Book Image

Mastering Python Networking - Fourth Edition

By : Eric Chou
Book Image

Mastering Python Networking - Fourth Edition

By: Eric Chou

Overview of this book

Networks in your infrastructure set the foundation for how your application can be deployed, maintained, and serviced. Python is the ideal language for network engineers to explore tools that were previously available to systems engineers and application developers. In Mastering Python Networking, Fourth edition, you'll embark on a Python-based journey to transition from a traditional network engineer to a network developer ready for the next generation of networks. This new edition is completely revised and updated to work with the latest Python features and DevOps frameworks. In addition to new chapters on introducing Docker containers and Python 3 Async IO for network engineers, each chapter is updated with the latest libraries with working examples to ensure compatibility and understanding of the concepts. Starting with a basic overview of Python, the book teaches you how it can interact with both legacy and API-enabled network devices. You will learn to leverage high-level Python packages and frameworks to perform network automation tasks, monitoring, management, and enhanced network security, followed by AWS and Azure cloud networking. You will use Git for code management, GitLab for continuous integration, and Python-based testing tools to verify your network.

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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Share your thoughts
Download a free PDF copy of this book
1
Review of TCP/IP Protocol Suite and Python
Review of TCP/IP Protocol Suite and Python
An overview of the Internet
The OSI model
The client-server model
Network protocol suites
Python language overview
Summary
Free Chapter
2
Low-Level Network Device Interactions
Low-Level Network Device Interactions
The challenges of the CLI
Constructing a Virtual lab
Python virtual environment
Python pexpect library
The Python Paramiko library
The Netmiko library
The Nornir framework
Summary
3
APIs and Intent-Driven Networking
APIs and Intent-Driven Networking
Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
Cisco API examples
Cisco Meraki controller
The Python API for Juniper Networks
The Arista Python API
VyOS example
Other libraries
Summary
4
The Python Automation Framework – Ansible
The Python Automation Framework – Ansible
Ansible – A More Declarative Framework
Our First Ansible Network Example
The Advantages of Ansible
Ansible Content Collections
More Ansible Network Examples
Summary
5
Docker Containers for Network Engineers
Docker Containers for Network Engineers
Docker Overview
Building Python applications in Docker
Container networking
Containers in the network engineering field
Docker and Kubernetes
Summary
6
Network Security with Python
Network Security with Python
The Lab Setup
Python Scapy
Access lists
The Syslog search
Other tools
Further reading
Summary
7
Network Monitoring with Python – Part 1
Network Monitoring with Python – Part 1
Lab Setup
SNMP
Python for Data Visualization
Python for Cacti
Summary
8
Network Monitoring with Python – Part 2
Network Monitoring with Python – Part 2
Graphviz
Flow-based monitoring
ntop traffic monitoring
Summary
9
Building Network Web Services with Python
Building Network Web Services with Python
Comparing Python web frameworks
Flask and lab setup
Introduction to Flask
Network resource API
Network dynamic operations
Authentication and Authorization
Running Flask in containers
Summary
10
Introduction to Async IO
Introduction to Async IO
Asynchronous operations overview
Python asyncio module
The Scrapli project
Summary
11
AWS Cloud Networking
AWS Cloud Networking
AWS setup
AWS network overview
Virtual Private Cloud
Direct Connect and VPN
Network scaling services
Other AWS network services
Summary
12
Azure Cloud Networking
Azure Cloud Networking
Azure and AWS network service comparison
Azure setup
Azure administration and APIs
Azure global infrastructure
Azure virtual networks
VNet routing
Azure VPNs
Azure ExpressRoute
Azure network load balancers
Other Azure network services
Summary
13
Network Data Analysis with Elastic Stack
Network Data Analysis with Elastic Stack
What is the Elastic Stack?
Lab topology
Elastic Stack as a service
First End-to-End example
Elasticsearch with a Python client
Data ingestion with Logstash
Data ingestion with Beats
Search with Elasticsearch
Data visualization with Kibana
Summary
14
Working with Git
Working with Git
Content management considerations and Git
Introduction to Git
Setting up Git
Git Usage Examples
Git Branch
Git with Python
Automating Configuration Backup
Collaborating with Git
Summary
15
Continuous Integration with GitLab
Continuous Integration with GitLab
The traditional change management process
Introduction to continuous integration
Installing GitLab
GitLab runners
First GitLab example
GitLab network example
Summary
16
Test-Driven Development for Networks
Test-Driven Development for Networks
Test-driven development overview
Topology as code
Writing tests for networking
pyATS and Genie
Summary
17
Other Books You May Enjoy
Other Books You May Enjoy
18
Index
Index

Writing tests for networking

So far, we have been mostly writing tests for our Python code. We have used both the unittest and pytest libraries to assert True/False and equal/non-equal values. We were also able to write mocks to intercept our API calls when we do not have an actual API-capable device but still want to run our tests.

In this section, let’s look at how we can write tests relevant to the networking world. There is no shortage of commercial products regarding network monitoring and testing. Over the years, I have come across many of them. However, in this section, I prefer to use simple, open source tools for my tests.

Testing for reachability

Often, the first step of troubleshooting is to conduct a small reachability test. For network engineers, ping is our best friend when it comes to network reachability tests. It is a way to test the reachability of a host on an IP network by sending a small package across the network to the destination.

We...

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