ipfabric 7.9.1

Python package for interacting with IP Fabric

IP Fabric

IPFabric is a Python module for connecting to and communicating against an IP Fabric instance.

For full documentation please see IP Fabric Documentation Portal.

IP Fabric

IP Fabric is a vendor-neutral network assurance platform that automates the holistic discovery, verification, visualization, and documentation of large-scale enterprise networks, reducing the associated costs and required resources whilst improving security and efficiency.

It supports your engineering and operations teams, underpinning migration and transformation projects. IP Fabric will revolutionize how you approach network visibility and assurance, security assurance, automation, multi-cloud networking, and trouble resolution.

Integrations or scripts should not be installed directly on the IP Fabric VM unless directly communicated from the IP Fabric Support or Solution Architect teams. Any action on the Command-Line Interface (CLI) using the root, osadmin, or autoboss account may cause irreversible, detrimental changes to the product and can render the system unusable.

Bugs

A bug has been identified when ~2,000 requests are being made to the API. The underlining issue seems to be with the implementation of http2. The workaround is to set http2=False in the IPFClient class. Example error:

httpx.RemoteProtocolError: <ConnectionTerminated error_code:ErrorCodes.NO_ERROR, last_stream_id:1999, additional_data:None>

Notices

Please note IP Fabric's new API Versioning Policy.

IP Fabric team is migrating from httpx to niquests in IP Fabric SDK v7.5.0. This is outside of a major release however the IP Fabric version 7.5.0 will include our new database and will require through testing to ensure compatibility.

This should not impact any existing automations unless you are using httpx Client in your code. This is a private attribute of the IP Fabric IPFClient class. The HTTP method functions did not appear to require any changes so using IPFClient().get(), IPFClient().post(), etc. will continue to work as expected we expect.

Reasons:

• Our team has opened an issue with httpx to address the bug above and have not received any support after 10 months.
• Last release of httpx was in December 2024 compared to niquests which has more frequent releases.
• Lacks many features compared to niquests.
• Will enable our team to explore HTTP2 multiplexing API requests.
• niquests is a maintained fork of requests so should be familiar to most Python users.

Upcoming Deprecation Notices

v8.0.0

Python 3.9 Removed

Python 3.9 (End of Life 2025-10) will be removed in v8.0.0. Please ensure you are using Python 3.10+.

Moved Models

The following Models have moved and old locations removed in v8.0.0:

• ipfabric.settings.vendor_api_models.* -> ipfabric.models.vendor_api
• ipfabric.settings.discovery.Networks -> ipfabric.models.discovery.Networks
• ipfabric.settings.seeds.SeedList -> ipfabric.models.discovery.SeedList
• ipfabric.settings.authentication.[Credential, CredentialList, Privilege, PrivilegeList] -> ipfabric.models.authentication

Login IP Columns Removed

In ipfabric>=v7.3.0 column loginIp was replaced with loginIpv4 and loginIpv6 and in v8.0.0 it is changed to a text field return IPv4 or IPv6.

The current loginIp column are removed from these tables:

• Inventory > Devices: tables/inventory/devices
• Discovery Snapshot > Connectivity Report: tables/reports/discovery-tasks
• Management > Discovery History: tables/inventory/discovery-history
• Management > Changes:
  • tables/management/changes/devices
  • tables/management/changes/managed-devs
• Management > Saved Config Consistency: tables/management/configuration/saved
• Technology > Management > Telnet access: tables/security/enabled-telnet

Versioning

Please note IP Fabric's new API Versioning Policy.

Semantic Versioning: Major.Minor.Patch

Starting with IP Fabric version 5.0.x the ipfabric SDK is recommended to match your IP Fabric major and minor version.
We will try to keep some backwards compatability (SDK version 6.9.x should work with IP Fabric API 6.8) however new features may break some functionality. By ensuring that your ipfabric SDK's match your IP Fabric major and minor
version will ensure compatibility and will continue to work.

The Patch version of the SDK is used for bug fixes and new features that are compatible with the major and minor version.

Defaulted to Streaming Data

See Notices for full information.

• GET URL is limited to 4096 characters.
  • Complex queries and filters could go over this limit; however in testing it was very difficult to reach this.
• CSV Export
  • Only supported with a streaming GET request and return a bytes string of data in the Python SDK.
  • It will also convert times to human-readable format.
  • reports (returning Intent Check data) is not supported with CSV export, however is required when filtering based on Intents (colors).

from ipfabric import IPFClient
ipf = IPFClient(streaming=True)

dev = ipf.inventory.devices.all()
print(type(dev))  # list 

dev_csv = ipf.fetch_all('tables/inventory/devices', export='csv')
print(type(dev_csv))  # bytes 

# Timezone can be changed for CSV export; see `ipfabric.tools.shared.TIMEZONES`
dev_csv_tz = ipf.inventory.devices.all(export='csv', csv_tz='UTC')

# If specifying to return reports and CSV request will drop reports input and use GET
dev_csv_reports = ipf.fetch_all('tables/inventory/devices', reports=True, export='csv')
"""CSV export does not return reports, parameter has been excluded."""
print(type(dev_csv_reports))  # bytes

# If URL exceeds 4096 characters the following exception will be raised:
# raise InvalidURL(f"URL exceeds max character limit of 4096: length={len(url)}.")

Installation

pip install ipfabric

To use export='df' on some methods please install pandas with ipfabric

pip install ipfabric[pd]

Introduction

Please take a look at API Programmability - Part 1: The Basics for instructions on creating an API token.

Most of the methods and features can be located in Examples to show how to use this package. Another great introduction to this package can be found at API Programmability - Part 2: Python

Authentication

Username/Password

Supply in client:

from ipfabric import IPFClient
ipf = IPFClient('https://demo3.ipfabric.io/', auth=('user', 'pass'))

Token

from ipfabric import IPFClient
ipf = IPFClient('https://demo3.ipfabric.io/', auth='token')

Environment

The easiest way to use this package is with a .env file. You can copy the sample and edit it with your environment variables.

cp sample.env .env

This contains the following variables which can also be set as environment variables instead of a .env file.

IPF_URL="https://demo3.ipfabric.io"
IPF_TOKEN=TOKEN
IPF_VERIFY=true

Or if using Username/Password:

IPF_URL="https://demo3.ipfabric.io"
IPF_USERNAME=USER
IPF_PASSWORD=PASS

Development

Poetry Installation

IPFabric uses Poetry to make setting up a virtual environment with all dependencies installed quick and easy.

Install poetry globally:

pip install poetry

To install a virtual environment run the following command in the root of this directory.

poetry install

To run examples, install extras:

poetry install ipfabric -E examples

Test and Build

poetry run pytest
poetry build

Prior to pushing changes run:

poetry run black ipfabric
poetry update