AryaLogger v1.1.7

Use the SimpleAciUiLogServer and arya to convert UI REST API calls to ACI Python SDK code.

Use the SimpleAciUiLogServer and arya to convert UI REST API calls to ACI Python SDK code.

Install

Installation of AryaLogger depends on several other modules that are not part of the Python standard library. Here is a basic list of those modules:

1. acicobra - Not yet available on Pypi

2. arya - available on Pypi

3. SimpleAciUiLogServer - available on Pypi

Installing Dependancies

The difficult dependancy at this point is acicobra as it is not on Pypi yet.

Installing acicobra

If you have at least APIC version 1.0(3f) installed on your APIC, installation of acicobra can be done by simply pointing pip at your APIC’s cobra/_downloads directory using the –find-links option using one of these two commands:

easy_install -Z –find-links http://apic/cobra/_downloads acicobra

Or:

easy_install -Z –find-links https://apic/cobra/_downloads acicobra

If your APIC has http disabled (the default), you must either use https or enable http on the APIC. Note: As of the 1.1(1j) version of the APIC, TLSv1 has been disabled by default on the APIC for HTTPS. So if you are using HTTPS and your python install uses an older openssl that does not support TLSv1_1 or TLSv1_2 you may have issues handshaking with the APIC GUI. This is especially the case on the default installation of python on MacOSX which usually utilizes the default installation of openssl which is extremely old. Generally speaking, one should not be using such an old version of openssl. Homebrew may be your best bet.

If you have an older version of software on your APIC, you can either download acicobra from the Cisco.com software download site (APIC specific contract required to be tied to the Cisco.com id doing the download) or you can download the acicobra egg from the APIC itself and rename it:

https://developer.cisco.com/media/apicDcPythonAPI_v0.1/install.html

Installing arya

Installing arya from pypi is as simple as using pip:

pip install arya

Installing AryaLogger

AryaLogger is available on pypi so installation is fairly straight forward:

pip install AryaLogger

This should also pull in SimpleAciUiLogServer if you don’t have it installed already.

Run AryaLogger

There are two possible commands to run AryaLogger on your system. You only need to run one of these commands:

aryalogger

Or:

AryaLogger

There are additional options available that can be seen via the -h option:

• -h: Help

• -a/–apicip: The ip address or hostname of an APIC to help resolve which ip address to print when showing the server is started.

• -po/–port: The port for the HTTP server to listen on - default is 8987

• -l/–location: The URI path to listen for - default is apiinspector

• -s/–sslport: The port for the HTTPS server to listen on - default is 8443

• -c/–cert: The certificate file to use for TLS/SSL negotiation.

• -e/–exclude: There are three types of queries the GUI doe constantly to keep the session up or to request information to update the GUI. This option allows you to selectively exlude these queries from the output. options are:

  • subscriptionRefresh - Refreshes a subscription request for the GUI.

  • aaaRefresh - Refreshes the GUI connection to the APIC.

  • topInfo - Retrieves basic info from the APIC to update the GUI.

• -r/–logrequests: Log the HTTP request along with the CobraSDK code.

• -n/–nice-output: Pretty print any XML or JSON (has no affect currently in AryaLogger)

• -i/–indent: The number of spaces to indent when pretty printing (has no affect currently in AryaLogger)

For HTTPS, AryaLogger does come with a default certificate file but it should not be used for production. Instead you should create your own certificate file using openssl and pass it to the server:

openssl req -new -x509 -keyout server.pem -out server.pem -days 36500 -nodes

Pass it in to AryaLogger using the -c/–cert option.

Setup your APIC

Setting up your APIC to send log messages to AryaLogger is very simple as well. When you run AryaLogger it will output the addresses and ports it is listening to:

$ aryalogger serving at: http://10.1.1.100:8987/apiinspector https://10.1.1.100:8443/apiinspector

If you are going to be using the https address to access the AryaLogger server, be sure to browse to the https address printed out by the server when it starts so that you can accept the certificate exception.

If you connect to the APIC graphical user interface (GUI) via http, take note of the http URL otherwise if you connect to the GUI using https take note of the https URL.

Use this URL in the ‘Start Remote Logging’ pop-up that is available from the ‘Welcome’ menu at the top right of the GUI.

Once you have started remote logging to the URL provided by AryaLogger, when you click around the APIC GUI you should see auto generated Cobra SDK code from AryaLogger.

Problems & Issues

The most common problem seen when running AryaLogger is that the AryaLogger server starts, remote logging is setup on the APIC but then no data is seen ever being transferred to the server. This can be caused by many things but the most common is that a security exception has not been accepted for the http certificate. This can be resolved by connecting to the AryaLogger https address from your browser and accepting the security exception for the server certificate. The second most common issue is that there is a firewall running on the host that the AryaLogger server is running on. We have even seen hosts with multiple firewalls running when the end user had no idea.

The simplest form of troubleshooting involves going into the same browser tab that the APIC is connected to with and opening the developer tools in your browser. Look at the javascript console and see if any errors are being printed about communication to the host the AryaLogger is running on.

If you run into issues please feel free to open an issue on github.