Module scrapli#

scrapli is a module that allows you to connect to network equipment using Telnet, SSH or NETCONF.

Just like netmiko, scrapli can use paramiko or telnetlib (and other modules) for the connection itself, but it provides the same interface for different types of connections and different equipment.

Installing scrapli:

pip install scrapli

Note

Book covers scrapli version 2021.1.30.

The three main components of scrapli are:

  • transport is a specific way to connect to equipment

  • channel - the next level above the transport, which is responsible for sending commands, receiving output and other interactions with equipment

  • driver is the interface for working with scrapli. There are both specific drivers, for example, IOSXEDriver, which understands how to interact with a specific type of equipment, and the basic Driver, which provides a minimal interface for working via SSH/Telnet.

Available transport options:

  • system - the built-in SSH client, it is assumed that the client is used on Linux/MacOS

  • paramiko - the paramiko module

  • ssh2 - the ssh2-python module (wrapper around the C library libssh2)

  • telnet - telnetlib

  • asyncssh - asyncssh module

  • asynctelnet - async telnet client

Most of the examples will be using the system transport. Since the module interface is the same for all synchronous transport options, to use a different transport, you just need to specify it (for telnet transport, you must also specify the port).

Note

Asynchronous transport options (asyncssh, asynctelnet) are covered in the Advanced Python for network engineers (russian)

Supported platforms:

  • Cisco IOS-XE

  • Cisco NX-OS

  • Juniper JunOS

  • Cisco IOS-XR

  • Arista EOS

In addition to these platforms, there are also scrapli community platforms. And one of the advantages of scrapli is that it is relatively easy to add new platforms.

There are two connection options in scrapli: using the general Scrapli class, which selects the required driver by the platform parameter, or a specific driver, for example, IOSXEDriver. The same parameters are passed to the specific driver and Scrapli.

Note

In addition to these options, there are also generic (base) drivers.

If the scrapli (or scrapli community) does not support the required platform, you can add the platform to the scrapli community or use generic drivers (not covered in the book):

Connection parameters#

Basic connection parameters:

  • host - IP address or hostname

  • auth_username - username for authentication

  • auth_password - password for authentication

  • auth_secondary - enable password

  • auth_strict_key - strict key checking (True by default)

  • platform - must be specified when using Scrapli

  • transport - which transport to use

  • transport_options - options for a specific transport

The connection process is slightly different depending on whether you are using a context manager or not. When connecting without a context manager, you first need to pass parameters to the driver or Scrapli, and then call the open method:

from scrapli import Scrapli

r1 = {
   "host": "192.168.100.1",
   "auth_username": "cisco",
   "auth_password": "cisco",
   "auth_secondary": "cisco",
   "auth_strict_key": False,
   "platform": "cisco_iosxe"
}

In [2]: ssh = Scrapli(**r1)

In [3]: ssh.open()

After that, you can send commands:

In [4]: ssh.get_prompt()
Out[4]: 'R1#'

In [5]: ssh.close()

When using a context manager, you don’t need to call open:

In [8]: with Scrapli(**r1_driver) as ssh:
   ...:     print(ssh.get_prompt())
   ...:
R1#

Using the driver#

Available drivers

Network equipment

Драйвер

Параметр platform

Cisco IOS-XE

IOSXEDriver

cisco_iosxe

Cisco NX-OS

NXOSDriver

cisco_nxos

Cisco IOS-XR

IOSXRDriver

cisco_iosxr

Arista EOS

EOSDriver

arista_eos

Juniper JunOS

JunosDriver

juniper_junos

Example of connection using the IOSXEDriver driver (connecting to Cisco IOS):

In [11]: from scrapli.driver.core import IOSXEDriver

In [12]: r1_driver = {
    ...:    "host": "192.168.100.1",
    ...:    "auth_username": "cisco",
    ...:    "auth_password": "cisco",
    ...:    "auth_secondary": "cisco",
    ...:    "auth_strict_key": False,
    ...: }

In [13]: with IOSXEDriver(**r1_driver) as ssh:
    ...:     print(ssh.get_prompt())
    ...:
R1#

Sending commands#

Scrapli has several methods for sending commands:

  • send_command - send one show command

  • send_commands - send a list of show commands

  • send_commands_from_file - send show commands from a file

  • send_config - send one command in configuration mode

  • send_configs - send a list of commands in configuration mode

  • send_configs_from_file - send commands from file in configuration mode

All of these methods return a Response object, not the output of the command as a string.

Response object#

The send_command method and other methods for sending commands return a Response object (not the output of the command). Response allows you to get not only the output of the command, but also such things as the execution time of the command, whether there were errors during the execution of the command, structured output using textfsm, and so on.

In [15]: reply = ssh.send_command("sh clock")

In [16]: reply
Out[16]: Response <Success: True>

You can get the output of the command by accessing the result attribute:

In [17]: reply.result
Out[17]: '*17:31:54.232 UTC Wed Mar 31 2021'

The raw_result attribute contains a byte string with complete output:

In [18]: reply.raw_result
Out[18]: b'\n*17:31:54.232 UTC Wed Mar 31 2021\nR1#'

For commands that take longer than normal show, it may be necessary to know the command execution time:

In [18]: r = ssh.send_command("ping 10.1.1.1")

In [19]: r.result
Out[19]: 'Type escape sequence to abort.\nSending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 10.1.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:\n.....\nSuccess rate is 0 percent (0/5)'

In [20]: r.elapsed_time
Out[20]: 10.047594

In [21]: r.start_time
Out[21]: datetime.datetime(2021, 4, 1, 7, 10, 56, 63697)

In [22]: r.finish_time
Out[22]: datetime.datetime(2021, 4, 1, 7, 11, 6, 111291)

The channel_input attribute returns the command that was sent to the equipment:

In [23]: r.channel_input
Out[23]: 'ping 10.1.1.1'

send_command method#

The send_command method allows you to send one command to a device.

In [14]: reply = ssh.send_command("sh clock")

Method parameters (all these parameters must be passed as keyword arguments):

  • strip_prompt - remove a prompt from the output. Deleted by default

  • failed_when_contains - if the output contains the specified line or one of the lines in the list, the command will be considered as completed with an error

  • timeout_ops - maximum time to execute a command, by default it is 30 seconds for IOSXEDriver

An example of using the send_command method:

In [15]: reply = ssh.send_command("sh clock")

In [16]: reply
Out[16]: Response <Success: True>

The timeout_ops parameter specifies how long to wait for the command to execute:

In [19]: ssh.send_command("ping 8.8.8.8", timeout_ops=20)
Out[19]: Response <Success: True>

If the command does not complete within the specified time, a ScrapliTimeout exception will be raised (output is truncated):

In [20]: ssh.send_command("ping 8.8.8.8", timeout_ops=2)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ScrapliTimeout                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-20-e062fb19f0e6> in <module>
----> 1 ssh.send_command("ping 8.8.8.8", timeout_ops=2)

In addition to receiving normal command output, scrapli also allows you to receive structured output, for example using the textfsm_parse_output method:

In [21]: reply = ssh.send_command("sh ip int br")

In [22]: reply.textfsm_parse_output()
Out[22]:
[{'intf': 'Ethernet0/0',
  'ipaddr': '192.168.100.1',
  'status': 'up',
  'proto': 'up'},
 {'intf': 'Ethernet0/1',
  'ipaddr': '192.168.200.1',
  'status': 'up',
  'proto': 'up'},
 {'intf': 'Ethernet0/2',
  'ipaddr': 'unassigned',
  'status': 'up',
  'proto': 'up'},
 {'intf': 'Ethernet0/3',
  'ipaddr': '192.168.130.1',
  'status': 'up',
  'proto': 'up'}]

Note

What is TextFSM and how to work with it is covered in chapter 21. Scrapli uses ready-made templates in order to receive structured output and in basic cases does not require knowledge of TextFSM.

Error detection#

Methods for sending commands automatically check the output for errors. For each vendor/type of equipment, these are different errors, plus you can specify which lines in the output will be considered an error. By default, IOSXEDriver will consider the following lines as errors:

In [21]: ssh.failed_when_contains
Out[21]:
['% Ambiguous command',
 '% Incomplete command',
 '% Invalid input detected',
 '% Unknown command']

The failed attribute of the Response object returns False if the command finished without error and True if it failed.

In [23]: reply = ssh.send_command("sh clck")

In [24]: reply.result
Out[24]: "        ^\n% Invalid input detected at '^' marker."

In [25]: reply
Out[25]: Response <Success: False>

In [26]: reply.failed
Out[26]: True

send_config method#

The send_config method allows you to send one configuration mode command.

Example:

In [33]: r = ssh.send_config("username user1 password password1")

Since scrapli removes the command from the output, by default, when using send_config, the result attribute will contain an empty string (if there was no error while executing the command):

In [34]: r.result
Out[34]: ''

You can add the parameter strip_prompt=False and then the prompt will appear in the output:

In [37]: r = ssh.send_config("username user1 password password1", strip_prompt=False)

In [38]: r.result
Out[38]: 'R1(config)#'

send_commands, send_configs#

The send_commands, send_configs methods differ from send_command, send_config in that they can send several commands. In addition, these methods do not return a Response, but a MultiResponse object, which can generally be thought of as a list of Response objects, one for each command.

In [44]: reply = ssh.send_commands(["sh clock", "sh ip int br"])

In [45]: reply
Out[45]: MultiResponse <Success: True; Response Elements: 2>

In [46]: for r in reply:
    ...:     print(r)
    ...:     print(r.result)
    ...:
Response <Success: True>
*08:38:20.115 UTC Thu Apr 1 2021
Response <Success: True>
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
Ethernet0/0                192.168.100.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up
Ethernet0/1                192.168.200.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up
Ethernet0/2                unassigned      YES NVRAM  up                    up
Ethernet0/3                192.168.130.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up

In [47]: reply.result
Out[47]: 'sh clock\n*08:38:20.115 UTC Thu Apr 1 2021sh ip int br\nInterface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol\nEthernet0/0                192.168.100.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up\nEthernet0/1                192.168.200.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up\nEthernet0/2                unassigned      YES NVRAM  up                    up\nEthernet0/3                192.168.130.1   YES NVRAM  up                    up'

In [48]: reply[0]
Out[48]: Response <Success: True>

In [49]: reply[1]
Out[49]: Response <Success: True>

In [50]: reply[0].result
Out[50]: '*08:38:20.115 UTC Thu Apr 1 2021'

When sending multiple commands, it is also very convenient to use the stop_on_failed parameter. By default, it is False, so all commands are executed, but if you specify stop_on_failed=True, after an error occurs in some command, the following commands will not be executed:

In [59]: reply = ssh.send_commands(["ping 192.168.100.2", "sh clck", "sh ip int br"], stop_on_failed=True)

In [60]: reply
Out[60]: MultiResponse <Success: False; Response Elements: 2>

In [61]: reply.result
Out[61]: "ping 192.168.100.2\nType escape sequence to abort.\nSending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.100.2, timeout is 2 seconds:\n!!!!!\nSuccess rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/2/6 mssh clck\n        ^\n% Invalid input detected at '^' marker."

In [62]: for r in reply:
    ...:     print(r)
    ...:     print(r.result)
    ...:
Response <Success: True>
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.100.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/2/6 ms
Response <Success: False>
        ^
% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.

Telnet connection#

To connect to equipment via Telnet, you must specify transport equal to telnet and be sure to specify the port parameter equal to 23 (or the port that you use to connect via Telnet):

from scrapli.driver.core import IOSXEDriver
from scrapli.exceptions import ScrapliException
import socket

r1 = {
    "host": "192.168.100.1",
    "auth_username": "cisco",
    "auth_password": "cisco2",
    "auth_secondary": "cisco",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "transport": "telnet",
    "port": 23,  # must be specified when connecting telnet
}


def send_show(device, show_command):
    try:
        with IOSXEDriver(**r1) as ssh:
            reply = ssh.send_command(show_command)
            return reply.result
    except socket.timeout as error:
        print(error)
    except ScrapliException as error:
        print(error, device["host"])


if __name__ == "__main__":
    output = send_show(r1, "sh ip int br")
    print(output)

Scrapli examples#

Basic example of sending show command:

from scrapli.driver.core import IOSXEDriver
from scrapli.exceptions import ScrapliException


r1 = {
    "host": "192.168.100.1",
    "auth_username": "cisco",
    "auth_password": "cisco",
    "auth_secondary": "cisco",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "timeout_socket": 5,  # timeout for establishing socket/initial connection
    "timeout_transport": 10,  # timeout for ssh|telnet transport
}


def send_show(device, show_command):
    try:
        with IOSXEDriver(**r1) as ssh:
            reply = ssh.send_command(show_command)
            return reply.result
    except ScrapliException as error:
        print(error, device["host"])


if __name__ == "__main__":
    output = send_show(r1, "sh ip int br")
    print(output)

Basic example of sending config commands:

from pprint import pprint
from scrapli import Scrapli

r1 = {
    "host": "192.168.100.1",
    "auth_username": "cisco",
    "auth_password": "cisco",
    "auth_secondary": "cisco",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "platform": "cisco_iosxe",
}


def send_show(device, show_commands):
    if type(show_commands) == str:
        show_commands = [show_commands]
    cmd_dict = {}
    with Scrapli(**r1) as ssh:
        for cmd in show_commands:
            reply = ssh.send_command(cmd)
            cmd_dict[cmd] = reply.result
    return cmd_dict


if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("show".center(20, "#"))
    output = send_show(r1, ["sh ip int br", "sh ver | i uptime"])
    pprint(output, width=120)

An example of sending configuration commands with error checking:

from pprint import pprint
from scrapli import Scrapli

r1 = {
    "host": "192.168.100.1",
    "auth_username": "cisco",
    "auth_password": "cisco",
    "auth_secondary": "cisco",
    "auth_strict_key": False,
    "platform": "cisco_iosxe",
}


def send_cfg(device, cfg_commands, strict=False):
    output = ""
    if type(cfg_commands) == str:
        cfg_commands = [cfg_commands]
    with Scrapli(**r1) as ssh:
        reply = ssh.send_configs(cfg_commands, stop_on_failed=strict)
        for cmd_reply in reply:
            if cmd_reply.failed:
                print(
                    f"An error occurred while executing the command::\n{reply.result}\n"
                )
        output = reply.result
    return output


if __name__ == "__main__":
    output_cfg = send_cfg(
        r1, ["interfacelo11", "ip address 11.1.1.1 255.255.255.255"], strict=True
    )
    print(output_cfg)