aruba-central-mcp

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MCP server for Aruba Central (GreenLake New Central API).

Exposes access point, switch, and wireless client status to MCP-compatible AI assistants (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, etc.) via STDIO transport.

Documentation: https://shigechika.github.io/aruba-central-mcp/

Features

Access Points

Clients

Infrastructure

Firmware

Every tool reads; nothing is configured or upgraded. See docs/firmware-api-notes.md for which API reports what.

Highlights

• Server-side OData filtering for efficient queries
• OAuth2 Client Credentials authentication (GreenLake SSO)
• Automatic pagination for large result sets
• Token auto-refresh before expiration
• Lightweight: only mcp SDK + httpx (no pandas)

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Aruba Central account with API access (GreenLake New Central API)
• OAuth2 client credentials (client ID and secret)

Setup

# uv
uv pip install aruba-central-mcp

# pip
pip install aruba-central-mcp

Or run without installing:

uvx aruba-central-mcp

From source:

git clone https://github.com/shigechika/aruba-central-mcp.git
cd aruba-central-mcp

# uv
uv sync

# pip
pip install -e .

Configuration

Set the following environment variables:

Optional: Classic Central (firmware details)

AOS-8 Instant APs in Classic Central groups are upgraded from Classic Central, and only its API reports why a swarm's upgrade failed, the group compliance version and the versions on offer. Set all four to enable that:

Bootstrap the token file once with the access and refresh token Classic Central's API Gateway issues for that application, readable only by the user the server runs as:

umask 077
printf '{"access_token": "%s", "refresh_token": "%s"}\n' "$ACCESS" "$REFRESH" > /path/to/classic-token.json

The refresh token is replaced on every refresh (the old one stops working), so let only this server refresh it, and point every process that runs it at the same file: refreshes are serialised with a lock file next to it. When the refresh token is rejected, health_check reports classic: error and asks for a new pair; when only some ARUBA_CLASSIC_* variables are set it reports classic: misconfigured and names the missing ones. The directory holding the file must be writable by that user (the new pair is written next to it, then renamed); without that, the server refuses to refresh rather than lose the rotated token. Windows has no cross-process lock here, so run one process there.

How to obtain API credentials

1. Log in to HPE GreenLake Platform
2. Go to Manage Workspace > Personal API clients
3. Click Create Personal API client
4. Enter a nickname and select Aruba Central as the service
5. Copy the client_id and client_secret — the secret is shown only once

For details, see:

• OAuth APIs for Access Token
• Making API Calls

Usage

Claude Code (plugin)

This repository doubles as a single-plugin marketplace, so Claude Code can install the server for you:

/plugin marketplace add shigechika/aruba-central-mcp
/plugin install aruba-central-mcp@aruba-central-mcp

The plugin launches uvx aruba-central-mcp and reads the same three environment variables described in Configuration; export them before starting Claude Code.

uvx must be on the PATH of the process that runs Claude Code — a login shell usually has it, but a GUI-launched app may not; install uv system-wide if the plugin fails to start.

Claude Code (manual)

claude mcp add aruba-central \
  -e ARUBA_CENTRAL_BASE_URL=apigw-uswest4.central.arubanetworks.com \
  -e ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
  -e ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret \
  -- uvx aruba-central-mcp

Or add to .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aruba-central": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["aruba-central-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_BASE_URL": "apigw-uswest4.central.arubanetworks.com",
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aruba-central": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["aruba-central-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_BASE_URL": "apigw-uswest4.central.arubanetworks.com",
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
        "ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret"
      }
    }
  }
}

Direct execution

export ARUBA_CENTRAL_BASE_URL="apigw-uswest4.central.arubanetworks.com"
export ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id"
export ARUBA_CENTRAL_CLIENT_SECRET="your-client-secret"
python3 -m aruba_central_mcp

CLI Options

aruba-central-mcp --version   # Print version and exit
aruba-central-mcp --help      # Show usage and required environment variables
aruba-central-mcp --check     # Verify environment variables and OAuth2 authentication, then exit
aruba-central-mcp             # Start MCP server (STDIO, default)

With no options, the process runs as an MCP STDIO server (the mode used by MCP clients).

--check exit codes: 0 success, 1 config error, 2 auth error.

Development

git clone https://github.com/shigechika/aruba-central-mcp.git
cd aruba-central-mcp

# uv
uv sync --dev
uv run pytest -v

# pip
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e ".[test]"
.venv/bin/pytest -v

Live smoke test

The unit suite mocks Central at the transport layer, which is what makes it fast — and also what makes it blind to a tool that has stopped returning real data. scripts/smoke_test.py runs every registered tool against the configured tenant and fails on empty, malformed or error answers:

# needs the same ARUBA_CENTRAL_* environment variables as the server
uv run python scripts/smoke_test.py
uv run python scripts/smoke_test.py --only radios --traceback

• Read-only. Every tool here reads; nothing in Central is configured. A future tool that writes must be listed as state-changing and skipped, and a test enforces that.
• No payloads in the report. Tool names, statuses and row counts only; error text is redacted too, since an error routinely quotes the device, client MAC or site it was asked about.
• Nothing network-specific in the specs. The AP, the serial number and the client MAC that the per-device tools need are discovered at run time from the listings, and skipped when the network has none to offer. Two tests keep it that way: one refuses those parameters as literals, the other bans anything address-shaped anywhere in the file, because this repository is public.
• Empty answers pass for the listings and the time-series tools — a site with no swarms configured is a real deployment — but a lookup handed a name discovered seconds earlier must not come back empty, and those probes say so.
• CI enforces the cheap half: a tool registered without a probe spec fails the build (tests/test_smoke_probes.py), so adding a tool forces the question "how would we know it works?".
• scripts/smoke_harness.py is the engine and holds no Central knowledge: it is kept identical across the servers that share it, so fix engine bugs once and sync the file rather than patching this copy.

Its first run found a real one: get_client_mobility_trail was requesting a page size the endpoint rejects, so the tool had been failing for every client.

API Reference

This server uses the GreenLake New Central API:

• /network-monitoring/v1/aps — Access points
• /network-monitoring/v1/radios — AP radios
• /network-monitoring/v1/bssids — BSSIDs
• /network-monitoring/v1/wlans — WLANs
• /network-monitoring/v1/swarms — AP swarms/clusters
• /network-monitoring/v1/switches — Switches
• /network-monitoring/v1/clients — Clients
• /network-monitoring/v1/clients-trend — Client count trends
• /network-monitoring/v1/clients-topn-usage — Top clients by usage
• /network-monitoring/v1/top-aps-by-usage — Top APs by usage

License

MIT