Configuring NETCONF

NETCONF is a network configuration and management protocol based on XML.

NETCONF protocol uses XML for configuration data and protocol message encoding, using RPC and Client/Server mechanism to update, install or delete the relevant part of the device configuration or all the management information.

Currently, we support <get>, <get-config>, <get-schema> and <edit-config>.
Authenticated RADIUS/TACACS+ users can access to PicOS switch via NETCONF.

Enable NETCONF on switch:

admin@XorPlus# set protocols netconf 
admin@XorPlus# commit 
Commit OK.
Save done.
admin@XorPlus#

Delete NETCONF configuration on switch:

admin@XorPlus# delete protocols netconf 
Deleting: 
    netconf {
    }
OK 
admin@XorPlus# commit 
Commit OK.
Save done.

YANG is a data modeling language used to model configuration and state data manipulated by NETCONF.
You can find the YANG module file of different modules on your switch under the directory "/pica/etc/common/data-models".

admin@XorPlus$pwd
/pica/etc/common/data-models
admin@XorPlus$ls -lt *.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  2288 Jul  9 16:14 arp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4075 Jul  9 16:14 bfd.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  6950 Jul  9 16:14 cos-with-pfc.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  6062 Jul  9 16:14 cos-without-pfc.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  3031 Jul  9 16:14 dhcp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  5173 Jul  9 16:14 dot1x.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 14261 Jul  9 16:14 firewall-no-icmp-type-code.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 14857 Jul  9 16:14 firewall.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 16760 Jul  9 16:14 ietf-inet-types.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 18034 Jul  9 16:14 ietf-yang-types.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4814 Jul  9 16:14 igmpsnooping.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  3320 Jul  9 16:14 lacp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  6944 Jul  9 16:14 lldp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4492 Jul  9 16:14 mlag.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 25632 Jul  9 16:14 mstp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4825 Jul  9 16:14 neighbour.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  1052 Jul  9 16:14 routing.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  5123 Jul  9 16:14 sflow.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4904 Jul  9 16:14 snmp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 13185 Nov  4 10:44 static-routes.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 50887 Jul  9 16:14 system.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4126 Jul  9 16:14 udld.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp   871 Jul  9 16:14 version.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 10137 Nov  4 10:44 vlan-interface.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  8000 Jul  9 16:14 vlans.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp 11145 Nov  4 10:44 vrrp.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  8679 Nov  4 10:44 vxlans.yang
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root xorp  4515 Jul  9 16:14 xovs.yang

Example of VLAN configuration via NETCONF use <edit-config>:

Step 1: Create an XML file according the vlan.yang for RPC request to create VLAN136:

<vlans xmlns="http://pica8.com/xorplus/vlans">
    <vlan-id>
      <id>136</id>
      <description/>
      <vlan-name>default</vlan-name>
      <l3-interface>vlan136</l3-interface>
    </vlan-id>
  </vlans>

Step 2: Display the configuration on switch after the client sending an RPC request.

The configuration has been changed by user root
DELTAS:
    vlans {
        vlan-id 136 {
            description: ""
            vlan-name: "default"
            l3-interface: "vlan136"
        }
    }
admin@XorPlus# show | display set 
    set protocols netconf 
    set vlans vlan-id 136 l3-interface "vlan136"

Now, we only support get the system's version information and vxlan information via NETCONF <get> function.

Example of get the system's version information via NETCONF use <get>:

Display the RPC reply after the client sending an RPC request.

    <version xmlns="http://pica8.com/xorpplus/version">
      <mac_address>48:0f:cf:af:70:3b</mac_address>
      <hardware_mode>HP5712</hardware_mode>
      <system_version>2.8.0/aeec598</system_version>
      <system_released_date>10/13/2016</system_released_date>
      <L2_L3_version>2.8.0/aeec598</L2_L3_version>
      <L2_L3_released_date>10/13/2016</L2_L3_released_date>
    </version>

NETCONF client

About NETCONF client, you can use ncclient which is python lib now.

If you use ncclient, you must modify the rpc.py : add two lines codes to work with pica8 switch.

Edit the rpc.py file to contain the followings before the statement ‘self._session.send(req)’:

req = req.replace('nc:','')

req = req.replace(':nc','')

Get .yang or .yin File

The administrator can use get-schema operation to retrieve the .yang or .yin data file information on the PICA8 switch. For details about get-schema operation, see RFC6022 YANG Module for NETCONF Monitoring.

In the following example, the user builds the testgetschema.py script on ncclient. The script uses the get-schema operation to get the information from the vlans.yang file on the PICA8 switch.

[ncclient] $ vi  testgetschema.py
from ncclient import manager
import sys
 
host=sys.argv[1]
mgr = manager.connect(host=host, port=830, username='admin', password='pica8', hostkey_verify=False)
 
elem = mgr.get_schema(identifier='vlans')    
with open("%s.xml" % host, 'w') as f:
    f.write(str(elem))
mgr.close_session()

Run the testgetschema.py script on ncclient. By issuing the get-schema command and receiving the reply from the PICA8 switch, we can get the vlans.yang module file information displayed as follows:

module vlans {
    namespace "http://pica8.com/xorplus/vlans";
    prefix vlans;
    // import some basic types
    import ietf-yang-types {
        prefix yang;
    }
    organization "PICA8, Inc";
    description
        "This module is data model for vlans configuration";
    revision 2015-12-25 {
        description "Initial revision.";
    }
    container vlans {
        description
            "Vlan configuration.";
        list vlan-id {
            description
                "VLAN tag identifier, range 1-4094, e.g. 2,3,5-100.";
            key "id";
            leaf id {
                type string;
            }
            leaf description {
                description
                    "Vlan description.";
                type string;
                default "";
            }
            leaf vlan-name {
                description
                    "VLAN name, up to 32 alphanumeric characters in length.";
                type string;
                default "default";
            }
            leaf l3-interface {
                description
                    "Associate a Layer 3 interface with an existing VLAN.";
                type string;
                default "";
            }
            leaf open-flow-enable {
                description
                    "Vlan will be used by open flow, maximum of 200 vlans enabled.";
                type boolean;
                default 'false';
            }          
        }      
........
  }
}