Using Ansible to Create, Delete and List Tenants

Prepare the Environment In this demonstration I am using Cygwin to run the python/ansible scripts in a Windows environment. All my attempts to install ansible via ‘pip install’ in a Windows failed, the number of Stack Overflow posts reporting this problem seems to concur with this. Handy hint: To cd to a windows C: drive …

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Configure and Verify Cisco ACI Using Acitoolkit

Some instructions and code on how to use the Acitoolkit objects to perform configuration checks against the APIC running state and then create a new Tenant configuration from scratch. Instructions for setting up acitoolkit for the first time are given here: https://acitoolkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorialsetup.html When trying to use acitoolkit in python for the first time, I got …

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Using Cobra SDK and Arya to create a Tenant

Getting the python and virtual environment set up These instructions are for a Windows set up. Use these instructions for setting up your Python virtual environment and for obtaining and installing the Cobra SDK and model. https://cobra.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html But essentially, if you’re doing this for the first time, then do the following: Download and install python …

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Creating Python scripts from NX-API

Cisco Nexus devices, the most popular configuration method uses command-line interfaces (CLI) that run only on the device. This method has limitations and does not scale well. To improve the CLI shortcomings, Cisco introduced NX-API REST by providing HTTP/HTTPS APIs that: Provide specific CLIs available outside the switch. Combine configuration actions into relatively few HTTP/HTTPS …

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Using Ansible to automate Cisco ACI in Windows

Some instructions on how to get started with using the ansible to automate Cisco ACI specifically by using ansible playbooks to accomplish basic tasks. Using the Cisco ACI GUI can be time-consuming and error prone, a more efficient could be to automate the process using ansible playbooks. Ansible is essentially an automation tool that uses …

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Using Python with Cisco APIC REST API

Some instructions on how to get started with interfacing Python with Cisco APIC REST API. I found this blog post by Wim Wauters particularly useful, and I have used much of his material in this post: https://blog.wimwauters.com/networkprogrammability/2020-03-19-aci_python_requests/ Initial setup If you have not yet done so, download and install Python. https://www.python.org/downloads/ Example 1: login to …

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