In my earlier blogs, I had covered basics of Netconf and Yang and how to use Netconf to configure Cisco devices. Recently, I came across this Python ncclient library that simplifies the configuration/monitoring of Networking devices that supports Netconf. Using ncclient library, we can programmatically configure and monitor devices using Netconf. I also found out that Cisco Openstack Neutron plugin uses ncclient library to program the Nexus switches.
I have used Cisco Nexus 3k switch and Cisco VIRL NXOS switch for the examples in this blog.
In my earlier blog on configuring Cisco Nexus devices using Netconf, I covered the following netconf requests.
- “get” request using filter to display configuration.
- “edit-config” request to change configuration.
- “exec-command” to execute raw CLI requests.
In this blog, I will cover the above same tests using Python ncclient library. Even though the examples below are tried from Python interactive shell, the same can be executed as a Python program as well.
First step is to import the ncclient library and create a connection:
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