mirzawaqasahmed/imnetdb

network database python library

Why IMNetDB?

As a network automation engineer you may want to create applications that have a database backend that stores the "source of truth" or "intent" of your network and services. This repo contains a Python library that uses the ArangoDB database software to create such application-specific backed databases. While every application will ultimately be different, this project provdes a common set of networking constructs to get started with.

This library is meant to be a "low level" programming interface, but provide specific capabilities that are commonly needed for network management oriented applications. For example, this library supports the ability to "allocate unused interfaces" and manage "cable relationships between devices". This library also contains constructs so that you, as a python developer, can create your own new database nodes and edges and extend the use of this repo in a way that is specific to your application.

Why ArangoDB?

I chose AranagoDB after looking at a few other database systems. There are many to choose from, and they each have their own sets of pros & cons. I selected ArangoDB for the following reasons:

• Single database system that provide a Graph and NoSQL capabilities
• Does not require pre-defining schemas, which lends itself well for organic changes
• Community and Enterprise editions available
• Docker image freely available
• WebUI for human interaction and dev-testing
• Came highly recommended from a trusted colleague and network automation expert

For more from ArangoDB themselves, see: Why AranagoDB.

What Comes with IMNetDB?

Basic Networking Building Blocks

The following constructs are provided as part of the "basic" data model. These constructs act more as scaffolding since there are no pre-defined schema/field definitions. As a developer, you can choose what fields to place in each of these node types. In addition to these node types, the basic data model defines a set of relationship types. For details refer to the file basic_db_model.py.

Basic Device

• Device - represents a single managed device
• DeviceGroup - represents a group of devices
• Interface - represents a device interface
• Cable - represents the connection between two device interfaces
• LAG - represents Link Aggregation Groups
• LACP - represents the LACP connection between LAGs

Virtual Networking

• VLAN - represents a VLAN
• VLANGroup - represents a group of VLANs

IP management

• RoutingTable - represents a routing-table
• IPAddress - represents an IPv4 or IPv6 address
• IPNetwork - represents an IPv4 or IPv6 network address
• IPInterface - represents an IPv4 or IPv6 interface address

Resource Pools

Another common aspect of building a NSOT application is managing "resources" such as IP addresses, ASN values, VLAN numbers, or any pool of data. The IMNetDB library defines a Resource Pool construct that allows you to put/take items from your defined pools. You can manage your Resource Pool database separately from your application NSOT database for sharing across multiple tools you need to create. For more details, refer to rpools.

Get Started!

Before You Begin

Before using this repo you need to have the following installed on your system:

• Python3.6
• Docker

You must also have access to the Internet so that you can download the ArangoDB docker image.

Installation

This library is presently not installed in PyPi. Therefore you must clone and install into your environment for now.

You should create a virtualenv and activate it before installing this project.

$ python setup.py install

You will also need to have ArangoDB installed. For convenience, there is a docker-compose file located in the tests directory. This file contains the default login user password. You can change the value in the docker-compose.yml file, or use other ArangoDB methods to handle login user-passwords.

Presuming you have Docker installed on your system, and you have Internet access, you can download the ArangoDB docker image and start the server using the following command:

$ cd tests
$ docker-compose up -d

At this point you should be able to open you webbrowser to the ArangoDB WebUI page:

http://localhost:8529

First Usage

The first step is to connect to the database. If the database does not exist, it will automatically be created based on the defined nodes and edges defined in the models.py file. You can create different databases, each representing your specific network application. If you do not provide the db_name parameters, the default value is "imnetdb".

from imnetdb import IMNetDB

client = IMNetDB(password='admin123', db_name='myappdb')

At this point you can then start using the client to manage the database. For examples, you can review the files in the tests directory.

You can also open the WebUI to see what is created from this initial step.

Now lets create a device with some interfaces ...

from imnetdb import IMNetDB

client = IMNetDB(password='admin123')

leaf = client.devices.ensure('leaf1', role='leaf', description='this is my spine')

# create 48x10g ports

for if_name in ("Ethernet{}".format(num) for num in range(1, 49)):   # range does not include stop value, so +1
    client.interfaces.ensure((leaf, if_name), speed=10)

# create 8x100g ports

for if_name in ("Ethernet{}".format(num) for num in range(1, 9):
    client.interfaces.ensure((leaf, if_name), speed=100)

NOTE: There is a companion repo that is used to fabricate devices and interfaces that are specific to VENDOR and MODEL. Refer to the device-stencils project for more details

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is a work in progress ....