CiscoHelper

CiscoHelper is a module designed to assist automating interactions with Cisco switches and routers. These interactions include information collection and configuration changes. The ColorPrint class is used to print message to the terminal in color.

CiscoDevice is used for creating Switch() and Router() objects within CiscoHelper. CiscoDevice also utilizes ColorPrint to print device information using random (or specified) colors.

Usage

In just a few lines of code, you can begin automating tasks with Cisco switches and routers.

import CiscoHelper
handler = CiscoHelper() # Initialize new CiscoHelper() object.
ips = ["10.0.0.1", "10.0.0.2", "10.0.0.3", "10.0.0.4"] # Provide a list of IP addresses and/or hostnames.
handler.spawn() # Spawn an SSH session. This function will gather login information to use.
for ip in ips: # Loop through IP addresses (or hostnames).
	if not handler.connect(ip): # Attempt to connect to IP address (or hostname).
		continue # If False is returned above, skip this host.
	# Successful connection!
	# Interact with the host here.

Examples

ARP Table Parsing Example

In a situation where the user would like to see all of the connected devices on the network, this example would solve the task. By providing a list of IP addresses for the Cisco switches/routers, the example script would then connect to each one. Next, the switch or router information would be gathered from the get_stack_info() function. Finally, the get_arp_macs() function would return the MAC addresses found from the ARP table in the device, and add them to the unique_macs set.

import CiscoHelper

try:
	# Initialize new CiscoHelper() object.
	handler = CiscoHelper()
	# Provide list of IP addresses to connect to.
	handler.ips = ["10.0.0.1", "10.0.0.2", "10.0.0.3", "10.0.0.4"]
	handler.unique_macs = set()

	# Begin signin process to collect login details.
	handler.spawn()

	# Loop through IP addresses to start connecting.
	for ip in handler.ips:
		# If an IP address fails to connect, skip to the next iteration.
		if not handler.connect(ip):
			continue
		# Gather Cisco stack information. Will return a Router() object if the device is determined to be a router.
		stack_info = handler.get_stack_info()
		# If the `stack_info` is not found, skip to the next iteration.
		if not stack_info:
			continue

		# Find MAC address from the ARP table, and save to the `unique_macs` set.
		arp_macs = handler.get_arp_macs()
		macs = list(set([x.mac.lower() for x in stack_info] + [x.lower() for x in arp_macs]))
		handler.unique_macs.update(macs)

except KeyboardInterrupt:
	exit("Ctrl+C detected. Exiting...")

Testing

The following types of Cisco switches and routers have been used in testing this module. If using this module on a different series of Cisco networking devices, some of the regular expressions or commands may need to be altered.

Switches

• 2960 Series
• 3560 Series
• 3750 Series
• 3850 Series

Routers

• 4500 Series
• 6500 Series

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

MIT