bics_nornir

Nornir is a Python automation framework that provides support for concurrent execution of tasks against a set of hosts. It comes with pluggable inventory and task capabilities to promote composability and reusability.

bics_nornir provides a set of BICS-developed plugins that addresses required functionality for communicating with the infrastructure as well as plugins as building blocks to implement runbooks. These plugins are:

• .../plugins/connections/ncclient: a connection plugin that uses ncclient to communicate with devices using Netconf
• .../plugins/tasks/networking/nc: a set of high-level task-plugins:
  • get_config: retrieves (a part of) the device's configuration using netconf. The selection of a subtree of the configuration is through the path parameter
  • get/ retrieves (a part of) the device's state information using netconf.
  • nc_configure: sends a configuration (python object) to the device, with support of candidate/running comparision, dry-run and associated commit() and discard()
• .../plugins/tasks/data/load_intent: loads intent files from a directory

Installation

1. set up your Python virtualenv (e.g. python3 -m venv v ; source v/bin/activate)

Install using pip

This is the recommended method if you're familiar with the plugins or when you want to run a Nornir runbook.

2. install bics_nornir using pip from the default public PyPI repository: pip install bics-nornir This will install bics_nornir and all its dependencies, including nornir and its depdendencies, in the current Python environment.

Install using Git

This is the recommended method if you want to familiarize yourself with the plugin functionality.

2. install Nornir with pip install nornir from a PyPI repo that has the Nornir package and its dependencies (default: pypi.org)
3. clone the bics_nornir Git repo into the current project dir: git clone https://bcgit.bc/wdesmedt/bics_nornir.git
4. install poetry with pip install poetry
5. install dependencies with poetry install

The bics_nornir package is now available for use within the local Python environment.

Usage

The bics_nornir package introduces support for netconf connections to Nokia SROS routers. In order to use Nornir and bics_nornir plugins, following is required:

• a Nornir config file (see Nornir documentation for details). This config file must reference an Inventory plugin (default: SimpleInventory) that has appropriate host entries to reachable Nokia SROS devices (see examples directory for a sample config file)
• a Nornir inventory, referenced from the config file, containing reachable hosts and appropriate username/password (see examples directory for a sample inventory (type:SimpleInventory))
• one or more reachable nokia SROS nodes referenced in the inventory.

A reachable node means netconf must be enabled for the user so that ssh user@router -p 830 -s netconf returns:

~ ssh nc@172.30.2.2 -p 830 -s netconf
TiMOS-B-16.0.R7 both/x86_64 Nokia 7750 SR Copyright (c) 2000-2019 Nokia.
All rights reserved. All use subject to applicable license agreements.
Built on Wed Apr 10 16:45:38 PDT 2019 by builder in /builds/c/160B/R7/panos/main

nc@172.30.2.2's password:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<hello xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
    <capabilities>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.0</capability>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:base:1.1</capability>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:candidate:1.0</capability>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:confirmed-commit:1.1</capability>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:notification:1.0</capability>
        <capability>urn:ietf:params:netconf:capability:interleave:1.0</capability>
...

Also, model-driven configuration-mode must be enabled on the nodes to support configuration candidates.

Install Jupyter with pip install jupyter and run the included notebook to get familiar with the plugins:

cd examples
jupyter notebook nornir_netconf.ipynb

Todo

• make connection plugin multi-vendor. Current implementation is for Nokia SROS only