netcanon 0.1.0rc5

Multi-vendor network config translator with a verifiable cross-vendor audit

Netcanon

Multi-vendor network config translator with a verifiable cross-vendor audit.

Translates running-config between Cisco IOS-XE, Juniper Junos, Aruba AOS-S, Arista EOS, Fortinet FortiGate, MikroTik RouterOS, and OPNsense. You point Netcanon at a config from one vendor and it renders the equivalent config for another — through a shared canonical model, with every translatable field declared as supported, lossy, or unsupported.

What sets it apart is the audit underneath. Every supported vendor pair × every field gets classified into one of eight variance classes (ALIGNED / CODEC_BUG / EXPECTED_LOSSY / EXPECTED_UNSUPPORTED / METHODOLOGY_ISSUE_under / METHODOLOGY_ISSUE_over / STRUCTURAL_ONLY / TRIVIAL_EMPTY). The cross-mesh audit catches silent translation errors — the kind that produce output that looks valid but quietly drops or transforms a field — before they ship.

---

See it in 10 seconds

docker run --rm ghcr.io/netcanon/netcanon:latest python tools/demo.py --pair cisco__junos

Paste this:

hostname leaf-01
!
vlan 10
 name DATA
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0/0
 description Uplink to spine
 switchport access vlan 10
!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1

Get this:

set system host-name leaf-01
set interfaces GigabitEthernet0/0/0 description "Uplink to spine"
set vlans DATA vlan-id 10
set routing-options static route 0.0.0.0/0 next-hop 192.168.1.1

Same canonical pipeline drives the HTTP API and the browser UI. Run python tools/demo.py --list to see all four embedded scenarios (Cisco→Junos, FortiGate→MikroTik, Aruba→Arista, OPNsense→Junos).

---

The trust signal — and the invitation

Across every supported vendor pair × every field declared as supported, the cross-mesh audit holds zero CODEC_BUG cells. That's not "we think it works"; that's every cell that should translate, does, by automated test against vendor-doc-grounded expectations.

The honest follow-up: the audit only covers cells we have fixtures for. Real-world configs exercise paths the synthetic fixtures haven't reached — and that's where you come in. If you have a running-config that translates wrong (or doesn't translate at all), that's the highest-impact bug report this project can receive. See BUG_REPORTING.md for the workflow — Netcanon ships its own sanitiser (netcanon sanitize ...) so you never paste real WAN IPs, hashes, or hostnames into a public issue.

For the full audit narrative + the variance-class taxonomy, see docs/HOW_WE_TEST.md.

---

Install

Docker (recommended)

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
    -v $(pwd)/configs:/app/configs \
    -v $(pwd)/data:/app/data \
    ghcr.io/netcanon/netcanon:latest
# -> http://127.0.0.1:8000        (UI)
# -> http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs   (Swagger)
# -> http://127.0.0.1:8000/health (health probe)

configs/ is where backed-up running-configs land; data/ holds device profiles, schedules, and job state. Don't bind-mount definitions/ — those YAMLs are baked into the image as tracked content; mounting an empty host directory over them will crash startup.

The published image is signed via Sigstore (cosign verify ghcr.io/netcanon/netcanon ...) with an SBOM attestation.

Docker Hub mirror — same image, convenience-mirrored to Docker Hub if your tooling defaults to docker.io:

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 netcanon/netcanon:latest

The Docker Hub mirror has the same image bytes but no cosign signature or SBOM attestation — operators in regulated environments should pull from GHCR for the attested provenance chain. See SECURITY.md for the supply-chain story.

Pip

pip install netcanon
uvicorn netcanon.main:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

netcanon also installs the netcanon CLI — netcanon sanitize -i my-config.txt --source-vendor cisco_iosxe_cli --dry-run is the typical entrypoint for the bug-reporting workflow.

Desktop (Windows)

Download the MSI from Releases, or from source:

pip install -e ".[desktop]"
python -m netcanon_desktop

The desktop shell runs the same FastAPI app inside a PySide6 webview with a tray icon — same UI, no command-line.

---

Walkthroughs — "is this the right tool for my migration?"

Each walkthrough is paired 1:1 with a runnable demo scenario. Read the narrative first, run python tools/demo.py --pair <key> to see the actual translation.

Walkthrough	Demo scenario	Frame
Cisco IOS-XE → Juniper Junos	cisco__junos	DC leaf migration: VLANs + interfaces + routes
FortiGate → MikroTik RouterOS	fortigate__mikrotik	Branch-firewall consolidation: DNS + interfaces + DHCP pools
Aruba AOS-S → Arista EOS	aruba__arista	Switch refresh: VLAN-centric → port-centric grammar
OPNsense → Juniper Junos	opnsense__junos	Edge-firewall migration with explicit Tier-3 boundary

Each walkthrough ends in a manual-review checklist — what to verify on the device after the rendered config lands, before you apply it.

---

What translates, and what doesn't

The canonical model classifies every field by semantic stability across vendors. Full per-codec matrix is in docs/CAPABILITIES.md; the short version:

• Tier 1 — auto-translatable. hostname, interfaces (name / description / enabled state / IPv4 + IPv6 addresses / per-interface VRF binding), VLANs, static routes, DNS / NTP / syslog servers, timezone. Every shipped codec parses + renders these fully.
• Tier 2 — translatable with caveats. SNMP (incl. SNMPv3 USM), LAGs, local users, RADIUS, DHCP server pools, VXLAN VNIs, EVPN type-5 routes, routing instances / VRFs, Junos apply-groups. Hashes that the target's CLI cannot consume surface as commented review lines, never as plaintext fallback.
• Tier 3 — opaque carry / never auto-rendered. Firewall rules, NAT, IPsec / OpenVPN / WireGuard, QoS, route-maps, dynamic routing protocol stanzas, PKI. These are vendor-specific stateful policy that doesn't translate cross-vendor cleanly — Netcanon detects them, surfaces them via the migrate-page banner with a count and section names, and deliberately doesn't auto-render. Hand-build them natively on the target.

If your migration's primary need is firewall translation, docs/COMPARISON.md names adjacent tools (Capirca / Aerleon) that handle that scope. Netcanon is the right tool for the router portion of a migration — and explicitly the wrong tool to claim it does the firewall portion.

---

Two concerns, one app

Netcanon co-hosts:

1. Backup — pulls running-config (or vendor equivalent) from network devices over SSH / NETCONF / REST and stores it verbatim in configs/<hostname>.<ext>. Runs on a schedule or on demand.
2. Migration — translates a stored backup from one vendor's config grammar to another through the canonical intent tree.

Same FastAPI process; same UI; same Docker image. Use whichever half (or both). See ARCHITECTURE.md for the four-layer design.

---

Found a bug? Got a config that breaks it?

That's the contribution this project values most. Workflow:

1. Sanitise your config with netcanon sanitize — strips hostnames, IPs, hashes, certs, SNMP communities, etc., with a counter-per- session stable substitution table you can audit before submission.
2. Open a bug report or fixture submission.
3. The fixture lands in tests/fixtures/real/<vendor>/, the cross-mesh audit re-runs, and the variance class your fixture surfaces gets a row in tests/fixtures/real/PHASE4_RECONCILIATION.md.

Full workflow is in BUG_REPORTING.md.

---

For contributors

You want to…	Start here
Understand the architecture	ARCHITECTURE.md — four-layer model, canonical bridge, codec types
Follow the contributor rules	AGENTS.md — hard rules, parity checklist, gotchas
Read the slower-changing methodology	docs/METHODOLOGY.md — matrix-honesty discipline distilled, portable to other projects
Look up project jargon	docs/glossary.md — canonical, codec, mesh, ship-before-wire, target profile
Read the canonical model overview	netcanon/migration/canonical/README.md
Add or change an HTTP route	netcanon/api/routes/README.md — frozen pipeline-stage signatures, endpoint inventory
Add a new codec	netcanon/migration/codecs/README.md
Add a new device definition / target profile	definitions/README.md
Add a new canonical field	docs/adding-a-canonical-field.md
Ship a feature across web + desktop	docs/feature-parity-walkthrough.md
See what's shipped recently	CHANGELOG.md
Check codec certification tiers	tests/fixtures/real/RESULTS.md
Manually exercise recent changes	HUMAN_TESTING.md
Write tests	tests/README.md
Review the security model	SECURITY.md

Run the test suite

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                       # unit + integration + desktop (fast)
pytest -m e2e                # Playwright browser tests (slower)

Tests run across four layers: unit (pure functions, no I/O — the real-capture validation harness lives here as a unit subset), integration (TestClient + mocked SSH at the get_collector factory), e2e (Playwright against a live Uvicorn), and desktop (PySide6 + pystray mocked). CI runs the full matrix on Python 3.11 / 3.12 / 3.13 against Ubuntu. CI output is the source of truth for pass counts.

Layout

netcanon/              FastAPI application (shared by both platforms)
 ├── api/routes/          HTTP endpoints
 ├── collectors/          SSH/NETCONF/REST fetchers — one factory,
 │                        one mock-point (`get_collector`)
 ├── migration/           Cross-vendor translation pipeline
 │   ├── canonical/         CanonicalIntent model + shared transforms
 │   └── codecs/            Per-vendor parse/render implementations
 ├── services/            Plain-function orchestrators (pipeline, detect, …)
 ├── storage/             FileConfigStore
 ├── tools/               sanitize, etc.
 └── templates/           Jinja2 templates (every interactive element
                          carries a data-testid — see AGENTS.md)

netcanon_desktop/      Windows tray/webview shell around the same server
definitions/            Device definition YAMLs
tools/demo.py           One-command cross-vendor translation demo
docs/walkthroughs/      Narrative migration walkthroughs (paired with demo)
docs/vendors/           Per-vendor "what works for me?" pages
tests/unit/             Pure-function tests, no I/O
tests/integration/      FastAPI TestClient tests, SSH mocked
tests/e2e/              Playwright browser tests
tests/desktop/          PySide6/pystray-mocked desktop shell tests
tests/fixtures/real/    Real-capture validation corpus (see RESULTS.md)

---

License

MIT. See LICENSE. Third-party fixtures keep their upstream licences — see tests/fixtures/real/NOTICE.md for provenance.

For responsible disclosure of security issues, see SECURITY.md.