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Basic Usage

Picking the right Driver

Because netconf is a standard we don't need to deal with "platform" type drivers for scrapli_netconf! Instead, there are only two options -- NetconfDriver or AsyncNetconfDriver, these can be imported from scrapli_netconf.driver like so:

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver
from scrapli_netconf.driver import AsyncNetconfDriver

Note: if you are using async you must set the transport to asyncssh -- this is the only async transport supported at this time!

Basic Driver Arguments

The drivers of course need some information about the device you are trying to connect to. The most common arguments to provide to the driver are outlined below:

Argument Purpose/Value
host name/ip of host to connect to
port port of host to connect to (defaults to port 830)
auth_username username for authentication
auth_password password for authentication
auth_secondary password for secondary authentication (enable password)
auth_private_key private key for authentication
auth_strict_key strict key checking -- TRUE by default!
ssh_config_file True/False or path to ssh config file to use
strip_namespaces True/False strip namespaces from returned XML (default False)

These arguments may be passed as keyword arguments to the driver of your choice, or, commonly are passed via dictionary unpacking as show below:

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.11",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
}

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()

NOTE that scrapli enables strict host key checking by default!

Opening and Closing a Connection

scrapli_netconf does not open the connection for you when creating your scrapli connection object in normal operations , you must manually call the open method prior to sending any commands to the device as shown below.

```python from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = { "host": "172.18.0.11", "auth_username": "vrnetlab", "auth_password": "VR-netlab9", "auth_strict_key": False, }

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device) conn.open() response = conn.get_config(source="running") 

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Connections can be closed by calling the `close` method:

```python
conn.close()

Get Config

Configurations can be retrieved from datastores on a netconf device using the get-config netconf method. The get_config method accepts a source argument which must refer to an available datastore on the device -- options for this would be one of:

  • running
  • startup
  • candidate
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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
response = conn.get_config(source="running")
print(response.result)

Get

Much like get-config, the get method can be used to get data from the device, generally "operational" or "show " type data. The get method requires a "filter" to be applied in order to identify the data to get -- this filter can be one of two types -- "subtree" (default) or "xpath". In the context of network devices it seems that not many devices support "xpath" filters (only IOSXE with netconf 1.1 of the tested platforms supports xpath for example).

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

filter_ = """
<components xmlns="http://openconfig.net/yang/platform">
    <component>
        <state>
        </state>
    </component>
</components>"""

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
response = conn.get(filter_=filter_, filter_type="subtree")
print(response.result)

Lock and Unlock

Netconf provides the ability to lock a configuration datastore. Much like get-config a target datastore must be provided, and is dependent on the capabilities of the platform you are interacting with.

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
response = conn.lock(target="candidate")
print(response.result)
response = conn.unlock(target="candidate")
print(response.result)

Commit and Discard

If your platform supports commit operations (IOS-XR and Junos in the context of scrapli_netconf tested platforms ), any changes created using the edit-config method will need to be committed (or discarded).

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
response = conn.commit()
print(response.result)
response = conn.discard()
print(response.result)

Edit Config

To edit configs, simply use the edit_config method with an appropriate config payload and target.

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

cdp_config = """
<config>
    <cdp xmlns="http://cisco.com/ns/yang/Cisco-IOS-XR-cdp-cfg">
        <timer>80</timer>
        <enable>true</enable>
        <log-adjacency></log-adjacency>
        <hold-time>200</hold-time>
        <advertise-v1-only></advertise-v1-only>
    </cdp>
</config>
"""

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
result = conn.edit_config(config=cdp_config, target="candidate")
print(result.result)

Delete Config

Some devices may allow you to delete a candidate/startup configuration. You can do so with the delete_config method ; note that this is only currently tested on Junos as the test environment IOSXR version does not support this method . Per the RFC, "running" is never a valid target; scrapli_netconf will produce a warning indicating this if "running" is set as the target; if strict_datastores is set to True an exception will be raised.

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.13",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 830
}

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
result = conn.delete_config(target="candidate")
print(result.result)

RPC

The rpc method is a "bare-bones" rpc call which does not apply any formatting/standardization beyond the outer most rpc tag. Generally this is used for Juniper devices and the "bare rpc" type calls supported on junos devices not supporting/using models (YANG/IETF/etc.), but can of course be used to send any kind of custom crafted rpc you'd like!

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from scrapli_netconf.driver import NetconfDriver

my_device = {
    "host": "172.18.0.15",
    "auth_username": "vrnetlab",
    "auth_password": "VR-netlab9",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "port": 22
}

commit_filter = """
<get-commit-revision-information>
    <level>detail</level>
</get-commit-revision-information>
"""

conn = NetconfDriver(**my_device)
conn.open()
result = conn.rpc(filter_=commit_filter)
print(result.result)