ASR9K xml agent vs netconf
Hi There! I'm currently working on writing some automation around the ASR9K platform and I've been looking at both the netconf and xml interfaces. Anyone have experience with either? It looks like the XML interface is much more feature rich, supporting both config and operational state objects where netconf is limited to config only. Currently I'm leaning towards the xml interface, but netconf would come with the appeal of using a standard and any libraries I write for it may be usable with other platforms. Thoughts? experiences? mistakes? wins? Thanks! Jeremy
Thus spake Jeremy (jbaino@gmail.com) on Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 03:07:19PM -0700:
I'm currently working on writing some automation around the ASR9K platform and I've been looking at both the netconf and xml interfaces. Anyone have experience with either?
It looks like the XML interface is much more feature rich, supporting both config and operational state objects where netconf is limited to config only.
Currently I'm leaning towards the xml interface,
I wasted a week of my life trying to get xml interface on n9k to work correctly. I would never use it again, as it obviously gets no QA. There is likely a fundamental design flaw in that the cli is not itself an xml client like you see on other platforms. The XML interface, and CLI (presumably netconf) may all be distinct clients to sysdb. I did get (3) ddts' assigned, related to missing data compared to cli, endian issues, etc. My recommendation is DO NOT USE IT. I went back to screen scraping for ios-xr. Related to this and other issues, all of our subsequent purchases have been MX. Dale AS{59,2381,3128}
I always preferred the displays where you have commands without all the bracket garbage and just indented text for sub items. On the MX the show configuration | display set is about as close as you can get, but it¹s workable. Kudo¹s is that you can just dump it in as well and get what you want. I think the only time I really get annoyed at the JunOS configurations is when I¹m staring down any of their switches. On 8/5/14, 7:32 AM, "Dale W. Carder" <dwcarder@wisc.edu> wrote:
Thus spake Jeremy (jbaino@gmail.com) on Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 03:07:19PM -0700:
I'm currently working on writing some automation around the ASR9K platform and I've been looking at both the netconf and xml interfaces. Anyone have experience with either?
It looks like the XML interface is much more feature rich, supporting both config and operational state objects where netconf is limited to config only.
Currently I'm leaning towards the xml interface,
I wasted a week of my life trying to get xml interface on n9k to work correctly. I would never use it again, as it obviously gets no QA.
There is likely a fundamental design flaw in that the cli is not itself an xml client like you see on other platforms. The XML interface, and CLI (presumably netconf) may all be distinct clients to sysdb. I did get (3) ddts' assigned, related to missing data compared to cli, endian issues, etc. My recommendation is DO NOT USE IT.
I went back to screen scraping for ios-xr. Related to this and other issues, all of our subsequent purchases have been MX.
Dale AS{59,2381,3128}
Kudo¹s is that you can just dump it in as well and get what you want.
You can dump hierarchical config (the bracket stuff) into JunOS with "load" plus the added benefit/flexibility of the merge/replace/override options. -- Hugo On Tue 2014-Aug-05 13:42:18 +0000, Corey Touchet <corey.touchet@corp.totalserversolutions.com> wrote:
I always preferred the displays where you have commands without all the bracket garbage and just indented text for sub items.
On the MX the show configuration | display set is about as close as you can get, but it¹s workable. Kudo¹s is that you can just dump it in as well and get what you want. I think the only time I really get annoyed at the JunOS configurations is when I¹m staring down any of their switches.
On 8/5/14, 7:32 AM, "Dale W. Carder" <dwcarder@wisc.edu> wrote:
Thus spake Jeremy (jbaino@gmail.com) on Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 03:07:19PM -0700:
I'm currently working on writing some automation around the ASR9K platform and I've been looking at both the netconf and xml interfaces. Anyone have experience with either?
It looks like the XML interface is much more feature rich, supporting both config and operational state objects where netconf is limited to config only.
Currently I'm leaning towards the xml interface,
I wasted a week of my life trying to get xml interface on n9k to work correctly. I would never use it again, as it obviously gets no QA.
There is likely a fundamental design flaw in that the cli is not itself an xml client like you see on other platforms. The XML interface, and CLI (presumably netconf) may all be distinct clients to sysdb. I did get (3) ddts' assigned, related to missing data compared to cli, endian issues, etc. My recommendation is DO NOT USE IT.
I went back to screen scraping for ios-xr. Related to this and other issues, all of our subsequent purchases have been MX.
Dale AS{59,2381,3128}
Did cisco bother to open any DDTSes on the issues you saw? I’ve found that they care very little about these “automation” issues because they have zero automation in their lab testing that reflects how someone truly uses a device. I’ve been through many iterations with Cisco on this front with their ARF teams, platform teams, BU teams, etc.. they all have to be a very strategic engagement to get these things properly fixed and made usable. I am interested in anyone trying to use any of these agents.. I suspect they all worked before the RP went x86 and like you said, nobody tests them now. (please respond off-list) - Jared
On Aug 5, 2014, at 9:32 AM, Dale W. Carder <dwcarder@wisc.edu> wrote:
I wasted a week of my life trying to get xml interface on n9k to work correctly. I would never use it again, as it obviously gets no QA.
There is likely a fundamental design flaw in that the cli is not itself an xml client like you see on other platforms. The XML interface, and CLI (presumably netconf) may all be distinct clients to sysdb. I did get (3) ddts' assigned, related to missing data compared to cli, endian issues, etc. My recommendation is DO NOT USE IT.
I went back to screen scraping for ios-xr. Related to this and other issues, all of our subsequent purchases have been MX.
participants (6)
-
Corey Touchet -
Dale W. Carder -
Hugo Slabbert -
Jared Mauch -
Jeremy -
Randy Bush