New Training: Automate IP Reachability Testing

In this 6-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer John McGovern demonstrates how to use Python to build effective command-line IP reachability tools for testing network connectivity. Watch this new networking training.

Watch the full course: Advanced Network Automation with Cisco and Python

This training includes:

• 6 videos
• 57 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Overview
• Building a Script
• Show IP Interface Brief
• Targeting Loopbacks
• Management Interfaces
• Ping Report

How Do You Automate Testing IP Reachability?

Let's say that you need to verify a list of IP addresses in use in an enterprise environment, or you may want to automate network deployment and need a way to verify IP addresses first. You certainly don't want to verify a long list of IP addresses by hand.

Thankfully, tools like Nornir make this quite easy. Nornir is a Python-powered IT automation framework like Ansible. Because Nornir uses Python for its scripting, automating tasks like checking for IP reachability is simple.

The idea is easy. Create a script in Python that sends a ping command to specific IP addresses. If you need to check a range of IP addresses, that script could loop through an entire address block. The results of each of those tests can be piped to a text file, spreadsheet, or database.

This is only one example of a task that you can complete with these automation tools. Tools like Nornir and Ansible make performing routine and repetitive tasks like this quick and painless.