napalm-ros 1.6.0

Requirements

napalm-ros 1.6.0 and newer require NAPALM 5.x. NAPALM 5 added a format argument to get_config, and a driver cannot match both the NAPALM 4 and NAPALM 5 method signatures at once, so NAPALM 4 is no longer supported. Stay on napalm-ros 1.5.0 if you need NAPALM 4.

Caveats

As napalm-ros uses API, several caveats exist.

• API is not versioned so things may break when routeros is upgraded.
• RouterOS has no native, non-reboot commit/rollback and safe mode is not exposed via the API. Rollback is emulated with a device-side scheduler that restores a backup, so a rollback (or an expired commit-confirm) reverts by rebooting. See Configuration management.
• get_config reads the running configuration over the binary API on RouterOS 7.13+ (no SSH). Below 7.13 -- RouterOS 6 and RouterOS 7.0-7.12 -- it falls back to SSH (paramiko), because reading a large export back over the API needs the chunked /file/read added in 7.13. On that SSH path, paramiko offers keys from a running SSH agent by default; if the agent offers a key the device rejects, RouterOS may drop the session and get_config then fails with No existing session. Pass optional_args={'paramiko_allow_agent': False} to authenticate with the password only (SSH agent/key auth is otherwise left enabled); paramiko_look_for_keys (default False) similarly controls on-disk key lookup.
• get_config accepts NAPALM 5's format argument but only supports text, because RouterOS exports its configuration as an /export script and offers no other representation. Any other value raises NotImplementedError.

Configuration management

Configuration management targets RouterOS 7.x and requires librouteros >= 4.2.2, which carries the /file/add fix commit_config relies on to apply a candidate on RouterOS older than ~7.13.

The commit/rollback machinery -- load_merge_candidate / load_replace_candidate, commit_config, confirm_commit, has_pending_commit, rollback, discard_config -- runs entirely over the binary API (no SSH). get_config and compare_config read the running configuration the version-aware way noted above: binary API on RouterOS 7.13+, SSH (paramiko) fallback below 7.13.

• get_config / compare_config read the running configuration with /export.
• load_merge_candidate stages a .rsc script that is applied with /import. load_replace_candidate stages a full configuration.
• commit_config applies the candidate. On RouterOS 7.16+ it first dry-runs the candidate (/import dry-run) so a syntax error is caught before anything is applied; below 7.16 that pre-flight is skipped (pass optional_args={'validate_before_commit': False} to disable it). Before a plain commit a backup is taken so rollback can restore it (by rebooting). commit_config(revert_in=<seconds>) arms a device-side scheduler that restores that backup unless confirm_commit is called in time (has_pending_commit reports whether one is armed). Because the timer lives on the device it survives a lost session or a lock-out.
• A replace (load_replace_candidate + commit_config) uses /system reset-configuration run-after-reset, which wipes the configuration and reboots into the candidate. It is destructive, has no automatic rollback, and the candidate must be a complete, self-consistent configuration that restores management connectivity. Commit-confirm (revert_in) is not available with a replace.

RouterOS configuration is imperative (an /export is a list of add/set actions, not declarative state) and ordering matters in some paths (e.g. /ip firewall filter) but not others (e.g. /ip address). compare_config is therefore a textual diff for review, not an executable patch.

cli

cli(commands) runs each command as a one-line script with /execute over the binary API (no SSH) and returns what it printed, keyed by command. Commands are RouterOS script syntax, not interactive-terminal shorthand (abbreviated menu names, tab completion): /ip/address/print or :put [/system/identity/get name] on RouterOS 7, /ip address print on RouterOS 6 (which does not accept the slash-separated form). A command RouterOS cannot parse comes back as output text (syntax error (line 1 column 6)), the way an IOS % Invalid input would, not as an exception. Only the text encoding is supported.

• On RouterOS 7 (verified on 7.18.2 and 7.23.5) /execute as-string blocks and returns the output directly. RouterOS caps an executed script at 64 KB.
• RouterOS 6 rejects as-string (verified on 6.33.3, 6.44.5, 6.49.21), so there the script runs as a background job writing to a temporary file (napalm-cli-<id>.txt), which is read back and removed. The API only exposes a file's contents inline when it is under about 4 KB and RouterOS 6 has no /file/read, so larger output raises CommandErrorException; use SSH for that. Support is detected on the first cli() call of a session, not from the version number.

Line endings are normalised to \n.

Implemented getters

• get_arp_table
• get_interfaces_counters
• get_environment
• get_facts
• get_interfaces
• get_interfaces_ip
• get_ntp_servers
• get_snmp_information
• get_users
• get_ipv6_neighbors_table
• is_alive
• ping
• get_lldp_neighbors
• get_lldp_neighbors_detail
• get_network_instances
• get_mac_address_table
• get_bgp_neighbors
• get_bgp_neighbors_detail
• get_config
• get_vlans
• cli