Cisco ACI Automation via REST API

This is a web site i created at my lab in order to automate Cisco ACI configuration via REST API

For example: Configuring server port:

The web site is running in Ubuntu server with Apache2 and was developed in PHP using NetBeans IDE

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A demo:

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The source code:

&lt;?php
$global_apic_url="https://apic1.sddc.local:443/api/";
$global_apic_user="admin";
$global_apic_pass="XXXXX";
$token_file_path="/var/www/html/include/token.txt";// Apic Token

function read_token(){
    global  $token_file_path;
    $token_file = fopen($token_file_path, "r");
    $token= fread($token_file,filesize($token_file_path));
    fclose($token_file);
    return $token;
}

function save_token($token){
    global  $token_file_path;
    $token_file = fopen($token_file_path, "w");
    fwrite($token_file, $token);
    fclose($token_file);
}  

function aci_connect(){
    global $global_apic_url, $token_file_path, $global_apic_user, $global_apic_pass;
    $url=$global_apic_url."aaaLogin.json";
    $data = '{
        "aaaUser":{
          "attributes":{
            "name":"'.$global_apic_user.'",
            "pwd":"'.$global_apic_pass.'"
          }
        }
      }';

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
    // Disable SSL certificate check
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
    // json
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json'));
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $result_json = curl_exec($ch);
    if(curl_errno($ch)){
        die( 'Curl error: '.curl_error($ch));}
    curl_close($ch);
    $result= json_decode($result_json,true);
    $token= $result["imdata"][0]["aaaLogin"]["attributes"]["token"];
    save_token($token);
}


function aci_get($uri){
    global $global_apic_url;
    $token=read_token();
    //print $token;
    $ch = curl_init($global_apic_url.$uri);                                                                      
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "GET");                                                                 
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);  
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "APIC-cookie=$token");
    $result_json = curl_exec($ch);
    $result=json_decode($result_json,true);
    if(curl_errno($ch)){
        print 'Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch);}
    curl_close($ch);
    
    // check if need to re-login
    if (need_to_relogin($result)){
        print "## Re-Login ##";
        aci_connect();
        $result=aci_get($uri);
    }
    return $result;
}
?>

<?php

$global_apic_url="https://apic1.sddc.local:443/api/";

$global_apic_user="admin";

$global_apic_pass="XXXXX";

$token_file_path="/var/www/html/include/token.txt";// Apic Token

function read_token(){

global $token_file_path;

$token_file = fopen($token_file_path, "r");

$token= fread($token_file,filesize($token_file_path));

fclose($token_file);

return $token;

}

function save_token($token){

global $token_file_path;

$token_file = fopen($token_file_path, "w");

fwrite($token_file, $token);

fclose($token_file);

}

function aci_connect(){

global $global_apic_url, $token_file_path, $global_apic_user, $global_apic_pass;

$url=$global_apic_url."aaaLogin.json";

$data = '{

"aaaUser":{

"attributes":{

"name":"'.$global_apic_user.'",

"pwd":"'.$global_apic_pass.'"

}

}';

$ch = curl_init($url);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

// Disable SSL certificate check

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);

// json

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json'));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

$result_json = curl_exec($ch);

if(curl_errno($ch)){

die( 'Curl error: '.curl_error($ch));}

curl_close($ch);

$result= json_decode($result_json,true);

$token= $result["imdata"][0]["aaaLogin"]["attributes"]["token"];

save_token($token);

}

function aci_get($uri){

global $global_apic_url;

$token=read_token();

//print $token;

$ch = curl_init($global_apic_url.$uri);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "GET");

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "APIC-cookie=$token");

$result_json = curl_exec($ch);

$result=json_decode($result_json,true);

if(curl_errno($ch)){

print 'Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch);}

curl_close($ch);

// check if need to re-login

if (need_to_relogin($result)){

print "## Re-Login ##";

aci_connect();

$result=aci_get($uri);

}

return $result;

}

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First we need to find the URI of the REST API call we wants

We can do it via the API inspector

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Then we can test the code

(for example Get all the VRFs from tanent SDDC) :

&lt;?php
$result= aci_get('node/mo/uni/tn-SDDC.json?query-target=children&amp;target-subtree-class=fvCtx&amp;query-target-filter=not(wcard(polUni.dn, "__ui_"))&amp;order-by=fvCtx.name|asc');
print_r($result);
?>

<?php

$result= aci_get('node/mo/uni/tn-SDDC.json?query-target=children&target-subtree-class=fvCtx&query-target-filter=not(wcard(polUni.dn, "__ui_"))&order-by=fvCtx.name|asc');

print_r($result);

Will return an array of VRFs: (The Apic returns JESON, array I convert it to PHP array)

And then i parsed the returned array and showed it at the browser inside a table using HTML

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Configuring the Apic

I prefer to send to the Apic XML data with all the parameters i wants to configure,
the easiest way to find the current format is to save an object from the Apic GUI and open it with Internet explorer (Yes, this is not a mistake :), because IE by default interpreted XML data)

Summery

Automation with Cisco ACI is Easy and works good

1 thought on “Cisco ACI Automation via REST API”

Stéphane says

May 31, 2019 at 3:47 pm

Hi Sharon,

Very nice work, this would make ACI configuration a lot easier for simple tasks.
Would you be willing to share the rest of the code 🙂 or are you planning to make it commercial software and sell it 🙁

Thanks

SharonTools

1 thought on “Cisco ACI Automation via REST API”

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