Cisco Blogs / Developer / Render your rst network conguration template using Python and Jinja2

April 25, 2018 3 Comments

Developer
Render your rst network conguration template using
Python and Jinja2
Stuart Clark

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 We all know how painful it is to enter the same text in to the CLI, to program the same network VLANs, over, and over,
and over and over, and over…. We also know a better way that exists, with network programmability, but this solution
could be a few years out before your company adopts the newest network programmability standards.  What are you to
do???

Using Python and Jinja2 to automate network conguration templates is a really useful way to simplify repetitive network
tasks, that as engineers, we often face on a daily basis. In using this alternative method to automate our tasks we can
remove the common error mistakes experienced in the copying/pasting of commands into the CLI (command line
interface). If you are new to network automation, this is a fantastic way to get started with network programmability.

Firstly, let’s cover the basic concepts we will run over here.

What are CLI Templates? CLI templates are a set of re-usable device conguration commands with the ability
to parameterize select elements of the conguration as well as add control logic statements. This template is
used to generate a device deployable conguration by replacing the parameterized elements (variables) with
actual values and evaluating the control logic statements.

What is Jinja2? Jinja2 is one of the most used template engines for Python. It is inspired by Django’s
templating system but extends it with an expressive language that gives template authors a more powerful set
of tools.

Prerequisites: 
Jinja2 works with Python 2.6.x, 2.7.x and >= 3.3. If you are using Python 3.2 you can use an older release of Jinja2 (2.6)
as support for Python 3.2 was dropped in Jinja2 version 2.7. To install this use pip.

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 pip install jinja2

Now we have Jinja2 installed let us take a quick look at this with a simple “Hello World” example with Python. To
start with, create a Jinja2 le with “Hello World” inside (I am saving this into the same directory I am going to write my
python code in). A quick way to create this le is with echo.

echo "Hello World" > ~/automation_fun/hello_world.j2

Now let us create our python code. We import Environment and FileSystemLoader, which allows us to use external les
with the template. Feel free to create your python code in the way you feel is best for you. You can use the python
interpreter or an IDE such as PyCharm.

from jinja2 import Environment, FileSystemLoader

#This line uses the current directory

file_loader = FileSystemLoader('.')

env = Environment(loader=file_loader)
template = env.get_template('hello_world.j2')
output = template.render()
#Print the output
print(output)

Use the following command to run your python program.

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 STUACLAR-M-R6EU:automation_fun stuaclar$ python hello_template.py
Hello World

Congratulations, your rst template was a success!

Next, we will look at variables with Jinja2.

Variables With Jinja2

Template variables are dened by the context dictionary passed to the template. You can change and update the variables
in templates provided they are passed in by the application. What attributes a variable has depends heavily on the
application providing that variable. If a variable or attribute does not exist, you will get back an undened value.

In this example, we will build a new BGP neighbor with a new peer. Let’s start by creating another Jinja2 le, this time
using variables.  The outer double-curly braces are not part of the variable, what is inside will be what is printed out.

router bgp {{local_asn}}

neighbor {{bgp_neighbor}} remote-as {{remote_asn}}
!
address-family ipv4
neighbor {{bgp_neighbor}} activate
exit-address-family

This python code will look similar to what we used before, however, we are passing three variables

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 from jinja2 import Environment, FileSystemLoader
#This line uses the current directory
file_loader = FileSystemLoader('.')
# Load the enviroment
env = Environment(loader=file_loader)
template = env.get_template('bgp_template.j2')
#Add the varibles
output = template.render(local_asn='1111', bgp_neighbor='192.168.1.1', remote_asn='2222')
#Print the output
print(output)

This will then print this output, notice that as we have repetitive syntax (the neighbor IP address), the variable is used
again.

STUACLAR-M-R6EU:automation_fun stuaclar$ python bgp_builder.py

router bgp 1111
neighbor 192.168.1.1 remote-as 2222
!
address-family ipv4
neighbor 192.168.1.1 activate
exit-address-family

If we have some syntax that will appear multiple times throughout our conguration, we can use for loops to remove
redundant syntax.

For Loops with Jinja2

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 The for loop allows us to iterate over a sequence, in this case, ‘vlan’. Here we use one curly brace and a percent symbol.
Also, we are using some whitespace control with the minus sign on the rst and last line.  By adding a minus sign to the
start or end of a block the whitespaces before or after that block will be removed. (You can try this and see the output
dierence once the Python code has been built). The last line tells Jinja2 that the template loop is nished, and to move
on with the template.

Create another Jinja2 le with the following.

{% for vlan in vlans -%}

{{vlan}}
{% endfor -%}

In the python code, we add a list of vlans.

from jinja2 import Environment, FileSystemLoader

#This line uses the current directory

file_loader = FileSystemLoader('.')
# Load the enviroment
env = Environment(loader=file_loader)
template = env.get_template('vlan.j2')
vlans = ['vlan10', 'vlan20', 'vlan30']
output = template.render(vlans=vlans)
#Print the output
print(output)

Now we can run with python code and see our result.

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 STUACLAR-M-R6EU:automation_fun stuaclar$ python vlan_builder.py
vlan10
vlan20
vlan30

All of the code for these examples can be found on my GitHub https://github.com/bigevilbeard/jinja2-template

Cisco DevNet Helps You Get Started and Learn More!

Congratulations! Now you have successfully rendered your rst template using Python and Jinja2. Using these automation
skiils, you can build your congurations and begin to automate some of those daily tasks quicker. Want to learn more? 
Cisco DevNet is a great place to go. Wherever you are on the network automation journey, you’ll nd all kinds of helpful
information – including learning labs, sandboxes, and API documentation – in the Networking Dev Center.

For access to DevNet and all developer resources, you can sign up for DevNet here, or use this QR code.

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Tags: automation devops jinja2 netdevops network automation python

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 3 Comments

Vincent R Surillo says:

April 25, 2018 at 7:07 pm

This is a timely blog post as I've just nished two days of a python-based Data Automation Workshop.

We didn't cover jinja2, but we did get the okay to have Anaconda loaded onto our laptops, and we've started our learning
journey. I found jinja2 in the list of pre-installed libraries within the Anaconda environment, so I've been able to follow the
examples above.

Thanks for the great and timely post Stuart!

Stuart Clark says:

April 26, 2018 at 12:07 am

Thanks Vincent, really pleased you enjoyed my blog. stuart

Gilmar Jaimes says:

May 11, 2018 at 12:40 pm

Great, very well explained !!!

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