The NESi project which originated from softboxen, a project originally created by our
co-developer Ilya Etingof, aims to support different
network devices of various vendors like Alcatel or Huawei.
The goal of the project is to simulate the presence of a large number of network devices (such as switches, routers, modems etc) on the network. These simulated devices expose their management interfaces and support command-line dialogues in a reasonably convincing way. The main use-case for the software is to create a testing environment for network management and automation.
For more information on softboxen or NESi please refer to our local documentation.
The NESi team will organize a devroom for Network monitoring, discovery and inventory. Click here for more information
- Alcatel
- Huawei
- Edgecore
- Keymile
- Zhone
- Pbn
- Juniper
- Cisco
- Subracks
- Cards
- Ports
- ONTs
- CPEs
- Vlans
- Interfaces
The NESi package is distributed under terms and conditions of 2-clause BSD license.
Furthermore the previous softboxen project is freely available as a GitHub repository or can be downloaded from PyPI.
Either clone the repository with the following command:
$ git clone git@github.com:inexio/NESi.gitAfter that, make sure you have installed the required python packages found in the requirements.txt. An easy way to do this is with the following command:
$ pip install -r requirements.txtIf you want to install our project as binaries into a venv using pip you can follow theses steps:
python3 -m venv venv
cd venv
source bin/activate
pip install https://github.com/inexio/NESi/archive/master.zip
After finishing the installation you can use these commands:
nesi-api --recreate-db --load-model <vendor>
nesi-cli --box-uuid <uuid>
nesi-cli --standalone <vendor> --box-uuid <uuid>
If you want to install our project using debian-package you can follow theses steps:
pip install -r requirements.txt
apt-get update
apt install NESi/deb_dist/$(ls "NESi/deb_dist" | grep ".deb$")
After finishing the installation you can use these commands:
nesi-api --recreate-db --load-model <vendor>
nesi-cli --box-uuid <uuid>
nesi-cli --standalone <vendor> --box-uuid <uuid>
Add a nesi user to your system
$ sudo adduser nesiAdd a folder for nesi to /opt
$ cd /opt
$ mkdir nesiAdd a 'var' and 'etc' folder
$ cd nesi/
$ mkdir var/ etc/Add a new venv via python
$ python3 -m venv venvClone NESi into the venv and install requirements
$ cd venv
$ git clone https://github.com/inexio/NESi.git
$ source bin/activate
$ python3 -m pip install -r NESi/requirements.txt
$ deactivateChange access rights
$ chown nesi:nesi -R /opt/nesi/Copy the service template to /etc/systemd/system
$ cp NESi/bootup/conf/systemd/nesi-gunicorn.service /etc/systemd/systemCopy nesi.conf to /opt/nesi/etc and make according changes
$ cp NESi/bootup/conf/nesi.conf /opt/nesi/etc/Start systemd process
$ systemctl daemon-reload
$ systemctl start nesi-gunicorn.serviceThe easiest way to play with the example CLI is to run two terminals on the NESi repo - one that starts up the REST API server and populates the example model in the underlying DB, and another that simulates the devices Command Line Interface and runs against the REST API server.
REST API terminal:
$ python3 api.py [--recreate-db] [--load-model <VENDOR>]
CLI terminal:
First we collect the uuid´s of all boxes
% python3 cli.py --list-boxen
Vendor Alcatel, model 7360, version FX-4, uuid d8da2c00-ed28-11ea-9cc7-8c8590d3240c
Second we connect to one box with the specific uuid
% python3 cli.py --box-uuid d8da2c00-ed28-11ea-9cc7-8c8590d3240c
_ _ ______ _____ _
| \ | | ____|/ ____(_)
| \| | |__ | (___ _
| . ` | __| \___ \| |
| |\ | |____ ____) | |
|_| \_|______|_____/|_|
Hint: login credentials: admin/secret (Huawei: root/secret)
login:admin
Password:secret
Last login on 01.03.2020
Interactive menus will guide you through the implemented commands.
NESi comes with SSH and Telnet socket Daemons built into the boxes itself.
To use either telnet or ssh you have to specify one of them in the setup-script of a box or set it via the rest-api.
req='{
...
"network_protocol": "ssh",
"network_address": "127.0.0.1",
...
}'After setting the network_protocol of a device you can launch the 'box.sh' script with the --daemon flag to start the device in either telnet or ssh socket mode.
$ ./bootup/box.sh --box-uuid <devices uuid> --daemonThe network_adress field is used as the host adress for the socket, so set this option accordingly.
After the socket has started you can connect to your device with the chosen protocol.
First we configure a debugger in our IDE. Therefore we add a Python Debug Server with pydevd_pycharm.
Host name : localhost
Port : 3001
After that we first start our debuger and add the argument '--debug' in our CLI terminal:
% python3 cli.py --box-uuid <box-uuid> --debug
Tests can be started with the following command structure:
python3 cli.py --test Alcatel
For other vendors replace 'Alcatel' with your desired vendor.
For more information see test_structure.rst
--recreate-db
Recreate the underlying SQLite Database (Important for first run)
--debug
Launches the API in debug mode
--load-model <vendor>
load the data of vendor into the underlying Database
--help
Displays help for available flags
--list_boxen
Lists all available devices that were created in the database
--box-uuid <uuid>
Launches the device with the given uuid
--daemon
Launches the device in daemon mode
--standalone <vendor>
Launches the device without having to launch the API in a seperate window first
--debug
Launches the device in debug mode
--help
Displays help for available flags
For people using Docker we included a dockerfile.
You can build nesi using docker with the command
% docker build . -t nesi
After building you can start the container via
% docker run -(d)it nesi
For more information on this matter, please refer to the developer's documentation.
If you find any bug or a feature you think should be implemented, you can open up an issue. We will take care of the problem as fast as we can!
Contributions to the project are welcome.
We are looking forward to your pull requests, suggestions and fixes.
Happy Coding!
Copyright (c) 2020
Original Software Design by Ilya Etingof.
Software adapted by inexio.
All rights reserved.