Summer 2021 DevNet Associate Preperation Webinar Series: Software Defined Network Inventory – Adding ACI and SD-WAN

This repository provides code and examples as part of a DevNet Associate Certification Preparation Webinar Series. The recording for this webinar, and others, can be found in the DevNet Associate Prep Program Training Plan.

Slides from the webinar and discussions about the topic can be found in this forum post from the Learning Network.

Software Defined Network Inventory – Adding ACI and SD-WAN

Your work on an automated network inventory report for your switches and routers was such a big hit that the manager of the SDN team would like you to add the hardware from the ACI and SD-WAN networks to the report. This will be your first chance to explore the REST APIs for these tools!

Using this repository

If you'd like to explore the solution to the above use case yourself, here is everything you should need to know.

Lab/Sandbox Resources

This example leverages three DevNet Sandboxes.

Cisco NSO Reservable Sandbox from DevNet - Provides the IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR, NX-OS and ASA devices for the original network inventory script developed in a previous webinar and which this repository builds upon.
- You can reserve this sandbox for use with the nso_sandbox_devices.xlsx inventory spreadsheet.
- The network topology for the Sandbox can be seen with this network diagram.
Cisco ACI Always On Sandbox from DevNet - Provides an ACI controller network to interact with.
- No reservation is required for this sandbox, but the address and credentials can be found in the Sandbox details.
Cisco SD-WAN Always On Sandbox from DevNet - Provides an SD-WAN controller network to interact with.
- No reservation is required for this sandbox, but the address and credentials can be found in the Sandbox details.

Creating the Python venv

While other versions of Python will likely work, this use case was tested with Python 3.8. It leverages pyATS for interacting with network devices.

# Create your Virtual Env
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

# Install the entire pyATS set of tools
pip install pyats[full] requests

# Install just the basics for this exercise
pip install pyats pyats.contrib genie requests

Creating the pyATS Testbed File

The pyATS YAML testbed is included with the GitHub repo, but you can create one from the Excel file with this command.

pyats create testbed file \
--path nso_sandbox_devices.xlsx \
--output nso_sandbox_testbed.yaml

Some suggested improvements to the created testbed file include:

Move credentials from each device to testbed level
ASK{} for Username as well as passwords

These changes are included in the improved_nso_sandbox_testbed.yaml file.

Running the `network_inventory.py` script

The network_inventory.py script in the repo should work and be ready to go.

Note: The sandbox credentials for devices are cisco / cisco in the testbed are. The credentials for the ACI and SD-WAN controllers are listed in the Sandbox Details.

./network_inventory.py improved_nso_sandbox_testbed.yaml --sdwan-address sandbox-sdwan-1.cisco.com --aci-address sandboxapicdc.cisco.com

# OUTPUT
Loading testbed file improved_nso_sandbox_testbed.yaml
Enter default password for testbed: 

Enter value for testbed.credentials.default.username: cisco
Enter enable password for testbed: 

What is the username for sandboxapicdc.cisco.com? admin
What is the password for sandboxapicdc.cisco.com? (input will be hidden) 

What is the username for sandbox-sdwan-1.cisco.com? devnetuser
What is the password for sandbox-sdwan-1.cisco.com? (input will be hidden) 

Connecting to all devices in testbed improved_nso_sandbox_testbed
Gathering show version from device edge-firewall01
Running command show version on device edge-firewall01
  Error: pyATS lacks a parser for device edge-firewall01 with os asa. Gathering raw output to return.
Gathering show inventory from device edge-firewall01
Running command show inventory on device edge-firewall01
Gathering show version from device dist-rtr01
Running command show version on device dist-rtr01
Gathering show inventory from device dist-rtr01
Running command show inventory on device dist-rtr01
Gathering show version from device dist-rtr02
Running command show version on device dist-rtr02
Gathering show inventory from device dist-rtr02
Running command show inventory on device dist-rtr02
Gathering show version from device dist-sw01
Running command show version on device dist-sw01
Gathering show inventory from device dist-sw01
Running command show inventory on device dist-sw01
Gathering show version from device dist-sw02
Running command show version on device dist-sw02
Gathering show inventory from device dist-sw02
Running command show inventory on device dist-sw02
Gathering show version from device edge-sw01
Running command show version on device edge-sw01
Gathering show inventory from device edge-sw01
Running command show inventory on device edge-sw01
  Error: No valid data found from output from device edge-sw01. Gathering raw output to return.
Gathering show version from device internet-rtr01
Running command show version on device internet-rtr01
Gathering show inventory from device internet-rtr01
Running command show inventory on device internet-rtr01

Inventory details will be pulled from Cisco APIC sandboxapicdc.cisco.com

Inventory details will be pulled from Cisco SD-WAN Controller sandbox-sdwan-1.cisco.com

Disconnecting from device edge-firewall01.
Disconnecting from device dist-rtr01.
Disconnecting from device dist-rtr02.
Disconnecting from device dist-sw01.
Disconnecting from device dist-sw02.
Disconnecting from device edge-sw01.
Disconnecting from device internet-rtr01.
Assembling network inventory data from output.
Writing inventory to file 2021-06-14-13-35-58_improved_nso_sandbox_testbed_network_inventory.csv.

And it will create a CSV report that looks like

device_name,device_os,software_version,uptime,serial_number 
edge-firewall01,asa,9.12(2),7 days 1 hour,9ACJJ5Q1Q1X 
core-rtr01,iosxr,6.3.1,"1 week, 1 hour, 10 minutes",N/A 
core-rtr02,iosxr,6.3.1,"1 day, 23 hours, 24 minutes",N/A 
dist-rtr01,iosxe,16.11.1b,"1 week, 1 hour, 9 minutes",9Y30J7X5QAC 
dist-rtr02,iosxe,16.11.1b,"1 week, 1 hour, 9 minutes",9741BQ3XSZ5 
dist-sw01,nxos,9.2(3),"7 days, 1 hours, 9 minutes",91FK5ZLK8FF 
dist-sw02,nxos,9.2(3),"7 days, 1 hours, 9 minutes",9CUP5WOOV6M 
edge-sw01,ios,15.2(CML,"4 hours, 52 minutes",N/A 
internet-rtr01,iosxe,16.11.1b,"1 week, 1 hour, 9 minutes",9D6J5QHY2PZ
leaf-1,apic-N9K-C9396PX,simsw-4.1(1k),"00 days, 00 hours, 22 mins",TEP-1-101
apic1,apic-VMware Virtual Platform,Unknown,"00 days, 00 hours, 22 mins",TEP-1-1
spine-1,apic-N9K-C9508,simsw-4.1(1k),"00 days, 00 hours, 22 mins",TEP-1-103
leaf-2,apic-N9K-C9396PX,simsw-4.1(1k),"00 days, 00 hours, 22 mins",TEP-1-102
vmanage,sdwan-vmanage,19.2.2,"0 days, 23 hours, 33 minutes",969E8292C5E64183A2563B7A3605B67D
vsmart,sdwan-vsmart,19.2.2,"363 days, 9 hours, 45 minutes",4E500CAE354B4341B322C5DA4BD7588A
vbond,sdwan-vedge-cloud,19.2.2,"250 days, 56 hours, 35 minutes",7AC124B4AED648EB99B9900DD56A405C

Following the development process

If you'd like to see how the script was built, you can look at the commit log on the network_inventory.py file, or explore the files in the development-steps folder. You'll find numbered files showing how the script was build, step by step, that you can run individually, or use as resources to create your own file.

Note: the development steps in this example build upon the development done on the original network inventory script from the repo hpreston/summer2021-devasc-prep-network-inventory-01.

ls -l development-steps 

total 304
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston  7986 Jun 11 20:04 01_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston  8526 Jun 11 20:04 02_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston  8791 Jun 11 20:04 03_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 10091 Jun 11 20:04 04_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 12125 Jun 11 20:04 05_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 12369 Jun 11 20:04 05a_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 12993 Jun 11 20:04 05b_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 13405 Jun 11 20:04 05c_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 13581 Jun 11 20:04 05d_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 13709 Jun 11 20:04 05e_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 14398 Jun 11 20:04 05f_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 14557 Jun 11 20:04 05g_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 15843 Jun 11 20:04 06_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 16493 Jun 11 20:04 07_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 16778 Jun 11 20:04 08_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 17321 Jun 11 20:04 08a_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 17911 Jun 11 20:04 08b_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 18128 Jun 11 20:04 09_network_inventory.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 hpreston hpreston 18130 Jun 11 20:04 10_network_inventory.py```

> Note: letters after a number indicate an improvement to the main step number, or a multi-stage development step.