mass import of devices into NCS?

[khgrant]

Hi everyone.  Is there a way to configure mass import of devices into NCS?  I have a network of devices from a couple different vendors.  Is there a native way to configure these en masse? If not, I have an idea of how to do this, but I want to make sure I am not reinventing the wheel.

[shooky@nil.si]

There are many ways of doing this such as using ncs_load, ncs_cli, netconf-console, REST API, creating a script that reads an excel or csv file and loads it into NCS using any of the previously mentioned options, ...

Here is an example using the ncs_load tool:

Create an XML file containing the relevant information about the devices such as:

• hostnames
• IP addresses
• device types
• auth group
• admin state (optional)
• ssh algorithm and key (optional)
• etc.

Use the ncs_load tool to upload the devices into NCS:

ncs_load -l -m devices.xml

A sample format of devices.xml

<devices xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/ncs">

  <device>

     <name>deviceXYZ.cisco.com</name>

     <address>x.x.x.x</address>

     <port>22</port>

     <ssh> ... </ssh>

     <state> <admin-state>unlocked</admin-state> </state>

     <authgroup>default</authgroup>

     <device-type>

         <cli> <ned-id xmlns:cisco-ios-xr-id="http://tail-f.com/ned/cisco-ios-xr-id">cisco-ios-xr-id:cisco-ios-xr</ned-id> </cli>

     </device-type>

  </device>

  <device>   ...  </device>

  <device>   ...  </device>

  ...

</devices>

[khgrant]

I guess the easiest way is to prepare the device xml config and import it using the “ncs_load -m -l <file>” command.

[khgrant · Accepted solution]

I prepared it for a POC and showed a couple of options:

- one bash script to load devices from csv file

- one python script to delete the same servers

[Shantha Kumar Selvaraj]

Hi,

Couldnt find the discovery package?

[Shantha Kumar Selvaraj]

ok so I found it under packages folder

[khgrant]

Hi Shantha – thank you for your email. Glad you were able to locate the package.

Regards,

Khara

Khara Grant

Communication

khgrant@cisco.com<mailto:khgrant@cisco.com>

Tel: +1 678 352 2678

Cisco Systems, Inc.

United States

cisco.com

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[khgrant]

Here the bash script text as file was filtered by anti-virus.

#!/bin/bash

INPUT=lab_equipment_list.csv

CLI=${NCS_DIR}/bin/ncs_cli

#CLI=cat

while IFS=, read -ra arr; do

IP=${arr[0]}

NAME=${arr[1]}

MODEL=${arr[2]}

NEDType=${arr[3]}

echo "Adding:" ${NAME} " NedType: " ${NEDType}

case $NEDType in

cisco-ios)

nedconfig="set device device ${NAME} device-type cli ned-id cisco-ios "

;;

cisco-iosxr)

nedconfig="set device device ${NAME} device-type cli ned-id cisco-ios-xr"

;;

netconf)

nedconfig="set device device ${NAME} device-type netconf"

;;

esac

$CLI << CommandsHERE

configure

set devices device ${NAME} address ${IP}

set devices device ${NAME} port 22

set devices device ${NAME} authgroup default

set devices device ${NAME} state admin-state unlocked

${nedconfig}

commit

exit

exit

CommandsHERE

done < $INPUT

[khgrant]

A side note is there's also a device discovery package within nso

Basically you specify the mgmt ip range/set, nso will try to connect and report upon request what it discovers

[khgrant]

I did this, and there I also had the issue that the the amount of devs was large. 50k devs.

At the time I concluded that adding them one by one was slower than preparing one fat XML file for all of them and then just load with ncs_load -l -m

[khgrant]

Hi everyone. I finished a script that takes a MATE plan file and imports the routers into NCS. I can send it out in a bit when I get back.

I tested it and it worked in a 25 router lab.

[Shantha Kumar Selvaraj]

Thanks,your updates are really helpful.

I see you have worked on clustering setup,was wondering how were you keeping your service node updated with devices from device nodes.

The service node requires each of the remote node managed devices to be added in service node..