show_command
ntc_config_command
ntc_reboot
ntc_install_os
ntc_get_facts
ntc_rollback
System level tasks
netmiko
Multi-vendor SSH client (12+ vendors)
Used by napalm and ntc modules
SSH client

8. Ansible Agentless Built-in Templating Engine
YAML & Jinja2
Reports, Docs, Configs, etc.
Created and easily extended in Python (or language of your choice)
Gaining adoption for Network Automation

9. Ansible Inventory File
[bldg1] b1-closet1-stack1 b1-closet2-stack2 [bldg2] b2-closet1-stack1 b2-closet2-stack2
Inventory File - inventory

10. Ansible Inventory File & Playbook
[bldg1] b1-closet1-stack1 b1-closet2-stack2 [bldg2] b2-closet1-stack1 b2-closet2-stack2
---
- name: deploy vlan on bldg2 switches
hosts: bldg2
connection: local
tasks:
- name: ensure VLAN 10 exists
nxos_vlan:
vlan_id=10
name=web_vlan
host={{ inventory_hostname }}
Inventory File - inventory
Playbook - vlan-pb.yml
EXECUTE PLAYBOOK:
$ ansible-playbook –i inventory vlan-pb.yml

11. ntc_show_command
Multi-vendor Ansible module to streamline converting raw text into JSON key/value pairs
Leverages TextFSM
netmiko (SSH) is used for transport by default

12. ntc_show_command
JSON data returned

13. Existing IOS Templates
Other vendors and OSs exist too

14. Sample TextFSM Template
No coding
Regex in TextFsM templates is all that’s needed

15. ntc_config_command Send configs from list or from file
12+ device types supported (SSH)

16. ntc_get_facts Facts returned include: uptime (string) uptime (seconds)
model
vendor
os_version
serial_number
hostname
fqdn
vlans
interfaces

17. ntc_save_config
Save the running configuration as the startup configuration or to a file on the network device.
Performs a commit on Juniper devices / copy run start on others
Optionally, save the running configuration as a file to the Ansible control host.

18. ntc_file_copy
Copy local files via SCP to network devices

19. ntc_rollback
Create Checkpoint file and rollback to it if there is an error
Insert other tasks between

20. LIVE DEMO Ansible Quickstart & Overview Save & Backup configs
Copying files
Collecting Data: inventory & ‘show’ commands
Creating Reports
Pushing configs (time permitting)

21. DEMO FILES

22. Slack Team slack.networktocode.com Self sign up
Various channels for topics such as netmiko, napalm, ansible, trigger, and for specific vendors

23. Resources https://github.com/ktbyers/netmiko/

24. THANK YOU! Jason Edelman @jedelman8 jedelman.com