Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Overview of this book

This book begins with a review of the TCP/ IP protocol suite and a refresher of the core elements of the Python language. Next, you will start using Python and supported libraries to automate network tasks from the current major network vendors. We will look at automating traditional network devices based on the command-line interface, as well as newer devices with API support, with hands-on labs. We will then learn the concepts and practical use cases of the Ansible framework in order to achieve your network goals. We will then move on to using Python for DevOps, starting with using open source tools to test, secure, and analyze your network. Then, we will focus on network monitoring and visualization. We will learn how to retrieve network information using a polling mechanism, ?ow-based monitoring, and visualizing the data programmatically. Next, we will learn how to use the Python framework to build your own customized network web services. In the last module, you will use Python for SDN, where you will use a Python-based controller with OpenFlow in a hands-on lab to learn its concepts and applications. We will compare and contrast OpenFlow, OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV. Finally, you will use everything you’ve learned in the book to construct a migration plan to go from a legacy to a scalable SDN-based network.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title
Humble Bundle
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV

The Python Paramiko library


Paramiko is a Python implementation of the SSHv2 protocol. Just like the pxssh subclass of Pexpect, Paramiko simplifies the SSHv2 interaction with the remote device. Unlike pxssh, Paramiko is only focused on SSHv2 and provides both client and server operations.

Paramiko is the low-level SSH client behind the high-level automation framework Ansible for its network modules. We will cover Ansible in the later chapters, so first, let's take a look at the Paramiko library.

Installating Paramiko

Installating Paramiko is pretty straight forward with PIP. However, there is a hard dependency on the Cryptography library. The library provides the low-level, C-based encryption algorithms for the SSH protocol.

Note

The installation instruction for Windows, Mac, and other flavors of Linux can be found https://cryptography.io/en/latest/installation/

We will show the installation for our Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine in the following output. The following output shows the installation...