gns3fy

Python wrapper around GNS3 Server API.

Its main objective is to interact with the GNS3 server in a programatic way, so it can be integrated with the likes of Ansible, docker and scripts. Ideal for network CI/CD pipeline tooling.

Documentation

Check out the Documentation to explore use cases and the API Reference

Use cases

Here are some examples where gns3fy is used in a programmatic way:

• Ansible-collection-gns3: Useful for CI/CD pipelines to interact with GNS3 server using Ansible. It can create/delete projects, nodes and links in an ansible playbook.
• Terraform: Coming soon... (although it might be a Go version of it)
• Migrate templates between GNS3 servers
• Check server usage before turning up resource-hungry nodes
• Manipulate project snapshots like create, delete or list the snapshots configured for the project.

Install

pip install gns3fy

Development version

Use poetry to install the package when cloning it.

How it works

You can start the library and use the Gns3Connector object and the Project object.

For example:

>>> import gns3fy
>>> from tabulate import tabulate

# Define the server object to establish the connection
>>> gns3_server = gns3fy.Gns3Connector("http://<server address>:3080")

# Show the available projects on the server
>>> print(
        tabulate(
            gns3_server.projects_summary(is_print=False),
            headers=["Project Name", "Project ID", "Total Nodes", "Total Links", "Status"],
        )
    )
"""
Project Name    Project ID                              Total Nodes    Total Links  Status
--------------  ------------------------------------  -------------  -------------  --------
test2           c9dc56bf-37b9-453b-8f95-2845ce8908e3             10              9  opened
API_TEST        4b21dfb3-675a-4efa-8613-2f7fb32e76fe              6              4  opened
mpls-bgpv2      f5de5917-0ac5-4850-82b1-1d7e3c777fa1             30             40  closed
"""

# Define the lab you want to load and assign the server connector
>>> lab = gns3fy.Project(name="API_TEST", connector=gns3_server)

# Retrieve its information and display
>>> lab.get()
>>> print(lab)
"Project(project_id='4b21dfb3-675a-4efa-8613-2f7fb32e76fe', name='API_TEST', status='opened', ...)"

# Access the project attributes
>>> print(f"Name: {lab.name} -- Status: {lab.status} -- Is auto_closed?: {lab.auto_close}")
"Name: API_TEST -- Status: closed -- Is auto_closed?: False"

# Open the project
>>> lab.open()
>>> lab.status
opened

# Verify the stats
>>> lab.stats
{'drawings': 0, 'links': 4, 'nodes': 6, 'snapshots': 0}

# List the names and status of all the nodes in the project
>>> for node in lab.nodes:
...    print(f"Node: {node.name} -- Node Type: {node.node_type} -- Status: {node.status}")

"Node: Ethernetswitch-1 -- Node Type: ethernet_switch -- Status: started"
...

Take a look at the API documentation for complete information about the attributes retrieved.

Usage of Node and Link objects

You have access to the Node and Link objects as well, this gives you the ability to start, stop, suspend the individual element in a GNS3 project.

>>> from gns3fy import Node, Link, Gns3Connector

>>> PROJECT_ID = "<some project id>"
>>> server = Gns3Connector("http://<server address>:3080")

>>> alpine1 = Node(project_id=PROJECT_ID, name="alpine-1", connector=server)

>>> alpine1.get()
>>> print(alpine1)
"Node(name='alpine-1', node_type='docker', node_directory= ...)"

# And you can access the attributes the same way as the project
>>> print(f"Name: {alpine1.name} -- Status: {alpine1.status} -- Console: {alpine1.console}")
"Name: alpine-1 -- Status: started -- Console: 5005"

# Stop the node and start (you can just restart it as well)
>>> alpine1.stop()
>>> alpine1.status
stopped

>>> alpine1.start()
>>> alpine1.status
started

# You can also see the Link objects assigned to this node
>>> alpine1.links
[Link(link_id='4d9f1235-7fd1-466b-ad26-0b4b08beb778', link_type='ethernet', ...)]

# And in the same way you can interact with a Link object
>>> link1 = alpine1.links[0]
>>> print(f"Link Type: {link1.link_type} -- Capturing?: {link1.capturing} -- Endpoints: {link1.nodes}")
"Link Type: ethernet -- Capturing?: False -- Endpoints: [{'adapter_number': 2, ...}]"

Useful functions

You also have some commodity methods like the nodes_summary and links_summary, that if used with a library like tabulate you can see the following:

>>> from tabulate import tabulate

>>> nodes_summary = lab.nodes_summary(is_print=False)

>>> print(
...     tabulate(nodes_summary, headers=["Node", "Status", "Console Port", "ID"])
... )
"""
Node              Status      Console Port  ID
----------------  --------  --------------  ------------------------------------
Ethernetswitch-1  started             5000  da28e1c0-9465-4f7c-b42c-49b2f4e1c64d
IOU1              started             5001  de23a89a-aa1f-446a-a950-31d4bf98653c
IOU2              started             5002  0d10d697-ef8d-40af-a4f3-fafe71f5458b
vEOS-4.21.5F-1    started             5003  8283b923-df0e-4bc1-8199-be6fea40f500
alpine-1          started             5005  ef503c45-e998-499d-88fc-2765614b313e
Cloud-1           started                   cde85a31-c97f-4551-9596-a3ed12c08498
"""
>>> links_summary = lab.links_summary(is_print=False)
>>> print(
...     tabulate(links_summary, headers=["Node A", "Port A", "Node B", "Port B"])
... )
"""
Node A          Port A       Node B            Port B
--------------  -----------  ----------------  -----------
IOU1            Ethernet1/0  IOU2              Ethernet1/0
vEOS-4.21.5F-1  Management1  Ethernetswitch-1  Ethernet0
vEOS-4.21.5F-1  Ethernet1    alpine-1          eth0
Cloud-1         eth1         Ethernetswitch-1  Ethernet7
"""