Connecting to Lab Devices

netlab connect command uses information stored in Ansible inventory and reported by ansible-inventory command to connect to a lab device using SSH or docker exec. You could use it with an inventory file created with netlab create command or with any other Ansible inventory.

Usage

usage: netlab connect [-h] [-v] host

Connect to a network device

positional arguments:
  host           Device to connect to

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose  Verbose logging
  -d, --devices  Use netlab-devices.yml as inventory source

The rest of the arguments are passed to SSH or docker exec command

Collecting Inventory Data

When run with --devices argument, netlab connect reads inventory data from netlab-devices.yml file1. You can override the default file name with NETLAB_DEVICES environment variable.

In all other cases, netlab connect uses ansible-inventory command to fetch device data from Ansible inventory.

Using Inventory Data

netlab connect command uses the following device inventory variables:

  • ansible_connection: Use docker exec if the connection is set to docker2. Use ssh if the connection is set to ssh, paramiko3, network_cli4 or netconf5. Fail for all other connection types.

  • ansible_host: IP address or alternate FQDN for the lab device (default: host name specified on the command line)

  • ansible_user: remote username for SSH session (default: not specified)

  • ansible_ssh_pass to specify password (default: use SSH keys)

  • ansible_port to specify alternate SSH port (used primarily in VirtualBox environment)

Executing a Single Command

Command line parameters specified after the device name are passed to ssh or docker exec command, allowing you to execute a single command on a lab device.

Handling SSH Keys

netlab connect command disables SSH host key checking and uses /dev/null as known hosts file to simplify lab connectivity (some virtual devices change SSH key on every restart).

Warning

Do not use netlab connect in production environment.

1

netlab-devices.yml inventory uses Ansible naming convention and contains information very similar to what ansible-inventory would return.

2

FRR and Linux devices running under containerlab

3

Linux virtual machines, including Cumulus VX and Nokia SR Linux.

4

Devices with traditional networking CLI, including Cisco IOSv, Cisco IOS-XE, Cisco Nexus OS, and Arista EOS.

5

Junos