Book Image

Python Network Programming Techniques

By : Marcel Neidinger
Book Image

Python Network Programming Techniques

By: Marcel Neidinger

Overview of this book

Network automation offers a powerful new way of changing your infrastructure network. Gone are the days of manually logging on to different devices to type the same configuration commands over and over again. With this book, you'll find out how you can automate your network infrastructure using Python. You'll get started on your network automation journey with a hands-on introduction to the network programming basics to complement your infrastructure knowledge. You'll learn how to tackle different aspects of network automation using Python programming and a variety of open source libraries. In the book, you'll learn everything from templating, testing, and deploying your configuration on a device-by-device basis to using high-level REST APIs to manage your cloud-based infrastructure. Finally, you'll see how to automate network security with Cisco’s Firepower APIs. By the end of this Python network programming book, you'll have not only gained a holistic overview of the different methods to automate the configuration and maintenance of network devices, but also learned how to automate simple to complex networking tasks and overcome common network programming challenges.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Revisiting HTTP's request-response model and RESTCONF principles

When Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, published the first drafts for HTTP, the protocol that would become the cornerstone of the World Wide Web (WWW), he probably did not expect the way his idea would develop. Started as a way for scientists to exchange their findings and collaborate on particle physics, life today could not be envisioned without the web.

In this section, we are going to revisit the basics of how HTTP works and have a specific look at how RESTCONF uses the ideas and building blocks defined by HTTP to model the configuration state and changes thereof of a network device. If you are already very familiar with the HTTP protocol itself, you may want to skip the next section and jump straight to the How RESTCONF builds on top of HTTP subsection of this recipe.

How does HTTP work?

HTTP is a plain text request-response protocol. A...