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)

Using webhooks to programmatically react to an AP going down

How do you know when something goes wrong with your infrastructure? At the latest, this usually happens when a user complains about not being able to log into the network, but then, it is usually too late. The idea of monitoring your network for any kinds of unforeseen events, such as a rogue access point appearing within the premises of your network, is nothing new and with programmability, we could even automate parts of this. A simplistic approach would be to, every few seconds, send requests to our API and retrieve the information we need to make decisions regarding whether something is wrong or not. This approach, also referred to as polling, has multiple issues:

  • We need to keep track of what information we have already seen and what information we have not seen yet.
  • We are putting a lot of stress on the API by constantly sending requests.
  • We are requesting a lot of information we don't really need...