Python on Problem of Network

Making Use of Vault: Ansible

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0100

As we come towards the end of this mini series, we talked about how to bootstrap a hashicorp vault for non-prod use, what primitives vault uses for secrets management, and how to talk to vault from python.

Here we will dig into how you can access vault content within an Ansible workflow, ensuring you never more have the pain of managing secrets with ansible-vault, or worse, storing them plain text in a repo somewhere.

Making Use of Vault: Python

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0100

It’s remarkably easy to get sucked into hardcoding things that probably should live outside your code.

It is clear to many of us that storing secrets anywhere that isn’t vault (or something like it), is a terrible practice. It is also true that the best laid plans of mice and men aft gan aglais.

In other words, the problem is rarely that we don’t want to do secure coding, its that we lack the time, talent, or awareness to do this right. Don’t dwell on that too much either - its just how the world works.

Hashi Vault Primitives

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 20:00:00 +0100

Some Vault Primitives

Pretty much everywhere you go in vault you will find you need a few building blocks to make anything work.

Env Vars

Regardless of how you choose to talk to vault (CLI/WebAPI/SDK), you will find that the most common way to “encode” the vault settings is in an Environment variable. This is a nod towards its “cloud native” upbringing, where config files are the devil or something.

Bootstrapping Hashi Vault

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0100

Recently I have spent a reasonable amount of time in Hashicorp vault. As part of a mini series on how to make better use of it in Network Automation, I started writing this as a “intro” to a post on the subject.

As per usual with me, it ended up being so long that it had to be its own post. So. Here you are.

Some of you might have opinions about Hashicorp and their licence changes. I do not (either professionally nor personally), compete with Hashicorp, and so it is my understanding I can use their products in an opensource sense. If you feel differently, feel free to use openbao.

The even-ended number problem in Go and Python

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 10:44:00 +0200

During the Go Essential Training course on LinkedIn, the instructor sets up a problem for you to solve. The solution is in the next slide of the course, and mine was ever so slightly different anyways, so I doubt that this needs to come with a spoiler alert, but anyways…

An even-ended number is one that starts and ends with the same digit. That is to say 1, 11, 121, and 10103921 are all even ended numbers as they all start and end with the same digit.

A Modern NetDevOps learning plan

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 10:19:00 +0200

Now that I have I have set up a sort of a learning plan to plug some gaps in my knowledge that I always wanted to plug, but didn’t have the time to do properly.

Mindful that I have an opportunity for learning without external influences on my time, but also that my Daughter only has Kindergarten until lunchtime every day, I really only get the morning before the family time kicks in.

ACI: Controller Upgrades with Python

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 01:42:00 +0000

So I bought my ACI bundles so long ago that they’re still running 1.0(3f). Right now mainline is 1.2(1k), so i’m a bit behind.

Using the official Cisco doc I did the first staged upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 using the Web GUI. I wanted to see what happened in a visual sense.

Basically you setup a connection between the APIC and a host that has staged the firmware files, then you setup a policy defining what versions the fabric should be on, and when that should be made active. For me it was 1.1(4f) and now basically.

ACI: Initial Design Considerations

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:49:00 +0000

ACI brings with it many different constructs for operating networks, some of which have analogous equivalence with classical networking, some of which are literally bat-poop crazy.

As per usual, you can find lots of resources on how to structure ACI fabrics elsewhere, i’m not going to waste time on what you can do and focus on what I am going to do (roughly).

The below Image was unceremoniously stolen from Cisco themselves, in the critical read ACI Fundamentals

The ACI Adventure Begins

Sat, 09 Jan 2016 18:21:00 +0000

Starting yesterday I began to deploy our Nexus 9000 ACI solution into our Datacentre. Scary yet fun times are ahead.

Over the course of the project I will do my best to chronicle anonymised info that talks about what we did and how we did it. Some of that may be of use to another ACI hopeful, whereas some will be pretty specific to my environment. One thing I won’t be doing is reinventing the blogging wheel, and I will chose to refer to others that helped me, rather than rehash the same subjects over and over again.

Using CallManager APIs for fun and profit: Part 4 - Python End to End

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 00:41:00 +0000

So by now you can use SoapUI and Python to read info out, and can utilise SoapUI Test Cases to validate, and deliver changes to the CallManager system. Again, please do ensure you have reviewed parts 1-3 before entering into this post. Its entirely contextualised within the series.

Up until now what we have been doing is quite focused on a single object being added or sense checked. In this, the final post in this mini series we will be looking at an end to end python script that can be used to add a new end user to the system, with pre and post validation.

Cisco Live 2015

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:55:00 +0000

This week is a first for me. I’m at Cisco Live in San Diego. It’s been pretty awesome so far I have to say!

Full Disclosure, I was brought here by Cisco to talk to Analysts about ACI. However, I should also point out my only session was closed door feedback on why we chose the solution, and how its helped us to date. Since we are only at the early stages, it was a short conversation. I thank Cisco for their hospitality, and for allowing me to access Conference Level sessions that my explorer level pass would not normally allow.

Using CallManager APIs for fun and profit: Part 3 - Changes

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 10:41:00 +0000

In this the third part of my mini series on using the CUCM API, we start to get further into the Ju-Ju, and check web app changes via the API, before then going on to make a change via the API itself.

As before if you haven’t gone through the previous two posts then please, head back to the start and we will see you back here shortly.

Whats your motivation today?

There are two reasons why you might want to use an API in your day to day changes.

Using CallManager APIs for fun and profit: Part 2 - Python

Sun, 31 May 2015 18:33:00 +0000

In this part 2 of my API adventure, I will be looking at repeating what we did Part 1 via SoapUI, but this time in python using the suds library. If you haven’t read that yet, then really, please go back and do that. This will not be wildly useful otherwise.

Getting SOAP-y with Python suds

Yeah I went there…

So, we have a process that allows us to programatically look stuff up. Only its not very repeatable, and therefore not much use yet. With this post I will take you through the creation of a python script that mimics what we did previously - finding things, and showing them to you.

Ciscoconfparse Wetdream

Sat, 30 May 2015 03:07:00 +0000

Ick, I know.

Python has long been the language of choice for engineers looking to make their day go that little bit quicker or easier. With deepening skill levels, more and more complex repetitive tasks can be disected and segmented into functions and reuable code, such that a competent scripting engineer can go from blank page to automated process in a matter of hours in most cases. It is for this reason that I sit here to write this - an advocacy for ALL Cisco engineers to down tools and spend however long you need to get good at this.

Using CallManager APIs for fun and profit: Part 1 - SoapUI

Fri, 29 May 2015 16:13:00 +0000

This is one of those posts that I will constantly refer back to… ;)

In my day job it’s clear to me that we need to automate more and more of the dumb day to day stuff. One of those things is Leavers and Starters on our phone system.

We employ Cisco CallManager, much like the rest of the world, and if you have ever spent any time with it, you will know that its VASTLY over-complicated to manage. A single extension on someones’ desk requires (at least):