By default, Juniper will return XML in response to your RPC calls. But if you prefer, Juniper can translate the XML into JSON for you.
When using PyEZ, all you have to do is pass a dictionary ({'format':'json'}) to the RPC call. Here is how an example script could look like:
from jnpr.junos import Device
from pprint import pprint
def get_ospf_neighbor_information(username, pwd, host ):
dev = Device(host=host, user=username, password=pwd)
dev.open()
rpc = dev.rpc.get_ospf_neighbor_information({'format':'json'})
dev.close()
return rpc
if __name__ == "__main__":
ospf_r1 = get_ospf_neighbor_information('salt-r1', 'salt123', '169.50.169.171' )
pprint(ospf_r1)
Let’s run the script and examine the information that is returned. To this end, we pass -i to enter interactive mode after executing the script like so:
[said@srv ]$ python -i json-ospf.py
{u'ospf-neighbor-information': [{u'ospf-neighbor': [{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'35'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.1'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.1.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.2'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]},
{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'35'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.4'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.4.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.4'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]}]}]}
>>>
After seeing the output from the pprint statement, we can start examining what the device returned:
>>> type(ospf_r1)
<type 'dict'>
>>>
PyEZ returns the JSON as a python dictionary. In interactive mode, we can gradually drill our way down to the things we are really interested in. We start with the ospf-neighbor-information key:
>>> pprint(ospf_r1['ospf-neighbor-information'])
[{u'ospf-neighbor': [{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'35'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.1'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.1.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.2'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]},
{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'33'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.4'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.4.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.4'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]}]}]
>>> type(ospf_r1['ospf-neighbor-information'])
<type 'list'>
>>>
When we access the ospf-neighbor-information key, we get a list. From the pprint output, we can see that this list contains 1 item, a dictionary with a key called ospf-neighbor:
>>> type(ospf_r1['ospf-neighbor-information'][0])
<type 'dict'>
>>>
>>> pprint(ospf_r1['ospf-neighbor-information'][0]['ospf-neighbor'])
[{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'35'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.1'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.1.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.2'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]},
{u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'33'}],
u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.4'}],
u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.4.1'}],
u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.4'}],
u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}],
u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]}]
>>>
Here we see a list of dictionaries that describe the individual neighbors. We can step through the list and check the information like this:
>>> for neighbor in ospf_r1['ospf-neighbor-information'][0]['ospf-neighbor']:
... print('OSPF neighbor: {}'.format(neighbor['neighbor-id'][0]['data']))
... print(neighbor['neighbor-address'][0]['data'])
... print(neighbor['interface-name'][0]['data'])
... print(neighbor['ospf-neighbor-state'][0]['data'])
...
OSPF neighbor: 10.0.0.2
192.168.1.1
ge-0/0/1.1
Full
OSPF neighbor: 10.0.0.4
192.168.4.1
ge-0/0/1.4
Full
>>>
In case we want to store this information for future use, we just dump it as JSON:
>>> from json import dumps
>>> pprint(my_json)
'{"ospf-neighbor-information": [{"ospf-neighbor": [{"neighbor-address": [{"data": "192.168.1.1"}], "neighbor-priority": [{"data": "128"}], "interface-name": [{"data": "ge-0/0/1.1"}], "neighbor-id": [{"data": "10.0.0.2"}], "activity-timer": [{"data": "35"}], "ospf-neighbor-state": [{"data": "Full"}]}, {"neighbor-address": [{"data": "192.168.4.1"}], "neighbor-priority": [{"data": "128"}], "interface-name": [{"data": "ge-0/0/1.4"}], "neighbor-id": [{"data": "10.0.0.4"}], "activity-timer": [{"data": "33"}], "ospf-neighbor-state": [{"data": "Full"}]}]}]}'
>>> with open('ospf.json', 'w') as file:
... file.write(dumps(ospf_r1, indent=4, separators=(',', ': ')))
...
>>>
When we want to access the data later on, we can use the following to load the file as a dictionary again:
>>> from json import load
>>> with open("ospf.json", "r") as file:
... ospf_json = load(file)
...
>>> ospf_json
{u'ospf-neighbor-information': [{u'ospf-neighbor': [{u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.1.1'}], u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}], u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.1'}], u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.2'}], u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'39'}], u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]}, {u'neighbor-address': [{u'data': u'192.168.4.1'}], u'neighbor-priority': [{u'data': u'128'}], u'interface-name': [{u'data': u'ge-0/0/1.4'}], u'neighbor-id': [{u'data': u'10.0.0.4'}], u'activity-timer': [{u'data': u'38'}], u'ospf-neighbor-state': [{u'data': u'Full'}]}]}]}
>>>
When we leave the interpreter, we can check out the file using cat ospf.json to obtain the following output:
{
"ospf-neighbor-information": [
{
"ospf-neighbor": [
{
"neighbor-address": [
{
"data": "192.168.1.1"
}
],
"neighbor-priority": [
{
"data": "128"
}
],
"interface-name": [
{
"data": "ge-0/0/1.1"
}
],
"neighbor-id": [
{
"data": "10.0.0.2"
}
],
"activity-timer": [
{
"data": "35"
}
],
"ospf-neighbor-state": [
{
"data": "Full"
}
]
},
{
"neighbor-address": [
{
"data": "192.168.4.1"
}
],
"neighbor-priority": [
{
"data": "128"
}
],
"interface-name": [
{
"data": "ge-0/0/1.4"
}
],
"neighbor-id": [
{
"data": "10.0.0.4"
}
],
"activity-timer": [
{
"data": "33"
}
],
"ospf-neighbor-state": [
{
"data": "Full"
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
Not a fan of seeing lists in dicts in lists in dicts? Consider the following:
set system export-format state-data json compact
This is available starting 17.3R1 and will have the device emit compact JSON format. After configuring the compact format, we use show ospf neighbor |display json and discover that this is how the output looks like now:
{
"ospf-neighbor-information" :
{
"ospf-neighbor" :
{
"neighbor-address" : "192.168.1.1",
"interface-name" : "ge-0/0/1.1",
"ospf-neighbor-state" : "Full",
"neighbor-id" : "10.0.0.2",
"neighbor-priority" : "128",
"activity-timer" : "38"
},
{
"neighbor-address" : "192.168.4.1",
"interface-name" : "ge-0/0/1.4",
"ospf-neighbor-state" : "Full",
"neighbor-id" : "10.0.0.4",
"neighbor-priority" : "128",
"activity-timer" : "35"
}
}
}
Hope this helps you get started with PyEZ and JSON.