Config Parsers Development

Current Included Parsers

OS Name	Parser Class
arista_eos	netutils.config.parser.EOSConfigParser
aruba_aoscx	netutils.config.parser.ArubaConfigParser
bigip_f5	netutils.config.parser.F5ConfigParser
cisco_aireos	netutils.config.parser.AIREOSConfigParser
cisco_asa	netutils.config.parser.ASAConfigParser
cisco_ios	netutils.config.parser.IOSConfigParser
cisco_iosxr	netutils.config.parser.IOSXRConfigParser
cisco_nxos	netutils.config.parser.NXOSConfigParser
citrix_netscaler	netutils.config.parser.NetscalerConfigParser
extreme_netiron	netutils.config.parser.NetironConfigParser
fortinet_fortios	netutils.config.parser.FortinetConfigParser
hp_comware	netutils.config.parser.HPComwareConfigParser
juniper_junos	netutils.config.parser.JunosConfigParser
linux	netutils.config.parser.LINUXConfigParser
mikrotik_routeros	netutils.config.parser.RouterOSConfigParser
mrv_optiswitch	netutils.config.parser.OptiswitchConfigParser
netscaler	netutils.config.parser.NetscalerConfigParser
nokia_sros	netutils.config.parser.NokiaConfigParser
paloalto_panos	netutils.config.parser.PaloAltoNetworksConfigParser
ruckus_fastiron	netutils.config.parser.FastironConfigParser
ubiquiti_airos	netutils.config.parser.UbiquitiAirOSConfigParser

Building for Actual Use Cases

The library attempts to model actual configuration as shown in the running configuration, traditionally shown with a show run or similar command. Accounting for use cases that do not exist in the running configuration, are generally outside the scope of the project.

There are occasions where there will be a exceptions for valid running configuration and will be documented below.

Fortinet Fortios Parser

In order to support html blocks that exist in Fortios configurations, some preprocessing is executed, this is a regex that specifically grabs everything between quotes after the 'set buffer' sub-command. It's explicitly looking for double quote followed by a newline ("\n) to end the captured data. This support for html data will not support any other html that doesn't follow this convention.

F5 Parser

The "ltm rule" configuration sections are not uniform nor standardized; therefor, these sections are completely removed from the configuration in a preprocessing event.

Nokia SROS Parser

The section banners have been simplified to extract the section header itself. This means that echo "System Configuration" will be converted to just "System Configuration".

Citrix NetScaler Parser

As the NetScaler configuration uses each line to make a specific configuration change there is no support for parent/child relationships in the parser.

Palo Alto Conversion

The conversion from curly to set format via the paloalto_panos_brace_to_set function strips any usage of devices localhost.localdomain. This will be evaluated in the future to be configurable but it is the current intention.

Duplicate Line Detection

In some circumstances replacing lines, such as secrets without uniqueness in the replacement, will result in duplicated lines that are invalid configuration, such as:

snmp-server community <<REPLACED>> RO SNMP_ACL_RO
snmp-server community <<REPLACED>> RO SNMP_ACL_RO

There are some known use cases, such as the below that are considered::

router bgp 6500
 bgp router-id 10.0.0.11
 !
 address-family ipv4 unicast
  redistribute connected
 exit-address-family <--- duplicated hierarchy
 !
 address-family l2vpn evpn
  neighbor underlay activate
 exit-address-family <--- duplicated hierarchy

Documented use cases that are actual configuration on a network device are considered valid and should be opened for bug fixes. However, configuration that does not actually exist on the running config of network devices are out of scope for the parser.

New Parsers

There are a series of considerations documented below, when developing a new parser.

• Creation of a new class that must be created in netutils/config/parser.py file.
• Creation of a parser class that inherits from the class BaseConfigParser in the Python Method Resolution Order (MRO).
  • In nearly all cases should inherit directory off of BaseSpaceConfigParser or BaseBraceConfigParser.
  • BaseSpaceConfigParser is for Cisco IOS-like configurations.
  • BaseBraceConfigParser is for JUNOS-like configurations that use curly braces.
• Create the class name in the format of {os_name.title()}ConfigParser.
  • The classes __init__ method must keep true to the signature or __init__(self, config).
  • The class must provide a self.config_lines that is a list of ConfigLine named tuples.
• Build tests for the tests/unit/mock/config/compliance/compliance/{os_name}/* and tests/unit/mock/config/parser/base/{os_name}/*.
• Add to netutils/config/compliance.py the parser_map, that maps the name of the parser to the Plugin.
  • Ensure that the key name is based on netutils.lib_mapper.MAIN_LIB_MAPPER_LIB_MAPPER definitions.
  • Ensure that it is alpha sorted.
  • Ensure that it the key is added to netutils.lib_mapper.NETUTILSPARSER_LIB_MAPPER and netutils.lib_mapper.NETUTILSPARSER_LIB_MAPPER_REVERSE.
• Fill out docstrings in the class and methods within the class that describe the parameters and an Example that compiles.
• The following tips will generally be applicable.
  • Generally a class method should provide a comment_chars and banner_start as well as sometimes banner_end.
  • Generally on the __init__ should call the build_config_relationship method.
  • Often can inherit directly from CiscoConfigParser.
  • Observe the existing patterns, make use of super, and inheritance to reuse existing code.