germandutchwindtunnels / nettools

Networking tools to handle networks of Cisco IOS-based switches. Written in Python.

nettools

Networking tools to handle networks of Cisco IOS-based switches. Written in Python.

What it is used for.

The software is mostly used for configuring ports to specific VLANs. The patch-id of the port should follow a certain format and be present in the port's description field, in order to be picked up by nettools. This format should match the regular expression (?P<patchid>[a-z0-9_]+(\-|\.)[a-z0-9]+(\-|\.)[0-9]+[a-z]?) The software can also be used for:

• Adding/removing users on all equipment.
• Changing parameters on all switches.
• Finding equipment in your network, by collecting MAC tables and ARP tables.
• Blocking equipment in your network.
• Autoconfiguring equipment in your network.

How it works.

The software is designed to use the Cisco Discovery Protocol to "discover" the network structure. The software uses the following procedure for this:

1. Connect to the first switch using telnet. Use the supplied username and password.
2. Collect all neighbors with the show cdp neighbors command.
3. Recursively connect to all neighbors and perform the same procedure.

This is performed in a parallel fashion, since Cisco IOS switches are usually pretty slow.

For the procedure to work, a number of conditions must be met:

• All switches must be registered in DNS with their hostname. For example, a switch called "switch01" must be registered as "switch01.example.com" in DNS.
• All switches must have CDP turned on. One could, theoretically, use LLDP instead of CDP btw.
• The user supplied to nettools must be registered on the switch with enough privileges.

How to run this application

<<<<<<< HEAD The application needs to be started with the following command:

• python NewGui.pyw username password first-switch

-or-

• python PortConfigGui.py username password first-switch

Keep in mind, there are several seperate functionalities / tools not implemented into the GUI

For instance:

• python remote_span username password first-switch list
• python network_overview.py username password router first-switch
• python network_graph.py username password first-switch > graph.dot && dot -Tsvg -Kdot -o graph.svg graph.dot

======= The application is started as follows:

• python NewGui.pyw

It will then ask you for a username, password and a first switch to contact.

refs/remotes/origin/master