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Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi All,

One common complaint I often hear from NSO service developers is the amount of work it takes updating templates anytime there is a change to an underlying NED, so I thought that it might be worthwhile to investigate as to whether or not I could automatically generate an NSO template based on the CLI configuration. The remainder of this blog will discuss the proof-of-concept I came up with and I'll provide a link to the package I created as a result of the effort.

Solution Description:

The proof-of-concept is basically a package called ntool or tailf-ntool. The idea is that you can create a local install with the appropriate NEDs you will be deploying, your service package(s) and the ntool package. Uncompress the service package you want to generate templates for and load the packages. The tool doesn't require that your package actually loads correctly. One you have the environment in place you can try out the tool.

Before we get into the details there are a few limitations with the current version of the tool:

      • Ntool (available on the NSO Package Library) is not a supported package, but rather a proof-of-concept for template auto generation. You are free to modify/contribute to it and hopefully it improves over time.
      • Ntool works with templates that use variables {$VAR} as opposed to reading directly from the service model. This support is pretty straightforward and should be added in the near term
      • Ntool for now only handles a single device type per CLI configuration file. If you have multiple NED types in a template you will need to create a .cfg file for each device type and manually combine the output of the tool.

Using Ntool:

Step(1): Create CLI configuration files


Most service developers know the exact CLI configuration they want to NSO to deploy on CLI devices. To use the CLI tool the user creates a config file which contains the template variables and CLI configuration. The configuration file format is expected to be <TEMPLATE_FILE_NAME>.cfg. Tail-f ntool will then generate a template file <TEMPLATE_FILE_NAME>.xml

Consider the following example bridge_group.cfg:


        • The first line of the .cfg file must the NED package name
        • Variables show in {$[0-9A-Za-z\-\_] } present the variable part of the configuration.
        • Variables which are non-string like ip addresses or VLAN can be assigned an initial value to give the template generator a correct value for initially generating the template (See line 11 below)

  1 +NED:cisco-iosxr            First line of every .cfg file is the NED package required

  2

  3 l2vpn

  4   bridge group {$BG-NAME}

  5   bridge-domain {$BG-NAME}

  6     mac

  7       withdraw state-down

  8     exit

  9     mtu 9800

10     vfi {$BG-NAME}

11     vpn-id {$VPN-ID=34}

12     autodiscovery bgp

13       rd auto

14       route-target {$BG-ROUTE-TARGET}

15     exit

16     exit

17   exit

18   exit

19 exit


Which generates the following template:

  1 <config-template xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/config/1.0">

  2   <!--

  3     tailf-ntool Generated File using NED package cisco-iosxr version [6.0.6]

  4   -->

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

  6   <device>

  7     <name>{$DEVICE}</name>

  8       <config>

  9         <l2vpn xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ned/cisco-ios-xr">

10           <bridge>

11             <group>

12               <group-name>{$BG-NAME}</group-name>

13               <bridge-domain>

14                 <bridge-domain-name>{$BG-NAME}</bridge-domain-name>

15                 <mac>

16                   <withdraw>

17                     <state-down/>

18                   </withdraw>

19                 </mac>

20                 <mtu>9800</mtu>

21                 <vfi>

22                   <name>{$BG-NAME}</name>

23                   <vpn-id>{$VPN-ID}</vpn-id>

24                   <autodiscovery>

25                     <bgp>

26                       <rd>auto</rd>

27                       <route-target>

28                         <route-target-list>

29                           <name>{$BG-ROUTE-TARGET}</name>

30                         </route-target-list>

31                       </route-target>

32                     </bgp>

33                   </autodiscovery>

34                 </vfi>

35               </bridge-domain>

36             </group>

37           </bridge>

38         </l2vpn>

39       </config>

40   </device>

41 </devices>

42 </config-template>


The template generator substitutes the initial value for the variable name in the CLI "snippet". In some cases there might be some variable which cannot be set if they are null. Consider the following configuration example below, on line(s) 8 and 9:

  1 +NED:alu-sr

  2 exit all

  3 configure

  4 router Base

  5 bgp

  6   group {$PEER_GROUP}

  7   bfd-enable

  8   export     {$EXPORT-POLICY=nonull}

  9   import     {$IMPORT-POLICY=nonull}

10   exit

11 exit

12 exit

13 exit all


Generates the following template and you can see on lines 15 and 16 a when constraint is added to insure the variable name is constrained by a when condition requiring the variable(s) be non-null:

  1 <config-template xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/config/1.0">

  2   <!--

  3     tailf-ntool Generated File using NED package alu-sr version [6.1.1]

  4   -->

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

  6   <device>

  7     <name>{$DEVICE}</name>

  8       <config>

  9         <router xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ned/alu-sr">

10           <router-name>Base</router-name>

11           <bgp>

12             <group>

13               <id>{$PEER_GROUP}</id>

14               <bfd-enable/>

15               <export when="{$EXPORT-POLICY!=''}">{$EXPORT-POLICY}</export>

16               <import when="{$IMPORT-POLICY!=''}">{$IMPORT-POLICY}</import>

17             </group>

18           </bgp>

19         </router>

20       </config>

21   </device>

22 </devices>

23 </config-template>


After creating the .cfg files which are then placed in a cli directory at the top level of the NSO package you wish to generate template files for.


Step(2): Execute the ntool command


admin@ncs> ntool cli template package sharedpackage     

Generating Service Configuration Template(s)

  Changing directory to package directory .............................. Success

  Searching for package [sharedpackage] ................................ Found

  Parsing [ADVA-825-FLOW-1CLASS-POP-1.cfg] ............................. Success

  NED Type:    adva-825

  NED Version: 3.6.9

  Parsing [ADVA-825-FLOW-1CLASS-POP-1.cfg] ............................. Completed

  Generating template from [ADVA-825-FLOW-1CLASS-POP-1.cfg] ............ Success

  Saving template file [ADVA-825-FLOW-1CLASS-POP-1.xml] ................ Success

  Parsing [ALU-BGP.cfg] ................................................ Success

  NED Type:    alu-sr

  NED Version: 6.1.1




29 Comments
Johan Nemitz
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Very cool.  Can you provide a link to the package?

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Well the package is available on the NSO developer site on GitHub

https://github.com/NSO-developer/ntool

-Dan

rogaglia
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Dan,

Woww....such a great tool.

Could it be that it does not deal with non-regular spacing in the config files?

Regards and thanks for sharing!

Roque

pranayk2
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi,

I installed the ntool in packages folder and reloaded the packages but I am not able to figure out how to use this tool. Also i guess there are certain differences between documentation and code.

In the yang , there is no option to provide a file path .

ntool/ntool.yang at master · NSO-developer/ntool · GitHub

Can you please help me figure out how to use this tool?

admin@ncs# ntool-commands verify device-type ios command-list "ip access-list extended rr"

result Error: on line 0: ip access-list extended rr


admin@ncs# ntool-commands create-template device-type ios command-list "router ospf 1"

result

<config-template xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/config/1.0">

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

  <device>

    <name>{$DEVICE}</name>

  </device>

</devices>

</config-template>



Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Pranay,

Quick question do you have the appropriate NEDs loaded?

-Dan

pranayk2
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Yes , i have cisco ios ned 5.6 and i am using nso 4.5.1 .

Output from build-meta-data.xml of cisco-ios ned


<package>

        <name>cisco-ios</name>

        <version>5.6</version>


Do i need to change the ned ?

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Pranav,

I will try with your environment and see what happens. Stay tuned!!

-Dan

rogaglia
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Dan,

I am extensively using this tool as I find it very intuitive.

Two caveats that I found:

Caveats:

  • Only one variable per line possible
  • Cannot deal with variables next to a string (like "interface GigabitEthernet{$VARIABLE}”) and what we expect is:

          <interface xmlns="urn:ios">

               <GigabitEthernet>

                 <name>{$VARIABLE}</name>

Am I correct?

Roque

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Roque,

Well it should deal with those scenarios, let me see what I can do.

-Dan

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Roque,

The latest version 1.7 handles the interface scenario you described successfully. Also can provide some more details, specifically the .cfg file for more than a single variable on one line. I did some testing and it worked for me.

-Dan

guspadar
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Thanks Daniel,

That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Thanks

Gustavo

uwankhed
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Daniel, I am also seeing the exact same issue locally in my NSO 4.6 setup as mentioned by Pranay. Do you have any solution for this?

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

HI Umesh,

I haven't tried it with 4.6 but I can give it a try.

-Dan

uwankhed
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

The issue I am facing might not be specific to 4.6 as Pranay has seen the problem in old version too. You mentioned that you will look into his environment to debug the issue he faced which is same as mine. Did you find anything amiss in his setup?

I am also not getting any positive results:

admin@ncs# ntool-commands verify device-type ios command-list "ip access-list extended rr"

result Error: on line 0: ip access-list extended rr

admin@ncs# ntool-commands create-template device-type ios command-list "router ospf 1"

result

<config-template xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/config/1.0">

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

  <device>

    <name>{$DEVICE}</name>

  </device>

</devices>

</config-template>

Thanks

Dan.Sullivan
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Umesh,

I’ve installed the cisco-ios NED and built the ntool package and set up the following environment:

admin@ncs> show packages package package-version

PACKAGE

NAME VERSION

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