How to Define and Use Qapp

Updated on June 12, 2015

Prepared by:
NetBrain Technologies Inc.
http://www.netbraintech.com
 Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1

2. CREATE YOUR FIRST QAPP .............................................................................. 3

2.1 Create a new Qapp ...................................................................................................... 3

2.1.1 Define Device Input ........................................................................................................ 4
2.1.2 Define Canvas to retrieve and parse data ........................................................................ 5
2.1.3 Define analysis and Alert .............................................................................................. 11
2.2 Save and Run Qapp ................................................................................................... 13
2.3 Summary of Monitor Qapp........................................................................................ 16

3. PARSERS AND VARIABLE............................................................................... 17

3.1 Basic Variables and keyword Parser ........................................................................... 17

3.1.1 Define Integer variable in Keyword parser ..................................................................... 18
3.1.2 Analyze an Integer Variable .......................................................................................... 20
3.2 Paragraph Parser ....................................................................................................... 22
3.2.1 Analyze variables parsed by Paragraph Parser .............................................................. 29
3.3 Table Parser............................................................................................................... 30
3.3.1 Analyze variables parsed by Table Parser ...................................................................... 35
3.4 Filter Parser ............................................................................................................... 36
3.4.1 Add a child parser for Filter Parser ................................................................................ 38
3.4.2 Analyze data parsed by Filter Parser ............................................................................. 39
3.5 Add Multiple CLI Commands in a Qapp ..................................................................... 40

4. DEFINE ANALYSIS AND ALERT .......................................................................... 42

4.1 Monitor and Display Variables in Qmap .................................................................... 42

4.1.1 Monitor Device Level Variables ..................................................................................... 44
4.1.2 Monitor Interface Level Variables ................................................................................. 46
4.1.3 Data Chart .................................................................................................................... 48
4.2 Define Alert for Variables .......................................................................................... 48
4.2.1 Basic Alert .................................................................................................................... 49
4.2.2 Change Analysis Alert (Delta) ....................................................................................... 52
4.2.3 Flapping Alert ............................................................................................................... 53
4.2.4 Advanced Alert ............................................................................................................ 54
4.2.5 Edit and Disable/Enable alert ........................................................................................ 55
4.2.6 Define Alert for String Variables ................................................................................... 55
4.3 Use Compound Condition to Monitor Items .............................................................. 57
 4.3.1 Merge Display Positions of Multiple Variables Into One ................................................ 61
4.4 Monitor Qapp Execution ........................................................................................ 63

5. GENERAL QAPP ................................................................................................ 65

5.1 View Components of a General Qapp ........................................................................ 66

5.2 Create a General Qapp .............................................................................................. 68
5.2.1 Define Device Input ...................................................................................................... 69
5.2.2 Define Canvas to retrieve and parse data...................................................................... 71
5.2.3 Analyze Variables and Define Output ............................................................................77
5.2.4 Save and Run General Qapp ......................................................................................... 80
5.2.4 Define Advanced Output .............................................................................................. 82
5.2.5 General Qapp Settings ................................................................................................. 84
5.3 Add Multiple Action Nodes in one Output ................................................................. 85

6. USING GENERAL QAPP FOR DYNAMIC MAPPING ...............................................88

6.1 Check Configuration Compliances............................................................................. 88

6.1.1 Create a map for devices with unencrypted passwords ................................................. 92
6.1.2 Run Change management to fix the issue ..................................................................... 93
6.2 Map Network Design ................................................................................................ 94

7. USING QAPP FOR CHANGE CHECK AND DELTA ANALYSIS .................................99

7.1 Define Loop for Delta Operator ................................................................................. 99

7.2 Define Delta Operator ............................................................................................. 102
7.3 Define Delta Analysis and Output ............................................................................ 104

8. USING GENERAL QAPP FOR DYNAMIC DOCUMENTATION ............................... 107

8.1 Create CSV Files for Variables ..................................................................................107

8.1.1 Export Variables to a Global Data Table by Convert Operator ..................................... 108
8.1.2 Define Action Node to export GDT in CSV file ............................................................ 109
8.2 Set Customized Fields ..............................................................................................113

9. USING GENERAL QAPP FOR NEIGHBOR CHECK ............................................... 118

9.1 Build Device Pair in Device Queue ........................................................................... 119

9.1.1 Retrieve MTU data of this device ................................................................................ 122
9.1.2 Retrieve MTU data of nbr device ................................................................................ 123
9.2 Neighbor Join .......................................................................................................... 123
9.3 Define Analysis and Output for Neighbor Check ..................................................... 125

10. TROUBLESHOOT CONNECTION PROBLEMS VIA QAPP ................................... 127

10.1 Ping Command .......................................................................................................127

10.1.1 Define Ping Parameters ............................................................................................ 129
10.1.2 Define Variables and Parser ...................................................................................... 129
10.1.3 Define ping result analysis and output ....................................................................... 130
 10.2 Traceroute Command ........................................................................................... 132
10.2.1 Define Variables and Parser .......................................................................................133
10.2.2 Define Traceroute result analysis and output .............................................................133
10.3 SNMP Command and Merge Table Operator ........................................................ 136
10.3.1 SNMP Command ...................................................................................................... 136
10.3.2 Merge Table ............................................................................................................. 140

11. MULTIPLE CANVAS EXECUTION FLOW AND LOOP CONTROL ......................... 142

11.1. Filter out Devices configured with OSPF Protocol ................................................. 143
11.2 Canvas Execution Flow .......................................................................................... 144
11.3 Call Variables in Global Data Table......................................................................... 145

12. CANVAS BLOCK AND DIALOGUE.................................................................... 147

12.1 Create a Dialog ...................................................................................................... 147

12.2 Dialogue Control Components .............................................................................. 152
12.2.1 Dialogue Control....................................................................................................... 154
12.2.2 Push Variable Value to Dialogue ............................................................................... 156
12.2.3 Analysis and Output Based on Selection in Dialog .....................................................157

13. USING PREDEFINED TABLES TO ANALYZE NETWORK PROBLEMS .................. 159

13.1 Understanding Built-in Data table.......................................................................... 160

13.2 Use and Analyze Predefined Data Table in Qapp ................................................... 161

14. USING QAPP TO ANALYZE DATA OF IMPORTED TABLE .................................. 164

14.1. Define Table input ................................................................................................ 165

14. 2 Define Variables and Parser for Imported Data ..................................................... 169
14. 3 Analyze Table Data ................................................................................................ 171

15. USING QAPP IN MULTI-VENDOR ENVIRONMENT ........................................... 172

15.1 Set Branch Conditions for Different Device Types (Vendors) .................................. 173
15.2 Define Different Commands for Different Device Types (Vendors).........................175

16. QAPP MANAGEMENT .................................................................................... 179

16.1 Degug Qapp .......................................................................................................... 179

16.2 Qapp Task Management ....................................................................................... 182
16.3 Qapp Recommendation ........................................................................................ 185

APPENDIX 1. NETBRAIN BUILT-IN VARIABLES ..................................................... 192

APPENDIX 2. NETBRAIN BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS .................................................... 193

2.1 Global functions: General Functions ........................................................................ 193

2.2 PyMac Member Functions ....................................................................................... 209
2.3 PyIP Member Functions .......................................................................................... 210
2.4 PyInterface Member Functions ............................................................................... 212
 2.5 PyDevice Member Functions ................................................................................... 212
2.6 PyTable Member Functions .................................................................................... 213
2.7 Device/Interface/Module Property attributes .......................................................... 215
2.8 Device type ID and name......................................................................................... 221

APPENDIX 3 BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF PYTHON SCRIPTING ................................ 225

3.1 Setting up the Python Environment ........................................................................ 225

3.2 Python Programming Basics ................................................................................... 225
3.3 If Conditions ............................................................................................................ 229
3.4 Basic Regular Expressions ....................................................................................... 230

APPENDIX 4 TABLE OPERATORS ........................................................................ 232

APPENDIX 5 COMMAND TYPES ........................................................................... 240

1. Introduction
Troubleshooting a network problem is a challenging task. Each network is different, each problem
is different, and the skill set and experience of the engineer involved in a troubleshooting process
is different. However, the standard procedures can be followed for many types of network
problems. The generic troubleshooting process consists of the following tasks:
(1) Define the problem
(2) Gather the data
(3) Analyze and monitor the data
(4) Eliminate the possible problem causes
(5) Find the root cause of the problem

Many books and papers have been written to analyze the typical actions and decisions that are
taken during each of these processes and how these could be planned and implemented via the
troubleshooting procedures. However, these procedures are static and the process to gather,
analyze and monitor data is still a manual process, which is time-consuming and error-prone.
NetBrain Qapps are designed to automate these processes and improve troubleshooting
efficiency.

The NetBrain Qapp is a standalone application which can be executed from inside the NetBrain
Workstation. A Qapp can include the following components:
(1) Description of the network problem or best practice
(2) Methods to gather the data (parser)
(3) The analysis of the data
(4) Display the data in the map with the hotspot highlighted
(5) Output of possible errors or warnings
(6) Create the maps and/or the documents for the results

The NetBrain Workstation provides a GUI to create Qapps quickly so that a user without any
programming background can write a Qapp. After a Qapp is created, it can be run in any NetBrain
Workstation against any network. A well-built Qapp can automatically gather and analyze data.
Besides troubleshooting network problems, Qapps can also be used to:
(1) Create a map
(2) Confirm network compliance or network health
(3) Create a customized report

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 Qapp General Workflow

This document provides detailed instructions to create and run Qapps. You do not need any
programming or script background to follow this document. However, it assumes that you are
familiar with the NetBrain Workstation.
Please send any questions or comments on NetBrain Qapp or this document to
[email protected].

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2. Create your first Qapp
In this chapter you will create your first Qapp (Qapp1) and learn the basic concepts of a Qapp.
We will start with a simple use case: monitor device (Cisco Devices) CPU usage in a map. A built-
in Qapp, Overall Health Monitor, has implemented the same function via SNMP. However, we
are going to use the CLI command to retrieve the CPU usage.

2.1 Create a new Qapp

Click the Qapp tab in your workstation, and then click the New Qapp button within Qapp
Operation ribbon. The New Qapp window opens.

In the New Qapp window, besides a General Qapp, there are five pre-installed templates for
commonly used Qapp -Monitor, Inventory Report, Path Analysis, Highlight Map and Neighbor
Check. Click any template to view description about it. Based on any one of these templates, you
could create a Qapp rapidly by just modifying some parameters.

In the pre-installed Qapp template, Monitor could actually help to finish the task “monitor the
device CPU usage” wonderfully and easily. But to better understand every elements of a Qapp,
we select the General Qapp and build our target Qapp step by step.

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Double-click “General Qapp” or Click “General Qapp (Default)”  “OK” to open “Qapp Editor”
window.

The General Qapp has two blocks-Input and Canvas by default. You could click Qapp description
icon “ ” on the upper left corner and enter a description (such as This Qapp is to monitor a device
health by CPU usage), keyword, author and contact information for this Qapp.

In the right pane of the description, click “Import” button to import a sample Qmap or picture to
present the Qapp’s function.

2.1.1 Define Device Input

To create a monitor Qamp, it typically takes three steps:

(1) Define the way by which the Qapp obtains devices at execution time in ”Input” block
(2) Retrieve and parse data from the live network in Command of Canvas block
(3) Define analysis for the data and output results in Output of Canvas block

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In this step, we handle the “Input” block that is mainly used to define the way by which the Qapp
get devices to run at execution time.

There are four types of device imput and you could set input devices based on your actual needs.
Here, we leave the device input as default: Device Group with “Auto” option selected, meaning
that the Qapp takes all devices visible in the map and run on thses devices as a group

Note:
(1) Besides Device Input, Qapp also supports Table Input. It could parse and analyze the data in
an imported table and output analysis results. Table Input will be introduced in detail in the
chapter “Using Qapp to Analyze Data of Imported Table”
(2) About detailed introduction to Device Input, please refer to Chapter 5 “General Qapp”

2.1.2 Define Canvas to retrieve and parse data

In this step, we will introduce the Canvas, a block mainly used to retrieve, parse and analyze data
from the live network.

Double-click Canvas block to enter Canvas editing window.

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There are five nodes in the Canvas of a general Qapp by default. From left to right, the first node
is Device Queue, followed by Device Selector (this), CLI Command, Table and Output. These
nodes are logically connected with direction, we need to edit them by this order.

(1) Device Queue: Device Queue exists in a form of table and its rows are devices or device
interfaces waiting for Qapp to run on. By default, the devices in Device Queue are inherited from
devices defined in “Input” Block and will be referenced by its downstream node-“Device Selector”
By default the device queue includes only one device column (this). However, it can also include a
pair of devices, the device (this) and its neighbors (nbr), which will be covered in later section.

Since it is unnecessary to include interfaces or neighbors of a device to monitor a device’s CPU

usage, here we leave the option as default “One device per Queue”.

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(2) Device Selector: as its name indicates, it is used to select which column (this or its neighbor
column if "a pair of device per queue" is enabled) ) in its upstream Device Queue table will be run on
by the Qapp. By “Device Selector”, you could also define different CLI commands based on
different device vendors or different types from one same vendor, which is very useful to run a
Qapp on multi-vendor environment (see the chapter "Using Qapp in Multi-vendor environment" for
details)

Since we have selected the option “One device per Queue” in the upstream node, there is
only option “this” here. Just leave this option as default.

(3) CLI Command: CLI Command is used to define how to retrieve data of a device and rules to
parser the retrieved data.

(a) Enter the CLI command “show process cpu” in command field.
(b) Retrieve the sample output. Click the Retrieve Sample button and select a Cisco IOS device.
The sample output is shown as follows:

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 BJ*POP#show process cpu
CPU utilization for five seconds: 11%/7%; one minute: 8%; five minutes: 8%
PID Runtime(ms) Invoked uSecs 5Sec 1Min 5Min TTY Process
1 1163556 186203 6248 0.00% 0.01% 0.00% 0 OSPF Router
2 22931620 278029 82480 3.44% 0.43% 0.28% 0 Check heaps
3 1212 312 3884 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0 Pool Manager

(c) Define the parser

To retrieve the CPU usage data for 1 minute, highlight the value of one minute CPU usage
(8% for this sample output) and click the Define Variable option. The keyword Parser
window opens with the following fields:

Sample: the line matching the value highlighted.

Parser: defining keywords and where a variable lies. Here the system automatically creates a
keyword parser:
minute: $percent:var1; five

This keyword parser contains the keywords “minute:” and “; five” which always stay same and a
variable $var1 which varies in different devices.

A variable always starts with $. By default a variable is a string. To set it as the other type such
as int or percent, define it as $<type>:<variable name>, for example, $percent:var1. The parser
“minute: $percent:var1; five” asks the system to find the keyword “minute:” and assigns the
word between “minute:” and “; five” to the variable $var1. In the sample, $var1 is set to the value
“8%”.

Variable: displaying the variables defined in the parser. Quite often you want to change the
system auto created variable name such as $var1 to a more meaningful name such as $cpu_1m.
To do so, just replace var1 with cpu1_1m.
You can edit the variable name here and the system will modify the parser to cooperate your

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change.

Result table: displaying the variable, value and type.

Click the Save Parser button to save this parser.

Hint:
(a) Highlight the value to be exactly what you want to retrieve and do not include the spaces before
and after this value. For example, if you highlight “ 5%” (the space before this value is also
selected), the system will create a parser as follows:
regex[$var1]:one minute\:(.+?); five
(b) You could also define parser manually to retrieve the variable by “Keyword” parser (Pattern:
one minute: $cpu_1m%;) in the right “Define Parser” pane.

(c) After saving parsers, if you want to modify a variable, you could right-click the variable in
the right “Define Parser” pane and select “Edit” to modify the variable manually.

Similarly you can define the keyword parser for five-minute CPU usage. Highlight the value of 5-
minute CPU usage (8% for this sample output) and click the Define Variable option.

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The system automatically creates a keyword parser: minutes: $percent:var1$

Here ‘$’ is a special keyword meaning the end of line. Change the variable name to a meaningful
name, $cpu_5m.

(4) Export Retrieved Data: Click the sign “ ” to export the variable data retrieved in CLI
Command node to the downstream “Table” node for subsequent analysis.

(a) Select the variable that you are interested in.

(b) Click the export arrow to export the selected variable
(c) Click “Apply” button to finish variable exporting.

(5) Table: The table node is used to store the data parsed from a device for further analysis.
Clicking this node, you will find that all variables and their sample values that you have exported
in the upstream node are listed.

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2.1.3 Define analysis and Alert

Through the above two steps, we have obtained the required data for the devices that we are
interested in. In this step, based on the data, we will define analysis and output analysis results for
the data.

Analysis and Alert are defined in Output node. In a General Qapp, its default output type is “Basic
Output” which does not match our monitor task. Delete this default Output node and create a
“Monitor” output node by the following process: Hover mouse pointer on “Table” icon, drag right
as the mouse pointer changes to “hand” sign, release your mouse and then we select “Monitor”
option in the menu.

Note: Monitor Qapp runs periodically, analyzes retrieved data and shows real-time results on map, including live
performance data and alert, and “Monitor” output should be used for this type of Qapp. For a general Qapp, it run
one time and therefore retrieve data one time, and “Basic Output” is used for this type of Qapp.

Click the created Output node and the Output editing window will show as follows:

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All variables defined in Table node are displayed in the left pane “Select items to monitor”. In
this case there are two variables, cpu_1m and cpu_5m. Click the variable that you are interested
in and click “export arrow” to export it to “Device Items” under “Monitor items’ table”.

Note: there are two options under “Monitor items’ table”: “Device Items” and “Interface Items”. “Device Items” is
used to import “device-level” variable (item) such as a device’s cpu usage, version number, etc. “Interface Items”
is used to interface-level variable (item) such as an interface status, input error or output error, etc.

By default all variables are not displayed in the map. To display the variable in the map, select the
variable cpu_1m in “Monitor items’ table”, click drop-down menu of Position, select “Device
Position 1”, click “Apply” button and you will see that the position column of cpu_1m changes to “1”.

Click the icon “ ” to view how the positions of these variables are displayed on a map.

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Similarly select Device Position 2 for the variable cpu_5m.

By default all CLI commands of a monitor Qapp are executed every 2 minutes. This frequency can
be modified while a Qapp is run. You can modify the default frequency in the Qapp Frequency
field on the upper right corner.

Now, click “Save” button to save the Qapp

2.2 Save and Run Qapp

After clicking “Save” button, “Save as” window will pop up. In the “File Name” field, enter a
meaningful name “My First Qapp”.

Click the option button of Location and select a location for the Qapp. You can add a Qapp to
two types of locations:

(1) Qapp Center:

Built-in Files: contain NetBrain built-in Qapps and we do not recommend modifying any built-in Qapp.
Shared Files: contain Qapps shared through NetBrain server.
My Files: contain Qapps only accessible by you.

(2) Local Disk: save the Qapp to your local computer

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(a) Here we save to “My Files” under “Qapp Center” and click “OK” to close the location window.

(b) Click the drop-down menu of “save as type” and select “Monitor Qapp File”

(c) Click “Save” to finish the Qapp.

Create a new Qmap (Qmap1) to map out a few Cisco IOS devices or open a Qmap. In the floating
menu, click “Monitor”, select “Monitor Qapps” and then “Monitor” window opens and check
“My First Qapp” in the window.

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Click “Next”, the window will skip to Step 2-Define Input for Monitor.

You could click the Frequency button and set Qapp running frequency. Under Device Input tab,
you will see that the Qapp has automatically get the devices in the current map.

Click “Next” button and then click “Run” button in the popped window to run the Qapp.

The map turns into monitoring mode. The variables cpu_1m and cpu_2m with their corresponding
values are displayed in the specified locations and are refreshed every 2 minutes or according to
the frequency you define.

The current device or interface data is also displayed as the table format in the left pane under the
Qmap. Select a data to view its historical data chart. The chart shows how the variable changes
with the time. The time scale can be changed to to Last, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours,
12 hours or 1 day. Click the Raw Data link to view the original CLI output.

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The floating Qapp control shows how long the Qapp has been running. Click the Stop button to
pause running the Qapp and the Clear button to clear all monitoring data in the map.

2.3 Summary of Monitor Qapp

You have successfully created and run the first monitor Qapp, congratulations! Before we move
on to create more useful Qapps, let us summarize the Qapp components illustrated in the
following figure.

A basic Monitor Qapp includes two components: Input and Canvas. The Input defines ways that
a Qapp will use to get devices at run time and the Canvas mainly defines the CLI commands used
to retrieve the data from the live network, the variables and how the variables are retrieved from
the command (Parser) as well as how to display the variables in the map and create alerts when
Variables meet certain conditions.

Note:
(1) A Qapp can include more than one canvas, which will be covered in the Chapter “Multiple Canvas Execution
Flow and Loop Control”. For now you can think that a Qapp has only one canvas.
(2) Besides CLI commands, a Canvas can also include other types of commands, such as Configuration commands,
etc.

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3. Parsers and Variable
The variables are the smallest units of a Qapp. As we have learned at Chapter 2, the variables are
defined in the CLI Command and analyzed in the Output node. In this chapter we will learn the
different types of variables and how to define them in parsers of CLI command. In Chapter 4, we
cover how to analyze the variables.

3.1 Basic Variables and keyword Parser

There are several types of basic variables: String, Integer (natural numbers), Double (floating
number), Boolean, IP, MAC and Percent.
A string variable starts with $ and can be defined via a Keyword parser, <keyword1>
$<stringVariableName><keyword2>, such as “for $var1 second” where “for” is keyword1, “second”
is keyword2 and “var1” is variable. The substring between the keyword1 and keyword2 is set to be
the value of $<stringVariableName>.

Variable type Description Definition Examples

String Can be any string. $var1 “V13.1(12a)”
Integer The natural number $int:var2 0, 1, 2, …
Double The floating number $double:var3 3.1415926
Boolean True or false $bool:var4 True, False
IP The IP address $IP:var5 10.10.10.10
MAC The MAC address $MAC:var6 0019:B585:ACF3
Percent The Percentage $percent:var7 80%

Select the value of a variable and click the Define Variable option, NetBrain will set the variable
type according to its format.

The variable will be defined as $<type>:<name>, where <name> is the variable name and the
$<type> is the variable type. For example, if you select “10.10.10.10” to define the variable,
NetBrain will set the variable type as IP address-“$IP:var1”; if you select “255” to define the
variable, NetBrain will set the variable type as int-“$int:var1”

In case you want to modify its type set by NetBrain, please manually modify value of <type>. For
example, to define an integer variable named cpu for the CPU usage, you need to define it as
$int:cpu, as the default type percent cannot be used to in threshold analysis currently.

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3.1.1 Define Integer variable in Keyword parser

To modify the Qapp created earlier, in “Qapp Center”, right-click the Qapp and select “Edit”
option to open it.

Go to CLI Command node in Canvas and double click a variable (or right click and select “Edit”) in
the Parser Tree to edit it. Since we need to compare the CPU usage against an integer value such
as 90, the variables should be defined as an integer type instead of the default string. To do so,
modify the pattern as follows:

minute: $int:cpu_1m%; five

Click the Apply button and confirm that the correct value is retrieved. Here the variable
$int:cpu_1m is defined as an integer. You could see in the Parser Tree that the value has changed
into an integer and the type has changed into int.

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Instead of editing a variable, you can also delete the old variable and define a new one. Right click
the variable cpu_1m in the Procedure Variable tree and select the Delete option to delete it.
Highlight the 1-minute CPU usage (number 5 in the sample output; Do not include the space
before this number) and click the Define Variable option.

The system recognizes the variables is an integer and automatically creates the following parser:

minute: $int:var1%; five

Change the variable name var1 to be cpu_1m. Click the Save Parser button to save it.

Note:
After deleting an old variable, you need to re-export variable to the downstream Table node and
define variable in the Output node if you give a different name to the new variable.

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3.1.2 Analyze an Integer Variable

Under the Output node, Click “Create Alert” tab and you will see that the variables you have
defined in “Select Data” are listed. Select a variable such as $cpu_1m in the Device Items and you
can define an alert related to this variable in the right pane. An alert can be an error or a warning.

Check the checkbox Enable for Error and select an operator from the drop-down menu of “Select
Analysis”. There are 4 operators and under each operator there are corresponding judging
conditions (The operator types vary based on different variable types, here the variable type is
integer).

(1) Basic
==, !=, >, >=, <, <=: comparing the variable current value ([now]) against a threshold value.
For example, select >= operator and enter “90” as default value for the variable cpu_1m and this
means that 1-minute CPU usage is higher than 90%.
In range, out of range: checking whether a variable is in or out of a range. For example, we
can define a warning alert if the variable cpu_1m is in range of [80,90], which means that its value
is equal or greater than 80 AND less than 90%.

(2) Delta
==, !=, >, >=, <, <=: comparing the delta value against a threshold. The delta value is the
difference between the current value ([now]) and the value in the last polling cycle ([last]). For
example, you can use these operators to check whether the interface CRC errors increase with
time, which may indicate a bad cable connection.
In range, out of range: checking whether the delta value is in or out of a range.

(3) Flapping
Is flapping: checking whether a variable is flapping.

(4) Advance:
Advanced: writing the complex conditions if the above scenario does not satisfy your purpose.

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For each error or warning condition, you can create an alert message and/or a device note. Here
let us select Basic operator and define an Error condition for the variable $cpu_1m as [now] >=
90. Check the checkbox of Alert Message and enter an alert message “Device is extremely busy!”
for this condition.

We also define a warning condition as [now] in range [80,90) and create an alert message “High
CPU”. Additionally, you could also tick the checkbox of “Show as Device Note on map” and the
Qapp will draw a device note attached to problem devices on map if conditions set are reached.

Save the modified Qapp and run it on a Qmap.

In the step 2 of Run Monitor, click “Threshold” hyperlink and change threshold value for analysis .
For demo’s purpose, let us change values of conditions as follow: $cpu1_1m >= 6 and $$cpu_1m
In range [4, 6].

The following is a sample result. The $cpu_1m of the device BJ*POP is highlighted in red and a
device note is added to BJ*POP since the variable value of $cpu1 is 10, bigger than the threshold
value of 6. And For device BJ_core_3550, the $cpu_1m is highlighted in yellow and device note is
added to Bos-Core1-Tr since its cpu_1m is 5, in range of (4,6). The number appended to a device
icon is the number of alert messages created for this device.

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Click the Alert tag at the bottom of the left pane to view all alert messages. The count is the
number of times this alert message has been created. You can acknowledge or delete the alert
message.

Here, you may find that when a condition set is met, only the variable item, such as CPU_1m,
turns red, while the device color will not change. If you want to make the device color change as
a variable item of the device meets the error or warning condition, you could do as follows:
(1) In Output node, click “Create Alert” tab and then click “Device Items” in the left pane.
(2) In the right pane, click “Device Color” tab and select item(s) which will lead to the change of
device color. You could select multiple items. If “Reachability” is selected, a device will turn
red if the Qapp fails to ping the device at run time.

3.2 Paragraph Parser

So far, we have only used the Keyword parser to define basic variables. The Keyword parser is
useful for cases in which the data to be retrieved has a single instance, such as the device CPU
usage. Often the CLI command output contains multiple instances of data, for example, interface
data and CDP table. To retrieve multiple instances of data, we need to define Paragraph parser or
Table parser.

In this section we are going to create a Qapp to monitor a device’s interface status and CLI
command “show interface” will be used to retrieve interface data. In this case, we are going to
parser interface data retrieved via Paragraph Parser. The Table Parser will be covered in the next
section.

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Click New Qapp in Qapp Operation ribbon under Qapp tab. This time, we use the Netbrain
pre-installed Qapp template-“Monitor” to create this Qapp, so double click “Monitor” template
to enter Monitor Qapp editing window.

Under Execution Flow tab, three is a Loop block between Input and Canvas block and this
indicates that the Canvas block will be looped periodically to get the real-time data. You could
click it to set frequency time for the Qapp to refresh its data.

Leave the Device Input setting as default and double-click Canvas block to enter Canvas editing
window.

In Canvas block, the nodes will be run by this order: Device Queue  this (device selector) 

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CLI Command Table  Output. A node depends on settings or data of its upstream to keep
itself working properly, so set these nodes by this order.

(1) Click Device Queue and here leave it as default since it is meaningless to include neighbor
devices or device interfaces to run the command “show interface”.

(2) Click “This (Device Selector)” node, “this” option is selected by default. Here just leave it as
default.

(3) In CLI command node, we are going to use show interface to monitor different errors
occurring in an interface. Click the Retrieve Sample button and select a Cisco IOS device. The
output like the following will appear:

Bos-Core1-Tr>show interface
Vlan1 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is EtherSVI, address is 0024.1358.1540 (bia 0024.1358.1540)
MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,
reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
Keepalive not supported
ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00
Last input never, output never, output hang never
Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
Input queue: 0/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0
Queueing strategy: fifo
Output queue: 0/40 (size/max)
5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
0 packets input, 0 bytes, 0 no buffer
Received 0 broadcasts (0 IP multicasts)
0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored
0 packets output, 0 bytes, 0 underruns
0 output errors, 2 interface resets
0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out
Vlan10 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is EtherSVI, address is 0024.1358.1542 (bia 0024.1358.1542)
Internet address is 10.83.10.254/24
MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,
reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set
Keepalive not supported
ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00
Last input 00:00:00, output 00:00:00, output hang never

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 Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
Input queue: 2/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0
Queueing strategy: fifo

The sample output includes multiple interfaces. The output of each interface has identical
formatting, beginning with “…is, line protocol is…”

For the information of every interface, it is like an independent paragraph and for this type of
output, Paragraph parser is used.

Highlight the value you are interested in, such as “0” before “input errors” and click the Define
Variable option. The keyword Parser window opens.

The system automatically creates a keyword parser and finds 58 matched lines for this sample
output as displayed under the Sample field. To view the matched lines, click the arrow key next
to the Sample field. The sample lines not only include the lines related to the input errors but
also the input packets. This can be fixed by modifying the Parser to “ $int:var1 input errors”
(adding “ errors” at end of the auto-created parsers). Notice that the number of samples is smaller
(31 in this sample output).

For a sample output matching a keyword parser multiple times, often you need to define the
Paragraph Parser by clicking the link Define Variables Under Paragraphs. The Paragraph
Parser window opens, where you can set the Paragraph Identifier and define more Keyword
Parsers.

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The Paragraph Identifier is the keyword parser to identify the start of a new paragraph. Highlight
the partial start line of each paragraph, “Vlan10 is up, line protocol” and click the Set Paragraph
Identifier option. The selected context is copied to the Paragraph Identifier field. This line
includes the keywords which are always same and the sample values which can change. Keep the
keywords and replace the sample values with the variable name and so we end up with the
following Paragraph Identifier:
$name is $status, line protocol is

Press the enter key or click the Refresh icon to apply the change.

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The variables and sample values are displayed as a table. The headers are the names of basic
variables. Each column of the table is an array of the basic variables. Each row of the table
corresponds to a paragraph of CLI command output.

To define more variables, highlight the value in the Sample (for example, “0” before “output
errors”) and select the Define Variable option. To avoid confusion, sometimes you need to
modify the auto created keyword parser such as adding “errors” at the end. Also it is always a
good practice to change the variable names $var1 and $var2 to something more meaningful such
as $input_err and $output_err.

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Click the Save Variable button. You could see that the parsed variables and their values are listed
in the right pane.

Click Export “ ”, select a variable in the left pane, export the selected variable to the table in the

middle pane, and then click “Apply”. You will see that all exported variables and their values are
listed in the table of the right pane (The variables and variable values list here are the same as
those in the table of Table node and you could see them as preview data of Table node).

Click Table node and check the variables and value exported. Based on data retrieved and parsed,
we are going to analyze the data and output analysis results.

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3.2.1 Analyze variables parsed by Paragraph Parser

In Output node, you will see all variables listed under “Select Data” tab. Since these variables
items are all about an interface, here we need to export these variables under Interface Items of
Monitor items’ table.

Select one variable such as input_err, then click “Interface Items” and click “export arrow”
button. The Set Key Variable window opens up asking you to select the interface name variable.

This interface name variable will be used as the key to find other variables associated with an
interface so that the variables can be correctly displayed in the map. So select the variable
“name” here and the variable $name is marked with the key icon

Hint: to modify the key variable, just right-click the variable that you want to set as a key and
select the option “Set as Inteface Index”.

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Add variables to monitor items’ table one by one and then click to set display postions for these
variables in a map (Do not forget to click “Apply” finishing a setting). For example, select Interface
Position 1 for status, Interface Position 3 for input_err and Interface Position 7 for output_err.
The positions are illustrated in the lower right pane.

Hint: Since the interface name on a Qmap is displayed by default, just leave the variable $name not to be displayed.

Save and run the Qapp. The interface errors are displayed in the correct postions as defined.
The following is a sample result.

3.3 Table Parser

When a CLI command output contains the multiple entries, the output is usually formatted as the
multiple paragraphs or a table. The Table parser is used to retrieve data from a table-formatted
CLI command output.

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To illustrate how to use a Table parser, let us create a Qapp to monitor the EIGRP neighbors of a
router and then create an alert if a neighbor flaps.

Create a new monitor Qapp. Leave Input and Canvas’ Device Queue and this (Device Selector)
nodes as default and go to CLI Command. Enter the command show ip eigrp neighbors and select
a device to retrieve EIGRP neighbors. A sample output of this command is:

LA_Core#show ip eigrp neighbors

IP-EIGRP neighbors for process 100
H Address Interface Hold Uptime SRTT RTO Q Seq
(sec) (ms) Cnt Num
1 61.1.4.4 Fa0/0 14 22:04:50 27 200 0 147035
2 202.97.8.9 Fa0/1 10 1w3d 4 200 0 322924
0 10.10.20.3 Et1/0 11 3w1d 5 200 0 761218

The output is formatted as a table. It includes headers followed by actual data. Starting from the
header, highlight two or multiple lines and click the Define Table option. The Table Parser
window opens.

The system automatically create a table parser for the table contents. The system automatically
replaces the space between fields with the semicolon (;) And each header field will be set as a
variable. Please note that the automatically created table header may not parse the data correctly
and you need to manually adjust it according to your demand.

In this case, as there’s only one space between the Hold column and Uptime column, NetBrain
sets these two columns as one column and this is not the real case, In order to separate these two
columns, add a semilcolon(;) between these two columns.

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You only need to assign interesting fields. Here we are interested with neighbor IP address,
interface name and uptime. So we can safely delete all other automatically created variables, click

the button at the end of the variable to delete it and only keep the variables you are

interested in. Please modify the variable name to a more meaningful name, and it this case, we
set Address => nbr_addr and Interface => intf_name. Note that since the Uptime column was

defined manually, we need to manually add this filed. Click the button and add Uptime=>
uptime. The variable definition follows the same rules as a Keyword parser, for example, you can
set the variable type as int by setting the variable type as int.

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After defining these variables correctly, the results for the sample output are displayed in the
lower pane of this window in real time. Note the incorrect values in the first row. This is because
the header of this table is split into two lines. To fix this issue, click the Advanced link to bring up
the Table Advanced window.

Setting Description

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 Split column Left Aligned: the fields are aligned to the left side of the header. This is the
method default split method.

Right Aligned: the fields are aligned to the right side of the header.

Range of characters: the columns are split by a range of word lengths. Enter
the character number each column starts with separated by semicolons. For
example, “0;5;13”, which means that the first column includes characters 0 to
4, the second column 5 to 12 and the third column 13 to the end of the line.
Number of words: number of words for each column. Enter the number of
words each column has, separated by a semicolon.
End of table Enter the keyword to match the end of the table. This can be helpful since a
parser table often has a summary at the end.

Skip xx lines Skip the first few lines after the header.
from header
If column is If a column is empty, use the value of the last row.
empty, use For example, in a BGP routing table, one Network has two next hops:
previous
parsed value

Here we skip 1 line from the header. After saving the settings, you can confirm that the first empty
row is gone as shown in the figure below:

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Click the Save Variable button. You could see that the parsed variables and their values are listed
in the right pane.

Click Export “ ”, select a variable in the left pane, export the selected variable to the table in the

middle pane, and then click “Apply”. You will see that all exported variables and their values are
listed in the table of the right pane (The variables and variable values list here are the same those
in the table of Table node and you could see them as preview data of Table node).

Click Table node and check the variables and value exported. Based on data retrieved and parsed,
we are going to analyze the data and output analysis results.

3.3.1 Analyze variables parsed by Table Parser

In Output node, you will see all variables listed under “Select Data” tab. Since these variables
items are all about an interface, here we need to export these variables under Interface Items of
Monitor items’ table.

Select one variable such as uptime, then click “Interface Items” and click “export arrow” button.
The Set Key Variable window opens up asking you to select the interface index variable. This
interface index variable will be used as the key to find other variables associated with an
interface so that the variables can be correctly displayed in the map. So select the variable
“intf_name” here and the variable $name is marked with the key icon

Add variable to monitor items’ table one by one and then click to set display postions for these
variables in a map (Do not forget to click “Apply” finishing a setting). In this case we set Interface
Position 1 for nbr_addr and Interface Position 3 for uptime. Please note that you don’t need to
set Interface Position for variable intf_name since the interface name is always displayed in the
map by default.

Note: if you select the wrong variable as the interface index, you can right click the correct variable and select the Set
as Interface Index option to set it correctly. For example, if you select $nbr_addr as the key accidently, you can right
click the variable $intf_name and select the Set as Interface Index option.

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Save the Qapp and run the Qapp. Create a Qmap with a few Cisco IOS devices running EIGRP
routing protocol. A sample results are shown as follows. For the interfaces not configured to run
EIGPR, the variables are set to N/A.

3.4 Filter Parser

We already covered the Keyword, Paragraph and Table parsers. In this section, we are going to
look into filter parser, which is used to filter interesting data based on the original data.

Let us create a Qapp to display the passive interfaces for a routing protocol on a map. Enter the
CLI command, show ip protocols and retrieve the sample:

NY-WAN-Tr>show ip protocol
Routing Protocol is "eigrp 1300"
Outgoing update filter list for all interfaces is not set
Incoming update filter list for all interfaces is not set
Default networks flagged in outgoing updates
Default networks accepted from incoming updates
EIGRP metric weight K1=1, K2=0, K3=1, K4=0, K5=0
EIGRP maximum hopcount 100
EIGRP maximum metric variance 1
Redistributing: eigrp 1300, bgp 65102
Automatic network summarization is not in effect
Maximum path: 4
Routing for Networks:
10.70.0.0/27
10.70.1.0/30

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 10.82.1.0/24
10.82.10.0/24
10.82.255.1/32
Passive Interface(s):
Serial0/0
Serial0/2
Routing Information Sources:
Gateway Distance Last Update
10.82.1.2 90 35w1d
Distance: internal 90 external 170

Here we are only interested with the passive interfaces. The Filter Parser can be used to filter the
contents.

Figure out the beginning line and ending line of the contents to be filtered and highlight your
interesting contents (highlighted contents should contain beginning line and ending line
information. Here we highlight Passive Interface” and “Routing Information and meanwhile
highlight contents between “Passive Interface” and “Routing Information Sources:”

In the popped menu select “Define Filter”. Click “Advanced” hyperlink in the ‘Filter Parser”
window, uncheck the box of “Exclude the ending line” and in the Filter Advanced window and
Click “OK” to save the setting. Click “Save Variables” and the filtered contents are highlighted in
the sample:
Passive Interface(s):
Serial0/0
Serial0/2

How do we retrieve the interface names from the filtered content? Here we need to define
another parser under the Filter Parser to further parser the filtered content instead of the whole

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output.

3.4.1 Add a child parser for Filter Parser

Within a Filter parser (parent parser) you can add a new parser (child parser), which can be of any
type and is applied to filtered data. To add a child parser, double click a Filter parser in Parser Tree
as the parent parser to set it as the current parser.

The definitions and rules of child parser are the same as that of a parent parser. In theory, a child
parser can have its own child parser, but this is seldom used.

Let us add a Table parser to the Filter parser, eigrp. Click the node Fitler($filter1) in Parser Tree
and select Table as the parser type. There are only column in the table and enter the header as
Passive. Assign the field Passive to variable $name.

Click Add Parser button. A node Table($passive) is added under the node Fitler($filter1),
meaning that $passive is a child table parser of the Filter Parser $filter1.

Hint:

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you could also add a child parser for a filter parser by the following way:
(1) highlight filtered content and select “Define Table” option

(2) In the Table Parser window, replace “Passive Interface(s):” with “Passive” in Table Header
(3) Click “ ” to define variable and select “Passive” from the drop-down menu. You could use default
variable name “passive”. Here give it a meaningful name “passive_intf”.

(4) Click “Save Variable” and you will see that the passive interfaces are correctly parsed.

3.4.2 Analyze data parsed by Filter Parser

In Output node, you will see the variable“passive_intf” listed under “Select Data” tab.
Select the variable, then click “Interface Items” and click “export arrow” button. The Set Key
Variable window opens up asking you to select the interface index variable. Select the variable
“passive_intf” here and the variable “passive_intf” is marked with the key icon .

click to set display postion for “passive_intf” in a map (Do not forget to click “Apply” after finishing
a setting). In this case we set Interface Position 1 for “passive_intf”.

Save and run the Qapp against a Qmap of EIGPR devices and you should have an output like the
following:

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3.5 Add Multiple CLI Commands in a Qapp

Quite often we need to monitor the data from multiple CLI commands in the meantime. For
example, to monitor the general health of a network device, we may want to monitor device level
data such as CPU and memory usage and interface level data such as input and output errors.

Let us edit the Qapp we created in the section 3.2 and create a general Qapp named “Monitor
Overall Health of Devices” to monitor the device CPU usage besides the interface status.

To add another CLI command, hover your mouse over “this” node (Device Selector) in Canvas
block, drag right as the mouse pointer changes to “hand” sign, release your mouse and select “CLI
Command” option in the popped menu.

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Enter the CLI command show process cpu, retrieve the sample and define the keyword parser
(Name the variable as cpu_1m).

Follow the way of creating a CLI command node, drag to create a Table node (Device data table)
and the system will give it a default name “Table1”. Export the variable “cpu_1m” to Table1.

Then following the Table1 node, create an Output node and the system will give it a default name
“Output1”.

Click any Output node, you will find that there are two tables under “Select Data” tab (all variables
in a Canvas could be called or used by other nodes within the Canvas). Here we edit the variable
“cpu_1m” in Output1 node. Click plus sign of Canvas.Table1 to extend the variables under it and
export the variable cpu_1m to Device Items.

Click the variable cpu_1m and set display position for it. Here we set device position 1 for it.

Define an alert message for the variable cpu_1m so that the device is red if cpu_1m > 10.

Run the Qapp and you can have a monitored Qmap as the follows:

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4. Define Analysis and Alert
In Chapter 3 we have learned how to use the Parser to define the variable as well as how to define
the basic analysis of a variable. In this chapter we will go over the analysis of the variable and
introduce how to create alert in detail.

4.1 Monitor and Display Variables in Qmap

Let us review the Qapp Monitor Overall Health of Devices we created in the section 3.5. To better
demonstrate the concepts, modify the keyword parser of CLI command- show process cpu-as
follows (Highlight a cpu value and add variable one by one until all variables are added):
CPU utilization for five seconds: $cpu1/$cpu2; one minute: $int:cpu3%; five minutes: $int:cpu5%

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Also click the CLI command node-show interface and modify the parser of the comamnd CLI1 to
add more variables. Highlight the value of CRC, frame, overrun and ignored and select Define
Varaible option to define corresponding variables.

Following the way we have learned in Chapter 3, export these new variables to Table node and
then Export them to “Monitor items’ table” in the Output node. Please note that you should add
CPU variables under “Device Items” and interface variables under “Interface Items”.

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4.1.1 Monitor Device Level Variables

The basic variable such as cpu1 under the command show process cpu is defined by the keyword
parser and has only one instance for a device. Please note by default the Position of device level
variable is set to Not Display, meaning that NetBrain will not display the value of the variable by
default. In order to display the value of the variable, you need to explicitly set the position of the
variable.
You are allowed to analyze up to four variables for Device-Level Analysis, as you are allowed to
set up to four positions for device level variable. If you don’t want to monitor the current variable,
you can simply set the Position of the variable to Not Display.
Set the displaying positions of all these device level variable as you like.

Run the Qapp and the following is the sample output. Note that variables are displayed in the
position defined in the analysis.

Note:

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When you define displaying position for a variable, you could click “Advanced” hyperlink display
advanced displaying settings of the variable (the displayed fields for device-level variables
are different from those for interface-level variables)

Descriptions of all fields are listed in the table as shown below:

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 Field Description

Display Name Display Name is extracted from procedure and cannot be modified.

Display Prefix Display Prefix is the prefix of the monitor variable to be shown on Qmap
during monitor period.

Value Unit Value unit is the unit of the monitor variable to be shown on Qmap during
monitor period.

Display When ●Always display on map:

The system will always display the value of the monitor item.
●Only display when it triggers alarm:
The system will only display the value of the monitor item if the alarm
defined for this variable in step1 was triggered.
●Display when the condition is true:
The system will display the monitor variable if the condition defined here
is true.
●Never display on map(used for intermediate variable) :
The system will never define the monitor variable, this is often used when
the monitor variable is not the final results you want to monitor and it is
just an intermediate variable used to calculate other monitor variables.

Display More ●Show increment/decrement on map like: 81.2% (+5.1%)

The system will display incremental/decremented ratio on map
compared to [last] value following the current value.
●Show statistics on map like81.2% (Avg85% Max:92%)
The system will display statistics on map if this option is checked. You can
select one or more statistics options. And also you can define how many
times the statistics is based on (up to 20 times).

4.1.2 Monitor Interface Level Variables

The variables such as $crc of command show interface has multiple instances for a device. These
variables can be only displayed in interface position but not device position. By default the
position of interface level variable is also set to “Not Display” andyou need to explicitly set the
position of interface level variable to display the value on Qmap.
As explained in Chapter 3, the system needs to know which array variable is used as the key to
find the interface associated with a row of the data so that the data can be correctly displayed in
the map. The variable is labeled by the key icon . You can right click a variable and select “Set
as Interface Index” option to set it as the key.
Set the display positions of all these interface level variables except name as you like. You could
click the legend icon “ ” to preview the display positions on a map

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Run the Qapp and a sample map is shown as the followings:

The variables along the link are displayed exactly as defined in the analysis. Note that the variable
$input_err is displayed above the link for the interface s0 of the device BJ*POP while it is
displayed under the link for the interface S0/1 of the device BSTX.Core, which is consistent with
the positions illustrated in the legend.

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4.1.3 Data Chart

By default the system retrieves the data from the live network and displays the values of variables
of the current poll cycle in the map. The data of the current cycle is also displayed in the left pane
under the Qmap as a table format. Click Device Data or Interface Data tag to see the values of
the device level or interface level variables correspondingly.

Select one value to see its historical chart in the right pane. The chart is meaningful for an integer
or double variable, not for a string variable. The horizontal time scale can be adjusted by selecting
to the last point, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, 12 hours and one day.

4.2 Define Alert for Variables

For a variable added into the analysis, you can define an alert. Defining an alert for an interface
level variable is identical to that for a device level variable. However there are some differences
between defining the alert for an integer variable and a string variable. Now, let’s first know about
how to define an alert for an integer variable.

Click “Create Alert” tab in Output node, select an integer variable and you can find that there are

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4 operators and under each operator there are corresponding judging conditions:
(1) Basic
==, !=, >, >=, <, <=: comparing the variable current value ([now]) against a threshold value.
For example, select >= operator and enter “90” as default value for the variable cpu_1m and this
means that 1-minute CPU usage is higher than 90%.
In range, out of range: checking whether a variable is in or out of a range. For example, we
can define a warning alert if the variable cpu_1m is in range of [80,90], which means that its value
is equal or greater than 80 AND less than 90%.

(2) Delta
==, !=, >, >=, <, <=: comparing the delta value against a threshold. The delta value is the
difference between the current value ([now]) and the value in the last polling cycle ([last]). For
example, you can use these operators to check whether the interface CRC errors increase with
time, which may indicate a bad cable connection.
In range, out of range: checking whether the delta value is in or out of a range.

(3) Flapping
Is flapping: checking whether a variable is flapping.

(4) Advance:
Advanced: writing the complex conditions if the above scenario does not satisfy your purpose.
The first two kinds of operators can be categorized into threshold alert. Now let’s get details of
these four types of operators.

Now let’s get details of these four types of operators.

4.2.1 Basic Alert

The Basic alert is the most frequently used alert. It is mainly used to compare a variable against
one or more threshold value and creates an alert message if the condition is satisfied.
For operations of ==, !=, >, >=, <, <=, In range, out of range, you can select one of these
operations for the current value [now]. The threshold [threshold] is a value the user can set while
running the Qapp. If the user does not set any value, the system will set it to be the default
threshold value you enter here. For example, let us select the operation >=, enter the threshold
as 6 for the variable $cpu3 , enable “Alert Message” and set the message as “CPU usage is high!”.

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The variable [now] is the value of the variable in the current poll cycle. The variable [threshold] is
an integer threshold value the user can set while running the Qapp. It will be set as the default
value (6 here) if the user does not set it in the run time and this alert is defined as:
If the current value of $cpu3 is successfully retrieved and it is equal to or greater than the
threshold value, create an alert message “CPU usage is high!”.

Hint:
By default, when a variable under Device Items will be marked in red on a map if it reaches the
error condition you have set. However, the device itself will not change its color as the variable
color. If you want to make the device color change as a variable item of the device meets the error
or warning condition, you could do as follows:
Click “Device Items” in the left pane. In the right pane, click “Device Color” tab and select item(s)
which will lead to the change of device color. You could select multiple items. If “Reachability” is
selected, a device will turn red if the Qapp fails to ping the device at run time.

Save and run Qapp. In the step 3 (Set Threshold value) of Monitor window. All thresholds defined
in the Qapp are displayed in the Qapp Input pane. The name of input variable is formatted as
$$<variable name> such as $$cpu3. Here $$ means the global variable for the Qapp. Click the
default value to set the variable value unless the default threshold is good.

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The following is a sample output. An alert is created with five fields:
Device: List the device(s) giving alerts
Alert Message: including the device name giving the alert and the message itself.
Condition: The condition set for giving an alert message
First Time: the repeated alert will be treated as one alert. This is the first time when the alert
occurs.
Last Time: the last time when the alert occurs.
Count: how many times the alert occurs.
Acknowledged: click the Acknowledge button to acknowledge an alert. This field will be set
to “Yes” and the count is set to 0.

The variable and its value related to an alert are also highlighted in the map.

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4.2.2 Change Analysis Alert (Delta)

The change analysis is used to check the change of an integer variable between the last and
current cycle. For example, it may be fine if the variable $crc is not zero, but the cable connected
to the interface may not be in a good condition if this variable increases with time. Therefore an
alert should be created in this condition.

Click “Error” tab and check the box of “Enable”. Select “Delta” from drop-down menu of “Select
Analysis”, select [Delta]>= as the operation and enter a default threshold value as 1. The change
can be calculated by percentage. Enable the checkbox of “Alert Message” and enter the alert
message as “Bad cable!”
This alert is defined as:

If the value of $crc is successfully retrieved in the current and last poll cycle and the difference
of its values in these two cycles is equal or greater than the threshold value, create an error
message “Bad cable!”

Save and run the Qapp. In the Run Monitor window, click “Threshold” heypper link and you will
find that a new $$crc [Delat] is listed in the Qapp Input in the Instant Monitor window.

Run the Qapp in your live network to find out any bad cable.

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Note: if you select calculating the change of variable by percentage, the system calculate the
percentage by ([now] - [last])/[last] and compare the percentage to the threshold.
The variable [now] is the value of the corresponding variable (in this case $crc) in the current poll
cycle. The variable [last] is the value of the corresponding variable in the last poll cycle.

4.2.3 Flapping Alert

The Flapping analysis is used to check how frequently a variable changes or flaps. For example, it
may be fine if the input error of an interface is not zero which can be caused by the past network
congestions. However if the input error keeps increasing, that may indicate a network problem
and an alert should be raised.

Create an alert for the variable $input_err. Select flapping as the type of operator. Define the
frequency of changes and the alert message. For example, we define the alert for the variable
$input_err as follows:
If there are 5 changes in last 50 data samples, then create a warning message: “The input errors
keep increasing!”

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4.2.4 Advanced Alert

In most time, the three types of alert-Basic, Delta and Flapping- could satisfy your need. However,
if you want a more complex condition which is beyond the range of the mentioned three types,
you can use Advance alert to write a complex condition.
For the types of alert-Basic, Delta and Flapping, the system transfers the definitions of condition
to the Python codes, this is done by the system automatically and you don’t need to care about
this. For the Advance Alert, you have to write the condition in the Python codes, which the system
just executes. Here is an example of the condition definition for the Advance alert:

[now] != None and [last] != None and [last-1] != None and ([last]-[last-1])>=1 and ([now]-
[last])/([last]-[last-1]) > 1.05
Here [now] is the value of the current poll cycle, [last] is the value of the last poll cycle and [last-
1] is the value of the last last poll cycle. Further [last-n] (n is an integer) is the value retrieved in

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the poll cycle n times before the last one.

See the Appendix 3 on how to write the Condition in Python. The variables which can be used in
the Condition of Advance alert includes: [now], [last], [last-n] (n is any integer) and [threshold].

4.2.5 Edit and Disable/Enable alert

To edit an alert, just modify the alert according to your needs. To enable an alert, check the
checkbox of Enable. Once the “Enable” box is checked, you will see that the “Alert” field in the
left pane is marked with a red bar.
To disable an alert, uncheck the checkbox of Enable.

4.2.6 Define Alert for String Variables

The way to define an alert for a string variable is similar to an integer variable with some subtle
differences.
Open the Qapp, monitor eigrp neighbors, created in section 3.4 and go to Output node.

Click any string variable under “Create Alert” tab, you will find that there are three types of
operators for the string variable: Basic, Flapping and Advance. Under each operator there are
corresponding judging conditions and for Basic type, the conditions are Contains, Does not
Contain, Equal to, Not Equal to, Start with, Changed, No Change.

Let us create an alert if an EIGPR neighbor flaps. We need to check the variable $uptime against

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a certain time. For example, if $uptime is less than one hour, it may be flapping and a warning
message is created. In order to do this, we must transfer the string variable $uptime (such as
“52w1d”) to the integer variable to measure the uptime in seconds (such as (52*7+1)*24*60*60
seconds). Here, we take a shortcut to check whether the uptime is longer than one day: if the
uptime is less than one day, the uptime output will be “hh:mm:ss” instead of the format
“2w5d18h”. Therefore to check whether the uptime is less than 24 hours, we just need to check
whether the uptime contains a colon “:” or not.
Define an alert for the variable $uptime as the following:

Save the Qapp and run it in a Qmap with EIGRP devices to see whether there are any flapping
EIGPR neighbor in your network.

Let us create another alert if neighbor address changes. Click the variable $nbr_addr and under
“Basic” type select the condition “Changed”. Here you compare values [now] and [last] and
output a warning message if they are not same.

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The definition of Flapping and Advance type of alert for a string variable is identical to an integer
variable.
The alert definition for a floating variable is identical to an integer variable. And the bool variable
is seldom used in the monitor Qapp.

4.3 Use Compound Condition to Monitor Items

Up to now, the alerts we have defined are just applicable to a single variable. Sometimes we
define a complex condition involving multiple variables. For example, create an alert message if
the input error OR output error of an interface increases. A Compound Condition can be
created for this purpose.

Let us take the Qapp “Monitor Overall Health of Devices” that we defined in section4.1 for an
example. Move to Output node:

Click “Add Compound Alert” button and select “Interface”.

Under the Interface Items, a new item “IfCondition1” is created and click it to edit on the right
pane.

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Click “Error” tab in the right pane and Check the checkbox Enable. For the expression A, select
$$input_err from the drop-down menu and [Delta]> from the second menu and enter 0 as the
default value. The expression A means that the input errors increase between two poll cycles.
Define the expression B similarly for the variable $$output_err. The system automatically
creates a Boolean expression “A and B”. Modify it to be “A or B”. Enter “The input or output error
increase!” in the alert message.

Define position for the compound alert to display on a map. In this sample, select “Interface
Position 8”.

For demo’s purpose, follow the same steps to create a warning message under “Warning” tab if
the input error or output error is not equal to 0.

If you have defined both “Error” and “Warning”, the “Alert” field of IfCondition1 is marked with in
red and yellow mixed color.

Save and run the Qapp. A new IfCondition1 is listed in the threshold setting in the Run Monitor
window.

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 You can see the conditions defined for IfCondition1 and modify the threshold if needed. For
demo’s purpose, let’s just keep this setting. Click the Run button and you will see different color
blocks are shown in the interface level positions.

Explanation for different color blocks are shown below:

· Red Color Block : It indicates the "Error" status predefined int the Qapp.
· Yellow Color Block :It indicates the "Warning" status predefined int the Qapp.
· Green Color Block :It indicates the "Normal" status predefined int the Qapp.
· White Color Block :It indicates that it is undetermined due to lack of underlying variable
value.

You can move mouse to hover on a condition color block in the heat map, an instant monitor chart
opens, click icon to pinup the chart on the map.

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You can find the total number of alert messages generated for a device (including messages
generated for all its interfaces) are listed at the top left corner of the device icon. In the picture
shown below, we can see there are total 30 alert messages generated since the monitor was on.
Mouse over this number and you can view alert details. Here we can see these 30 alert messages
are generated on interface e1/0, e1/0 and f0/0. And there are 2 alert messages generated by CPU
usage.

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At the bottom of the left pane lists the monitored alert types. You can use these two options to
decide which types of alert to be counted and displayed within the Qmap.

4.3.1 Merge Display Positions of Multiple Variables into One

In chapter 3.2, we created a Qapp to monitor interface input error and output error and display
the corresponding data on the Qmap. Input error data and output error data are displayed in
different positions. Actually you could show these two kinds of data within the same interface
position.

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Open the Qapp and move to Output node.

To display the interface input error and output error altogether within the same position. Use “Ctrl”
to select these two entries in “Monitor item’s table” and right-click to select “Merge Items”. The
window of Display Multiple Monitor Items Together opens.

You can select/deselect the variables you want to merge together and enter the Name of the new
merged variable. In this case, we put the name as in_err/out_err.

Hint: If you want to separate the merged variable into individual variables, click the merged variable
and select Merge Display, in the new window uncheck these merged variables and click OK to
ungroup these variables.

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Click the merged variable and set the position for it so that it can be shown in interface level
position.

Save the Qapp and run it, a sample map is shown as the followings:

Both input error data and output error data are displayed in the same interface position. These
data are separated by “/”.

4.4 Monitor Qapp Execution

When running a Monitor Qapp, you could click the Execution Options hyperlink in “Run Qapp”
window to set data storage and alert email.

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Live Data Storage:
(1) In Map: check this option and save the live data into the map that the monitor Qapp is run on
(2) In Local: check this option and save the live data locally.

Export Report Table: export a file to the file folder you specify. You could also set file type for
exported file.

Email Settings: fill in the email settings for the system to send the alert messages.

You could check the checkbox of “Set as Default Options” to make your settings as default
settings.

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5. General Qapp
In previous chapters we have learned creation, components and functionality of monitor Qapp.
Monitor Qapp runs periodically, analyzes retrieved data and shows real-time results on map,
including live performance data and alert. By monitor Qapp, you could grasp your network and
network device status in real time and in a visible way and judge and troubleshoot network
problems based on real-time data displayed on map.

Based on understanding of Monitor Qapp, in this chapter we will look into another type of Qapp,
General Qapp.

General Qapp is similar to Monitor Qapp in creation and components, but different from

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Monitor Qapp in Output node, running frequency (General Qapp runs once) and functionality.

Output node and functionality of General Qapp

5.1 View Components of a General Qapp

To understand a General Qapp, it is necessary to create a General Qapp and understand its
components first.

Click the Qapp tab in your workstation, and then click the New Qapp button within Qapp
Operation ribbon. The New Qapp window opens.

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In the New Qapp window, double-click General Qapp (default) and Qapp Editor Window opens.

For a general Qapp, it has two blocks under Execution Flow by default: Input and Canvas, which
is different from a monitor Qapp since there is a Loop block between Input and Canvas blocks. It
indicates that a general Qapp only loops once and is different from a monitor Qapp that loops
periodically.

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Input and Canvas nodes in a General Qapp are same with their counterparts in function in a
Monitor Qapp: Input node is mainly used to define the way by which the Qapp will obtain devices
to run at execution time and Canvas node is mainly used to retrieve and parse data from the live
network as well as analyze parsed data.

Note:
A general Qapp can include more than one canvas, which will be covered in Chapter 11. For now
you can think that a general Qapp has only one canvas.

Double-click Canvas block to enter Canvas editing window.

For Canvas in a general Qapp, it has six elements by default: Device Queue, this (Device Selector),
CLI Command, Export and Table and Output

5.2 Create a General Qapp

In this section, we will create a General Qapp “Show Version” to check a device’s IOS version

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number and define that the Qapp generates alert message for the devices whose version number
reaches the version number we have set. During the creation of this general Qapp, we learn the
basic concepts of a Qapp.

Click the Qapp tab in your workstation, and then click the New Qapp button within Qapp
Operation ribbon. The New Qapp window opens and double-click “General Qapp(default)” to
create a new Qapp.

5.2.1 Define Device Input

Similar to create a monitor Qapp, it generally takes three steps to create a General Qapp:
(1) Define the way by which the Qapp will obtain devices at execution time by “Input” block
(2) Retrieve and parse data from the live network by Canvas block
(3) Define analysis for the data and output results by Output block

Like the “Input” we have learned in Monitor Qapp, “Input” here is mainly used to define the way
by which the Qapp will obtain devices to run at execution time.

“Input” have two categories: Device Input and Table Input.

For Device Input, there are four types of Device Input:

(1) Single Device: Define the Qapp to run one device. Two options are under this type:
Auto: The Qapp creates devices based on execution environment. For example, if the Qapp runs
on a map, it will automatically get all devices from the map. For each device, the Qapp take it as
an independent device queue and run independently on each single device.

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Customized: Specify a device for the Qapp. The device is not allowed to be changed at run time.

(2) Device Group: Define a group of devices for a Qapp to run on. Four options are under this type:
Auto: The Qapp gets all devices and takes them as a group based on execution environment.
For example, if the Qapp runs on a map, it will automatically get all device from the map and
put them in a group. All devices in the Group as a whole run the Qapp together.
Group in workspace: Define a system built-in group such as Device Group, Site, and Device
Type.
Customized: Specify a device group for the Qapp to run on. The device group is not allowed
to be changed at run time.
Import from a table which defined in “Table Input”: Use the devices defined in an imported
table as device input.

(3) Traffic Path: Selecting this type will a create a Qapp about path analysis and users will be
prompted to select a path at run time

(4) None: Do not input any device for the Qapp.

For Table Input, you could import a table and create a Qapp to parser the data in the imported
table and analyze the data. About the Table Input, we will introduce it in detail in Chapter 14.

You could define “Input” based on your needs, and here we leave the “Input” as default:

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5.2.2 Define Canvas to retrieve and parse data

In this step, we will introduce the Canvas, a block mainly used to retrieve, parse and analyze data
from the live network.

Double-click Canvas block to enter Canvas editing window.

There are six components in the Canvas of a general Qapp. From left to right, the first component
is Device Queue, followed by Device Selector (this), CLI Command, Export Data, Table and Output.
These components are logically connected with direction, we need to edit these components by
this order.

We have already learned these concepts in Monitor Qapp, here let’s review them:

Device Queue: Device Queue exists in a form of table and its rows are devices or device interfaces
waiting for Qapp to run on. By default, the devices in Device Queue are inherited from devices
defined in “Input” Block and will be referenced by its downstream node-“Device Selector”.

You could build varieties of Device Queues based on different options. For example, if you select
the option “A pair of devices per Queue”, the Device Queue table in the right pane will list all
devices’ neighbors (you could use this option to compare data of a device and its neighbors, see
use case in Chapter 9), and if you select the option “Include All Interfaces”, the Device Queue table
will lists all interfaces of a device.

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In creating the Qapp “Show Version”, we will not use device interfaces or devices’ neighbors and
we here leave the options as default:

Device Selector: as its name indicates, it is used to define which column (this device or its
neighbor column) in its upstream “Device Queue” will be used for its downstream “CLI
Command”. If you have selected the option “One device per Queue”, there is one option “this” in
the drop-down menu; If you have selected the option “A pair of devices per Queue”, there will be
two option- “this” and “nbr”.

The Device Selector here will be inherited by its downstream node-“CLI Command”. If you select
“nbr”, the Qapp will execution CLI command on retrieve a device’ neighbor rather than a device
itself in CLI command node.

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You could also define the branch condition by the device properties such as device type in
Device Selector. When a device is passed to Device Selector from Device Queue, Device Selector
checks the condition of each branch to decide which command will be executed on the device.
One of key use case for DS is the multi-vendor support (see Chapter 15 for details).

CLI Command: CLI Command is used to define how to retrieve data of a device and rules to
parser the retrieved data.

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Export Retrieved Data: The node-“Export Retrieved Data” is marked with the sign “ ”. In this
node, you could export the variable data retrieved in CLI Command node to the downstream
“Table” node for subsequent analysis.

Table: The table node is used to store the data parsed from a device for further analysis. Clicking
this node, you will find that all variables and their sample values that you have exported in the
upstream node are listed.

Now, we start to define these component to create the Canvas for the Qapp “Show Version”
step by step:
(1) Define “Device Queue”.
Since we do not need device interface and device neighbor data in creating the Qapp, here we
leave Device Queue options as default.

(2) Set Device Selector

This is only one option “this” in the drop-down menu if you do not select the option “a pair of
device per Queue”. Leave all options in this node as default.

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(3) CLI Command.
(a) Enter the CLI command “show version”.
(b) Retrieve the sample output. Click the Retrieve Sample button (field 2) and select a Cisco IOS
device.

(c) Define the parser

To retrieve the version number, highlight the value of version (15.1 for this sample output)
and click the Define Variable option. The keyword Parser window opens with the
following fields:

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 Here they system automatically creates a parser “Version $double:var1\(4\)M5, RELEASE”. The
variable type is “double” which is used to parser floating number.

For different devices, the number in the brackets behind the number version may vary, but
they has a common characteristic in version number- version number (

To let the parser be able to parser other devices’ version number correctly besides the sample
device, here we need to modify the parser to “Version $double:var1\(“

You could leave variable name “var1” as default and here we give it a meaningful name
“version”

Click the Save Parser button to save this parser. In the right pane “Define Parser” you will see the
variable and variable value parsed.

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Hint:
Highlight the value to be exactly what you want to retrieve and do not include the spaces before
and after this value.

(4) Export Retrieved Data

(a) Select the variable “version”
(b) Click the export arrow to export the selected variable
(c) Click “Apply” button to finish variable exporting. In the right table, you could see
imported variable and value

Note:
(5) Table: The table node is used to store the data parsed from a device for further analysis.
Clicking this node, you will find that all variables and their sample values that you have exported
in the upstream node are listed.

5.2.3 Analyze Variables and Define Output

Through the above two steps, we have obtained the required data for the devices that we are
interested with. In this step, based on the data, we will define analysis and output analysis results
for the data.

Click the Output node and the Output editing window will show as the following figure:

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Node Name: The name of the output node. You could give it a meaningful name, such as “check
version number”.

Logic Node: Logic Node is used to define conditions for the Qapp to take actions (give an alert,
highlight a device…) and if the condition you have set is reached, the Qapp will generate actions
you have define in Action Node. There are three types of logic nodes: If, else if and else

Action Node：Action Node is used to define result output for a logical node. You could define
multiple actions under an If condition.

Here we are going to define a logical node and Action node as follows:
If a device IOS version number is less than 17.1
Then give an alert message to tell user to upgrade IOS version.

You could define this analysis and output the analysis results by the following steps:
(1) Click “If” button in Logic Node and drag and drop it in to table below (an If logic node is already
created by the system). In the right pane, enter a description, for example, “Compare retrieved
version with defined threshold value” in the Description field, click drop-down menu of
expression A and select “$version” from drop-down menu. Then select “<” and enter “17.1”.

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(2) Click “Alert” button in Action Node and drag and drop it under If node in the table below. In
the right pane, select “information” option (There are three message levels: information,
warning and error. You could define one of them based on your actual need) and enter “the IOS
version is $Table.version. Please upgrade!” When you enter “$”, the IntelliSense provided by the
software can help you to find the available variables. For example, after typing $ in the Message
field, there is a dropdown window showing all variables which can be used here. After selecting
$Table and entering the dot (.), another IntelliSense window is displayed with available variables
that you can use.

Hint
When you enter “$”, you could directly select “version” from IntelliSense window. In this Canvas,
$Table.version and $version represent same content.

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5.2.4 Save and Run General Qapp

Click “Save” button in the Qapp Editor window and “Save as” window pops up. Select a location,
enter a meaningful name-“Show Version” in the “File name” field and click “Save” to save it.

Click “Run” button in Qapp Editor and “Run Qapp” window opens.

Click “Device Input” button “ ”, select the devices that you are interested with in the “Select
Device(s)” window and click “OK” button to save and exit

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Click “Run” in the “Run Qapp” window to run the Qapp. A sample result is shown as follows:

Note
(1) Before running a Qapp, please save it first, otherwise you will get a prompt message asking you
to save the Qapp.

(2) You could also run a Qapp by click “Run Qapp” button in the Qapp Operation ribbon under “Qapp”
tab of your workstation.

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5.2.4 Define Advanced Output

Advanced Output offers a platform to analyze data and output analysis results by combining
python scripts (python syntax) and NetBrain built-in API, such as HighlightDevice( Dev,
sLegendName, sMap='', sPage=''), DrawMapNote( sNote, sMap='', sPage=''). For NetBrain built-
in API, please refer to “NetBrain Built-in Functions” in the Appendix, and for basic introduction to
Python Scripting, please refer to “Brief Introduction of Python Scripting” in the Appendix.

Like “Basic Output”, “Advanced Out” mainly consists of two elements: conditions (if, else if, else)
and actions (draw device on a map, add a device note…) based on each condition.

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 if $totaluse and $totalmem:
DrawDeviceSmartNote($this,"EIGRP Running Status","EIGRP processes memory
usage: "+str($memusage)+"%",SN_APPEND)

In Advance Output, you could analyze row data of a table and you could also analyze table
attribute value of a table

Let us modify the general Qapp “Show Version” to give out analysis result by “Advanced Output”.
if $version < 17.1:
AddMessage("plese upgrade IOS version")

When you enter a letter in script window, NetBrain built-in functions start with this letter will pop
up in the drop-down list automatically.

For example, when input a letter “a”, NetBrain built-in functions starting with “a” all list in the
pop-up window.

The content in the brackets of a function is the style to call a function. For example,
AddMessage(str:msg, int:msg, str:var_name, int var_index)

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5.2.5 General Qapp Settings

Run a General Qapp and Click the Execution Options hyperlink in “Run Qapp” window.

The “Execution Options” window opens, where you can modify:

Select Data Source

(1) Retrieve from live network: The Qapp logs into the devices and retrieve real time data. If you
Check “Use cached data live data if it is…old” under this option, it will use cached live data if the

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data is less than time interval you have specified. This option is useful to improve the
performance of a Qmap.
If the Qapp runs on a map, you could save the data retrieved on the map folder by checking the
option “Add to existing map Datafolder…”

(2) Via cached data: to retrieve data with “current baseline” or “local folder”.

Export Report Table: export the document to the file folder you specify. You could also set file
type for exported file.

Set as Default Option: check this option and execution setting is effective for all Qapp.

5.3 Add Multiple Action Nodes in one Output

In the Qapp “Show Version” created in section 5.2, we have defined one “Alert” action
(tell user to upgrade IOS version if a device IOS version is less than 17.1) in the Output.
Actually, you could add multiple action nodes in Output and to understand how to
create multiple action nodes, we are going to modify if conditions and Action nodes
the Output of the Qapp “Show Version” as follows:

If a device IOS version number is less than 13.1

Then:
(1) give an alert message to tell user to upgrade IOS version
(2) draw and highlight low-version device on map

Else
Give an information message to tell user that IOS version is fine

Open the Qapp “Show Version” and go to “Output” node of the Canvas.
(1) Click “If” row in the table of the left pane and set the condition as $version < 13.1
in the right pane.

(2) Click “Draw Map” in the Action Node and Drag it to the table below. You could
drop the “Draw Map” node under “Alert1” row, the number of “Draw Map” is 3. If you
drop it between “If1” row and “Aler1” row, the number of “Draw Map” is 2 and that of
“Alert1” will change into 3

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Here we add two action node and the two actions are both under “If1” condition. The
execution sequence of them do not matter too much and it is both ok for you drop
the “Draw Map node under Alert 1 row or between “If1” row and “Alert 1” row.

Edit the “Draw Map” in the left pane:

Check the checkbox of “Draw Device”. Based on actual need, you could also draw the
device’s interfaces and Hops (for traffic path) on map. Here we leave them unchecked.

Check the checkbox of “Auto Link”. If two devices drew on map are neighbors, the
system link them automatically. If “nbr” devices are available in Canvas Table, you
could check “Include 2nd Device” checkbox” and draw “nbr” devices on map.

Check “Highlight” checkbox and you could select color to display devices on map
(Random color by default). Legend filed is use to enter a string (could be a variable)
and the system bases on the string to display color for devices on map. Devices with
same variable values or string content will be highlight in same color and if you leave
this filed empty, the devices on map will not highlighted. In this sample, we enter
variable “$version” in this field.

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You could also check the checkbox of “Add Note” and attach a note message to the
devices on map

(3) In this step, we will add an “else” logic node. “Else” here refer to conditions except
the condition defined and it could be translated as follows:

Else (for device whose version is larger than or equal to 13.1)

Give an information message to tell user that IOS version is fine.

Click “else” in Logic Node and drag and drop it under the last action node of If1 (in the
sample, drop it under “Alert1” row. Do not drop it between actions nodes of If1, since
the actions under “else” take “else” as judging condition.

Click “Alert” button in Action Node and Drag and drop it under “else1” row. Edit the
alert in the right pane, set alert level as “Information” and enter “IOS version is fine”
in the message field.

Save and run the Qapp. A sample output results are showed as follows:

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6. Using General Qapp for Dynamic mapping

With the mapping function of General Qapp, you could not only map a device on map when the
device reaches a set condition, you can also map some particular configuration of a device on map.
Configuration command and Filter parser are often used for this purpose. The following are a few
use cases:

Create alerts for the devices containing a particular configuration line and draw these devices on
map. For example, find the devices with the “no service password-encryption” configuration,
which violates basic security policies.

Highlight or draw a particular configuration in the Q-map. The design reader can be used to filter
the configurations or you can create a filter parser to parse any configuration.

Do a preliminary check before applying an additional troubleshooting Qapp. This can improve the
Qapp performance since the CLI Command uses the baseline configurations without retrieving
the data from the devices. For example, we can check whether OSPF is configured to run on a
router before applying any Qapp to troubleshoot OSPF routing issues.

6.1 Check Configuration Compliances

Let us create a General Qapp (Check password encryption) to find the devices with the “no service
password-encryption" configuration.

Create a new General Qapp, and in the Canvas block delete default CLI command and Add a
Configuration Command”. To delete default CLI command and its downstream nodes, click them

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and press “Delete” key. To add a Configuration Command, hover mouse pointer on “this” node,
drag right as the mouse pointer changes to “hand” sign, release your mouse and select
“Configuration Command” in the menu.

Click “Configuration Command” node, in the right pane, there is a built-in variable
$_orginal_result and it is the baseline configuration of the seed device. We only check whether
$_orginal_result contains any special configuration, and so we do not define any variables in the
parser.

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According to the way of creating Configuration Command, we create a “Table” node to store
“$_orginal_result” for further analysis

Click “Export variable” button, export “orginal_result” to the table under “Table” tab and click
“Apply” to finish exporting.

Create a “Basic Output” node for data in “Table”. In the “Basic Output”, define a condition to check
whether $_orginal_result contains “no service password-encryption” (Don’t forget the double
quotation marks). If so, it prints a warning message password encryption is not enabled.

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Run the Qapp. In our lab indeed there are a few devices having unencrypted passwords:

Another simple but useful use case is if an NTP server is retired and you need to find all devices
using this server as the NTP server so that they can be configured to use a new NTP server. A Qapp
similar to this one can be created to do this work.

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6.1.1 Create a map for devices with unencrypted passwords

Besides displaying an alert message, you can also create a map to draw all devices with
unencrypted passwords and draw a device note of “no service password-encryption” on the
thsese devices.

In the Output, click “Draw Map” button in Action Node, drag and drop it to the table below.
Click “Draw Map” row in the table and edit it in the right pane.

Check the checkbox of “Draw Device”. If Device Queue table have only “this "column and do not
have “nbr” column, only one option “$_device” in the drop-down menu of “Select Device”, so just
leave it as default.

Check the checkbox of “Auto Link” and devices will automatically connect to each other if they
are in neighbor relationship.

Check the checkbox of “Add Note”, enter “Password Encryption is not enabled” in the note field
and select “device” to attach the note to the devices on map.

Save and run the Qapp. A sample output result is illustrated as the figure below

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6.1.2 Run Change management to fix the issue

With the change management module you can fix the security loophole easily. From the map
floating menu, select Run > Define Network Change…. (Save the Qmap if asked). The Network
Change Task window appears.

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Select Config Template from the left pane and enter the following commands, then click the
Apply button to apply the template to all devices:
config t
service password-encryption

Select the Execution button in the workflow bar to push the configuration change to all devices.

6.2 Map Network Design

Let us create a Qmap to filter the EIGPR configurations and draw the devices with EIGRP
configured in the Q-map and attach the EIGRP configurations as device notes.

Create a new General Qapp, and in the Canvas block delete default CLI command and Add a
Configuration Command”. Click the Retrieve Sample button to retrieve a sample configuration.
The configuration usually comes from the Data Folder ::CurrentBaseline.

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Select Filter as the parser type in the “Define Parser” pane. Enter a name for the Filter parser, e.g.,
eigrp_config. For the configuration command there are two options for filter parser: use a built-
in Design Reader (DR) filter to filter the configuration or create a standard filter. The filter parser
for other types of commands such as CLI command has only the standard filter.

To filter all EIGRP configurations, Click “Design Reader Filter” option and select Global\Cisco
IOS \EIGRP\All EIGRP Configuration in the drop-down menu. The EIGRP configurations are
highlighted in the sample and are assigned to the variable $eigrp_config.

A standard filter can also be applied to get the same results. A standard filter filters the
configurations between a beginning line keyword and ending line keyword. For example, to filter
out the EIGRP configuration for just one AS number, define a variable $eigrp_as as a string and
set the beginning line keyword as “router eigrp $eigrp_as” and the ending keyword as “!”.

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Hint:
To create a standard filter, you could also highlight eigrp configuration and select “Define Filter”
option in the pop-up menu.

In the “Filter Parser” window, change the name as “eigrp_config”, in the “Beginning line” filed,
replace the sample AS number with a variable “$eigrp_as” and add a “$” (it means the ending of the
variable) behind the variable so that the Qapp can target the variable.

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Click “Save Variable” and the eigrp configuration will highlight in yellow.

Export “eigrp_config” to Table and in Output, define output conditions and actions.
We will create two pairs of conditions and actions in the Output.

Condition1: If the eigrp configuration does not exist, give a message: no matched configuration
Click “If1” row and edit it in the left pane. Select “$eigrp_config” from the first drop-down menu
and then select “Is None”.
Create an “Alert” for this condition: no matched configuration

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Condition2: If the eigrp configuration exists, draw a device on map and attach eigrp configuration
to it.
Drag and drop “else if” to the table and edit it as follows:
$eigrp is not none

Create an action node “Draw Map” for this condition and edit it as follows:
Check the checkbox of ’Draw Device”
Check the checkbox of “Add Note” and enter “$eigrp_config” in the note field (When you enter $,
the system will automatically pop up a window listing all variables that you can use)

Run the procedure and all EIGRP devices and EIGPR configurations will be drawn in the current
map page (a new map is created automatically if no map is opened).

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7. Using Qapp for Change check and Delta
Analysis
In this section, we are going to introduce another function of Qapp: to analyze increment changes
of devices in a certain time interval and check network stability.

An important concept, Delta operator, will be introduced in this function. It is used to compare
whether a variable changes within a certain time interval.

We will create a new Qapp to check the connectivity of a cable connected to an interface. One
way to do so is to show the interface status and check whether CRC errors increase for an interface.
If so, the cable connected to the interface may not be in good condition.

7.1 Define Loop for Delta Operator

To contrast changes of a variable within a certain time interval, we need to retrieve data of the
variable at least twice. Since Monitor Qapp loops periodically, we will create a monitor Qapp to
retrieve the data of a variable periodically and contrast the difference of the data between two
polling cycles. Click “New Qapp” button in “Qapp Operation” ribbon under the “Qapp” tab and

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select “Monitor” template in “New Qapp” window. To resolve this problem, we need to define
loop way for Delta Operator.

Keep the “Input” as the default: Device Group type and Auto option, meaning that the Qapp
takes all devices visible in the map and run on these device as a group.

Click the Loop block to define the frequency this Qapp is executed, for example, every 30 seconds.

Double-click “Canvas” to enter Canvas Editing window. Leave options in Device Queue and this
as default.
In CLI Command, enter “show interface”, and click “Retrieve Sample” to show a sample
command.
Highlight the value before CRC (for example, 0 CRC), and click “Define Variable” in the menu.

The system automatically creates a keyword parser and finds 6 matched lines for this sample
output as displayed under the Sample field. Click the link Define Variables Under Paragraphs.
The Paragraph Parser window opens, where you can set the Paragraph Identifier and define
more Keyword Parsers.

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The Paragraph Identifier is the keyword parser to identify the start of a new paragraph. Highlight
the partial start line of each paragraph, “Ethernet0 is up, line protocol is” and click the Set
Paragraph Identifier option. The selected context is copied to the Paragraph Identifier field. This
line includes the keywords which are always same and the sample values which can change. Keep
the keywords and replace the sample values with the variable name and so we end up with the
following Paragraph Identifier:
$intf_nm is $status, line protocol is

Press the enter key or click the Refresh icon to apply the change, modify the variable “var1”

to “crc” and click “Save Variable”.

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Export the variables “crc” and “intf_nm” to Table for further use. Here we need to export the
variable “intf_nm” since we will use the variable as the “key” for the Qapp to define a crc value
belong to which interface.

7.2 Define Delta Operator

In the “Table”, we have obtained the variable “crc” and its value, but to calculate the delta value,
we still need “crc” value at next running time so that we can calculate the difference of “crc” value.
Now it is time to introduce Delta Operator, a kind of Table Operator, which is designed for delta

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calculation of a variable in a certain time interval.
Hover mouse pointer on “Table” icon, drag right as the mouse pointer changes to “hand” sign, a
menu will pop up as you release your mouse and select “Table Operator” option in the menu. A
“Operator” node is created, followed by a “Table” node.

Table Operator is used to manage “Table” and the data in the “Table”, such as merging variables
of two tables into a table, deleting a variable and etc.
There two types of Table Operator: 1 table input and 2 table input.

(1) 1 table input: there is just one table leading to Table Operator. There are three operators under
this type: Convert, Delta and Sub Table
Convert: Convert a general “Table” into a Global Data Table. A general table can only store data
for one device for further analysis in one loop, but the Global Data Table is able to store all devices’
data rather than just a device in Device Queue.
Delta: this operator is to calculate delta value in a certain time interval.
Sub Table: this operator is to remove or keep a row in a table

(2) 2 table input: there are two or multiple tables leading to Table Operator. There are two
operators under this type: Neighbor Join and Merge
Neighbor Join: this operator is to move a device’s variables (in this table) and its neighbor’s
variables (in neighbor table) to one table by a certain rule.
Merge: this operator is to merge the rows of two tables with the same variable value into the row
of one merged table.

Since there is only one table pointing to this “Table Operator”, “1 table input” is selected by
default and “2 table input” is in grey and not available.

Click drop-down menu of Operator and select “Delta”.

Click drop-down menu of “Select Key for Delta calculation”. This key variable will be used as an
index to find variables to be calculated and associate calculated variables to the key variable so

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that the variables can be correctly placed. Here we select “Intf_nm” as the key and a crc value will
be placed under its corresponding interface after calculation.

In the drop-down menu of “Select column for calculation”, select the variable for calculation. Here
we select “crc”.

Click the downstream “Table2” node of “Operator”. There are four headers in the table: intf_name,
crc_now, crc_last, crc_delta.
crc_now is the the crc value successfully retrieved in the current poll cycle, crc_last is the crc value
retrieved in last poll cycle and crc_delta is the difference of its values in these two cycles.

7.3 Define Delta Analysis and Output

Through previous steps, we have obtained the difference of crc values in two poll cycles

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successfully and in this step, we will analyze the delta value and output analysis results.

Create a “Monitor” output after “Table” node.

In the “Output” node, the table variables and attributes are displayed in the left pane. The
variables here are related to the interface and should be monitored as interface items. Click the
Interface Items node to highlight it, then select a variable $crc_delta and click the > button to
add it as an interface item.

A Dialog window opens asking you to select the primary key for comparison (interface). This
variable will be used as the key to find other variables associated with an interface so that the
variables can be correctly displayed in the map. Therefore select the variable name here and it is
marked with the key icon in the left pane.

Select a postion such as Interface Postion 1 from the pull down menu and click the Apply button
to save the setting.

Click “Create Alert” tab, select the variable such as $crc_delta and enable “Error” alert. Let us
define a basic analysis as following:

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 If [now] > [threshold], default is 1.

Enter the alert message as “bad Connectivity, please check the cable” and Check “Show as
Device Note On Map” to display the alter message on map.

Save and run the Monitor Qapp. For demo purpose, modify the threshold value from 1 to 0 in
“Monitor Qapp” window and a sample output is as follows:

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8. Using General Qapp for Dynamic
Documentation
In this section, we are going to introduce the CSV Report function of Qapp. By this function, you
could export retrieved data of all devices to your local CSV file and view these data in the CSV file
generated.

One important concept, Convert operator, will be introduced in this function. It is used to
transform a general table to a global data table that could store data of all devices in Device Queue.

We will create a new Qapp to export version information of all devices to be upgraded to a CSV
file so that another team can check version information of these devices in the CSV file and finish
the version upgrade for devices provided in the CSV file

8.1 Create CSV Files for Variables

To export data of all selected devices to a CSV file, it typically takes three steps:
(1) Retrieve data and export needed data to a general “Table” node
(2) Convert a general table to Global Data Table
(3) Define the Action Node “CSV Export” to export data of all selected devices to CSV file.

To retrieve data of device version, input “show version” in CLI command, and define parser as
shown in the figure below(for details, you could refer to the Qapp “show version” created in
Section 5.2):

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After parsing the the variable “version”, export it to “Table”.

8.1.1 Export Variables to a Global Data Table by Convert Operator

For a general Qapp, in most cases it can only store data of one device in one loop and the data in
the table will be overwritten by the data of another device at next loop. For example, in a Device
Queue there are five devices: R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5.

The Qapp will loop the Canvas by the order as follows:

A row in Device Queue Table (R1) Device Selector CLI CommandTable (R1’s data)Output
A row in Device Queue Table (R2) Device Selector CLI CommandTable (R2’s data)Output
A row in Device Queue Table (R3) Device Selector CLI CommandTable (R3’s data) Output
A row in Device Queue Table (R4) Device Selector CLI CommandTable (R4’s data)Output
A row in Device Queue Table (R5) Device Selector CLI CommandTable (R5’s data)Output

A Qapp loops just one row of Device Queue table one time. In this example, when Qapp loops R1,
it will retrieve R1’s data and export R1’s data to Table. However, when it loops R2, it will retrieve
R2’s data and overwrite R1 data with R2’ data in the table.

In one loop, if you want to append a device’s data to a table rather than overwrite the data of the
device at last loop, you need to convert a general table to a Global Data Table and the Global Data
Table could store all device’s data by appending a device’s data to a table loop by loop.

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To convert a general Table to a Global Data Table, we use “Convert” operator and it is one type of
“Table Operator”.

You could create a “Table Operator” node by the following way:

Hover mouse pointer on “Table” icon, drag right as the mouse pointer changes to “hand” sign, a
menu will pop up as you release your mouse and select “Table Operator” option in the menu. An
“Operator” node is created, followed by a “Table” node. This table (“Table1” in the sample) is a
global data table.

Since there is only one table pointing to this “Table Operator”, “1 table input” is selected by
default and “2 table input” is in grey and not available.

Click drop-down menu of Operator and select “Convert”.

Leave “Append Data” option selected by default.

Note:
“Convert” operator is the only way to transform a general table to a global data table.

8.1.2 Define Action Node to export GDT in CSV file

After obtaining all devices’ version information in the Global Data Table, in this step we will define
“CSV Export” Action Node to export the information to a CSV file.

Click “Output” button “ ” in the Global Data Table, select “Basic Output” and an “Output”
node will be created after the global data table.

In “Output”, drag and drop “CSV Export” in the Action Node and click “if” row to define condition
in the right pane.

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Here we want to export all devices whose version number is less than 15.1 and we define the
condition as follows:
$version < 15.1

Click “CSV Export” row and define it in the right pane:

(1)CSV File Name: by default the name of the csv file created is “Table1”. Here we give it a more
meaningful name “Devices to Be Upgraded”
(2) Select “Variables” that you would like to export. In this sample, we select to export variables
“_device” and “version”. Click any “variable” exported, you could modify Header for it. For
example, click “_device”, modify it to “hostname” and then click “Apply” button.

(3) Advanced: click “Advanced” hyperlink to open “Advanced” setting window. You could set the
Qapp to export “Table Attribute” (if there are values or variables in Table Attribute of a Global
Data Table). Under “CSV File Setting”, you could set the Qapp to export device data to multiple
csv files (by the row of Global Data Table, one row for one CSV file) or one csv file if the option
“Loop by Table” is enabled. You could also export Qapp “execution time” as a table attribute to
CSV file.

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Note:
To enable “Loop by Table”, click “loop” button on the upper left corner of a Canvas block. Check

the checkbox of “Loop by table”, click “plus” sign “ “and select a global table for the Qapp
to loop.

Save the Qapp and name the Qapp as “Check Device Versions”. When running the Qapp, you
could click the hyperlink “Execution Options” In the “Run Qapp” window and make some settings
for this Qapp. Here you could click the … button to select a folder in which the file will be exported.
If you want your settings applied to all Qapps, you could check the checkbox of “Set as Default
Option”.

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After the Qapp finishes execution, you will see that a folder named by the Qapp’s name (in this
sample, the folder’s name is “Check Device Versions”) is created when opening the folder in which
CSV file is saved. Opening the folder, you will see the CSV file (in this sample, the name of the CSV
file is “Devices to Be Upgraded”).

Open the CSV file and all devices with version number less than 15.1 are listed in the CSV file.

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8.2 Set Customized Fields

The customized fields of a device, interface and module can be set by a Qapp. Let us create a
Qapp to retrieve the image file using the “show version” command and add an “Image File” field
to the Customized Information section of device property for all Cisco IOS devices.

Note: before using Qapp to retrieve value of a customized filed, you need first to create the
customized filed in “Asset Report” of your workspace.

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Create a new general Qapp. In the CLI Command of Canvas block, enter the command “show
version”. Highlight the flash information and define parser for it. Replace the variable “var1” with
a more meaningful name “image_file” and click “Save Parser” to save settings.

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Export the variable to “Table” and create a basic output for the table.

In the “Output”, drag and drop the action node “Device Property” under “if” row in the table below.
Click the “If” row and define it in the right pane as follows:
$image_file is not None

Click the “Device Property” row and define it in the right pane. In the drop-down menu of
“Property Type”, there are three options-“Device”, “Interface” and “Module” and here we select
“Device” since the customized filed “image file” in the “Asset Report” is created under “Device
Info” .

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For the “Select Variable” filed, select “image file” in the drop-down menu of “Property name” and
“$image_file” in the drop-down menu of “Select variable”.

Click “Add” button to add the customized filed.

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Save and Run the procedure against all IOS devices and the “Image File” field will be added as a
customized field and the value will be set. Right click on a device and select the Properties…
option to confirm this.

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9. Using General Qapp for Neighbor Check
In this chapter, we are going to use Qapp to analyze and trouble problems between a pair of
neighbor devices.
We will introduce how to build neighbor relationship for a pair of neighbor devices by “Device
Queue” as well as how to integrate a device and it neighbors’ data into one table for easy
comparison and analysis by the table operator “Neighbor Join”.
To understand the process of creating Qapp for a pair of neighbor devices, we will create a Qapp
for a common problem: the MTU value of the neighbor interfaces are mismatched, illustrated in
the following map:

We can follow these steps to troubleshoot MTU mismatch problem:

(1) Find out a device and its neighbors
(2) Find out MTU value of interfaces of this device
(3) Find out MTU value of the neighbor interfaces and compare interfaces’ MTU with their
neighbor interfaces’.

Note:
A preinstalled “Neighbor Check” template is available in “New Qapp” window and by this
template, you could easily and rapidly create a Qapp to troubleshoot network problems of a pair
of neighbor devices. However, to help understand concepts involving creating this type of Qapp,
we here create the Qapp by “General Qapp” template.

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9.1 Build Device Pair in Device Queue

By default, when you create a general Qapp, there is only one flowchart in the Canvas block:
Device thisComnad1 Table1. This flowchart is used to retrieve and analyze data for a device
itself. To retrieve data of a device’s neighbor at the same time, you need to add another flowchart
for neighbor devices in the Canvas.

Click “Device Queue”, select the option “A pair of devices per Queue” in the Device Queue setting
and you will find that the system inputs devices into Device Queue Table by pair of “this” and “nbr”.

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Under the option of “A pair of devices per queue”, there are many sub-options, by which you could
further specify more logics to build the relationship of a device and its neighbors.

Options Logic
Order of device is significant The system takes neighbor relationship “This: R1-Neighbor: R2” and
“This R2- Neighbor: R1” as the different neighbor pairs and the
device queue table will list both of them.

This & its L3 neighbors Build a pair of devices by L3 topology neighbor

Filter neighbors by group Build device neighbors from device group input. Devices not in
device group will be omitted

Filter visible neighbors by map Build the neighbor pairs for devices displayed on the map and
neighbor devices not showed on the map will not participate in
neighbor pair building.

This & its L2 neighbors Build a pair of devices by L2 topology neighbor

Any Combination Build device pair for non-neighbor devices
Do not include interface The Device Queue table will not list any interface of a device
Include all interfaces A device’ interfaces and its connected neighbor interfaces will be
included in the Device Queue Table and every row of the table will
be filled by the order of “this devicethis interfaceneighbor
device connected neighbor interface”.
Filter visible interfaces by map The system will only build the neighbor pairs based on device
interfaces displayed on the map and interfaces not showed on the
map will not participate in neighbor pair building.

Here we want to compare a device’ s interface MTU value and itsL3 neighbor’s MTU value, and
based on neighbor building logic we check the option “This & its L3 neighbors”, “Filter neighbors by
group” and “include all interfaces” and “Order of device is significant”.

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After finishing building neighbor relationship, hang your mouse cursor over “Device Queue” and
create a “Device Selector” node.

In “Device Selector” node, select “nbr” in the drop-down menu of “Select device column…” and
the name of Device Selector in the flowchart changes to “nbr”. Following the device selector “nbr”,
you could respectively create “CLI Command” and “Table” nodes.

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9.1.1 Retrieve MTU data of this device

After building the flowchart for “nbr” device , now we are going to define CLI command and
retrieve Duplex and Speed data of this and its neighbor device respectively.
First we retrieve the data for this device interfaces.

Enter “show interface” in CLI command, highlight MTU value in the sample out and define parser
as follows:
Paragraph Identifier: $intf_nm is $status, line protocol
Modify the variable “var1” to “mtu”

Export the variables “intf_nm” and “mtu” and check them in the “Table” node.

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9.1.2 Retrieve MTU data of nbr device

Following the way to define command and retrieve MTU value for “this” device, we could define
CLI Command and retrieve MTU value for “nbr” device.

Export the variables “mtu” and “intf_nm” 0f nbr device and check them in the “Table” node
(“Table1” in the sample).

9.2 Neighbor Join

In the previous steps, we have successfully obtained the MTU value of one interface of “this”
device” and that of this interface’s neighbor interface. In this section, we will introduce how to join
data of two tables into one common table by the Table Operator “Neighbor Join” and compare
both MTU values in one table.

Hover your mouse on any of the two tables and create “Table Operator” node. By default, “1 table
input” is selected. Hover your mouse over the other table, drag the arrow line, and make the line
lead to “Table Operator” and you will find that the type has switched to “2 tables input”.

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Click the drop-down menu of “Operator” and select “Neighbor Join”. The Qapp will
automatically move the data from the two table to one table and allocate values to the
corresponding variables by corresponding neighbor relationship in Device Queue table.

Click any row in “Key Matching” table and you could view a variable and its corresponding variable
name in the Device Queue. For example, click “this.intf_nm”, its corresponding variable name in
Device Queue is “this_intf”: this.intf_nm <---> this_intf.

Hover mouse cursor over “Neighbor Join” and create a “Table” node. Click the new table and you
could see that the variables of two tables after “Neighbor Join” are arranged by the order of their
corresponding neighbor relationship in Device Queue table.

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9.3 Define Analysis and Output for Neighbor Check

In the “Table” node after “Neighbor Join”, click “Output” button and select “Basic Output” to
create an “Output” node. In this “Output”, define analysis and output for MTU consistency.

Click “if” row in the table in left pane and then define condition (MTU consistency) in the right
pane: $this_mtu != $nbr_mtu

Drag Alert from Action Node to table and then define alert message:

MTU mismatch: $this_intf_nm: $this_mtu<->$nbr_intf_nm: $nbr_mtu

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Drag Draw Map from Action Node to table and define it in the right pane as follows:
(1) Draw a device and its neighbor on map
(2) Draw an interface and its connected neighbor interface
(3) Highlight interface on map
(4) Draw notes attached to the interfaces with mismatched mtu

Save and run the Qapp. After finishing running the Qapp, devices with mismatched MTU value
will be mapped.

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10. Troubleshoot Connection Problems via Qapp

Besides the CLI and Configuration commands, you can also use Qapp to automate the Ping,
Traceroute and SNMP commands.
In this chapter, we are going to cover Ping and Traceroute command via creating a Qapp to
troubleshoot the routing issue:
(1) Create the Ping probe to ping the core device or server from the network devices. Output an
error message if the ping fails.
(2) Create a Traceroute probe for the IP addresses which cannot be pinged.

10.1 Ping Command

In the Canvas block, create a Ping Command behind “this” node.

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In “Ping Command” node, we first need to define the ping settings, mainly the source (the device
to ping from) and the destination (the IP to ping to).

We could define three types of sources

Local PC: ping from the local PC.
Network Server: ping from the Network Server. Select one network server or the Specified Server
in the device settings (of the destination device).
Device: ping from the selected devices. Here we have two options:
(1) $this: the device in Device Queue that is running Qapp.
(2) Select a device from the workspace: In this case, you can also check the Interface option and
select an interface from the drop-down menu. The system will execute the extended ping
operation and the source will be the IP address of the interface.

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For the destination, you can either enter the IP address to ping to or select a device and then an
interface on the device. In our example we check the IP Host option and enter the IP address of
main server 10.10.10.99 to define the IP address to ping to.

10.1.1 Define Ping Parameters

We can also define the ping parameters shown in the Ping node. Often, you can leave these
options as their defaults.

Here Packet count is the number of the ping packets to be sent. Check the checkbox Set Don’t
Fragment flag in packet so that the packet is not fragmented. Check this option and change the
packet size to find out the MTU.

10.1.2 Define Variables and Parser

A default sample (Sample1) is automatically created for every ping command. The system has
built-in default samples for the standard ping output and extended ping output. Three variables:
$lost_rate (integer), $average_time (integer) and $ping_result (Boolean indicating whether the
ping succeeded) are defined in the samples.

In most cases, including our example, the default sample is sufficient. It can be used to parse the
standard formats of ping commands and extended ping commands. The following are examples

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of ping outputs supported by this default sample:

The output of the standard ping command:

Pinging 100.0.171.5 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 100.0.171.5: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=117
Reply from 100.0.171.5: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=117
Reply from 100.0.171.5: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=117
Reply from 100.0.171.5: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=117

Ping statistics for 100.0.171.5:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 40ms, Average = 32ms

The output of the extended ping command:

NB3-BST-CORE#ping
Protocol [ip]:
Target IP address: 192.168.1.1
Repeat count [5]: 5
Datagram size [100]: 64
Timeout in seconds [2]: 2
Extended commands [n]: n
Sweep range of sizes [n]:
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 64-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
.....
Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)

If the ping output has different formats, you can add that to Sample1 or add another sample.
Click the plus sign at right of Sample1 and a new sample Sample2 is created.

10.1.3 Define ping result analysis and output

The analysis and output for the Ping command follows the same rule as the CLI command. For
our example, we will define a Basic Output. It will check whether the ping succeeds. If successful,
it will output an info message (for debugging purpose). Otherwise it prints out an error message.

if: $ping_result == True

Message 1 (Information): Ping succeeded
else:
Message 1 (Error): Ping failed from $_device to main server 10.10.10.99

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First create a “Table” node following the ping command and export the variable “$ping_result” to
“Table” node. And then create a “Basic Output” node after “Table” node.

In “Output” node, Click “If” row and define it in the right pane: $ping_result equal to true

Drag and drop “Alert” from Action Node and define it in the right pane.
Information: Ping Succeeded

Drag “else” in the Logic Node to table below and then drag and drop an “Alert” under it.
Click “Alert2” and define it in the right pane.
Error Message: Ping failed from $_device to main server 10.10.10.99

Save and run the Qapp. A sample output is shown as the figure below:

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10.2 Traceroute Command

Now we will create a new Qapp to run a traceroute command from a core device to a main server.
In the Canvas block of the new Qapp, create a “Traceroute Command” behind “this” node.

Like Ping command, in most cases you only need to set the source (the device to run the
traceroute from) and the destination (the IP to traceroute to).
Ping from: loop device
Ping to: 10.10.10.99 (main server IP address)

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10.2.1 Define Variables and Parser

A default sample (Sample1) is automatically created for the traceroute command. This default
sample parses the standard traceroute output and creates two local variables: $last_hop (string,
the IP address of the last hop) and $traceroute_result (Boolean indicating whether the traceroute
succeeds).

In most cases, including our example, the default sample is sufficient. It can be used to parse
standard format of the traceroute command:

NB3-BST-CORE#Traceroute
Protocol [ip]:
Target IP address: 192.168.1.1
Source address:
Numeric display [n]:
Timeout in seconds [3]:
Probe count [3]:
Minimum Time to Live [1]:
Maximum Time to Live [30]: 30
Port Number [33434]:
Loose, Strict, Record, Timestamp, Verbose[none]:
Type escape sequence to abort.
Tracing the route to 192.168.1.1

1 172.17.1.3 0 msec 4 msec 0 msec

2 * * *
3 * * *

10.2.2 Define Traceroute result analysis and output

Like Ping Command, the analysis and output for the Traceroute command follows the same rule
as the CLI command. For our example, we will define a Basic Output. It will check whether the
Traceroute succeeds. If successful, it will output an info message (for debugging purpose). If not,
it will check whether the last hop exist. If the last hop exists, give an error message that traceroute
stops at last hop. If the last hop does not exist, give an error message that the traceroute failed at
first hop:
if: $TraceRT1.traceroute_result == True
Message 1 (Informational): Traceroute succeeded.

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else if: $TraceRT1.last_hop != None
Message 1 (Error):
Traceroute from $_device to main server 10.10.10.99 stopped at $last_hop
else:
Message 1 (Error):
Traceroute from $_device to $main server failed at first hop

First create a “Table” node following the Traceroute Command and export the variables
“$traceroute_result” and “$last_hop” to “Table” node. And then create a “Basic Output” node
after “Table” node.

In “Output”, create three logic nodes (if, else if and else) and then respectively create an action
node under each logic node.
If: $traceroute_result equal to true
Alert1 (information): traceroute succeeded

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Else if: $last_hop Is not none
Alert2 (Error): Traceroute from $_device to main server 10.10.10.99 stopped at $last_hop

Else:
Alert3 (Error): Traceroute from $_device to $main server failed at first hop

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10.3 SNMP Command and Merge Table Operator

In this section, we are going to introduce two concepts: SNMP Command and an operator type-
Merger Operator.
SNMP command provides a flexible way for you to retrieve the data via SNMP OIDs.
Merge Operator is used to merge the variables of two tables into one merged table according to
the variables that the two tables both have.

10.3.1 SNMP Command

Now we create a new Qapp to run SNMP command to retrieve device data.
In the Canvas block of the new Qapp, create a “SNMP Command” behind “this” node.

Enter an SNMP OID and the system will walk through this OID. For example, enter the OID
1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2 to retrieve the interface name for each index. A sample is shown here.

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For last number of each OID, it indicates an interface. For example, in the sample command,
1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1 = OCTETS: FastEthernet0/0, here “1” is the index of FastEthernet0/0
1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.10 = OCTETS: Loopback11, “10” is the index of Loopback11

Highlight last number and define parser in “Keyword Parser” window. Click “Define Variables
under Paragraphs” hyperlink to retrieve the interface name for each index.

Set the paragraph identifier as

1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.$int:index = OCTETS: $intf_nm

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The paragraph defined by this parser has only one line. Since the variable “Var1” conflicts with the
variable “$index” defined in “Paragraph Identifier”, delete the variable “var1”. The parser output
will be a table with two columns: $index and $intf_nm

Create another SNMP command after “this” node to retrieve the interface status. The SMNP OID
to retrieve the interface status is 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8.

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Retrieve the sample and define a paragraph parser with the following paragraph identifier:

1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8.$int:index = INTEGER: $int:status

The SNMP OID description for the interface operation status is:

OID value: 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8

OID description:
ifOperStatus OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX INTEGER {
up(1),
down(2),
testing(3)
}
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
"The current operational state of the interface.
The testing(3) state indicates that no operational

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 packets can be passed."
::= { ifEntry 8 }

So $status = 1 means that interface is up, 2 means down and 3 means testing.

10.3.2 Merge Table

In the Command 1, we have successfully obtained the interface status by an OID, but the annoying
thing is that the interface name is indexed by number such as 1. 1001 and so on. Actually, we could
use “Merge” operator to convert the index to concrete interface name by merging the same row
($index) of two tables just created.

For the SNMP Command to retrieve interface name, export the variables “$index” and “$intf_nm”
to “Table” node.

For the SNMP Command to retrieve interface status, export the variables “$index” and “$status”
to “Table1” node.

Hover your mouse on any of the two tables and create “Table Operator” node. By default, “1 table
input” is selected. Hover your mouse over the other table, drag the arrow line, and make the line
lead to “Table Operator” and you will find that the type has switched to “2 tables input”.

Click the drop-down menu of “Operator” and select “Merge”.

Since we are going to merge data of two tables in to one table by a common variable of two tables,
we select $index as the key for both tables.

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Click “Table2” node after “Merge” operator and the merged table is as follow:

Now define a basic output so that an error message is created if the interface is down and an
info message is created if the interface is up.

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Save and run the Qapp. A sample result is shown as figure below:

11. Multiple Canvas Execution Flow and

Loop Control
So far all Qapps we have created just contain one Canvas. In this chapter we are going to create a
more complex Qapp with multiple canvases.

To understand the execution flow and loop control of multiple canvases, we will create a Qapp to
monitor CPU usage for devices configured with OSPF routing protocol.

This Qapp contains two canvases. The first canvas is to filter out OSPF devices and the second
canvas is to monitor the CPU usage for OSPF devices.

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11.1. Filter out Devices configured with OSPF Protocol

Create a new Qapp and in the command node of Canvas block, enter the command “show ip
protocols”. Select a device with OSPF routing protocol with the Retrieve Sample button, and an
output like the following will appear in the left pane:

Highlight area number of an OSPF and define parser as follows:

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Export the variable “ospf_as” to the “Table” node.

11.2 Canvas Execution Flow

In the first Canvas, we plan to filter out OSPF devices by checking whether the value of the
variable “ospf_as” exists. In the Canvas, we will use the OSPF devices retrieved in Canvas1 and
display their cpu usage. However in Qapp the variables defined or obtained in a Canvas can be
referenced only inside the Canvas itself. To this problem, we could convert a general table to a
global data type whose data can be referenced by any canvas in the Qapp.

To check whether a variable exist and remove the variable if it is none, create a “Table Operator”
and define it as follows:

To convert a table to a global data table, create a “Table Operator” after a general table and select
“Convert” operator.

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The sample global data table is shown as the figure below:

11.3 Call Variables in Global Data Table

In “Execution Flow” window, create an another canvas and the system names the new canvas as
“Canvas1”.

In the first canvas, we have filter devices ($_device in global data table) configured with OSPF by
the variable “ospf_as” and in the second canvas, we will call the variables “$_device” in the global
data table.

Double-click the “Canvas1” block to enter ‘Canvas1” window and set the Canvas by the following
steps:
(1) In the “Canvas1” block, click “Device Queue” node and set it.
Click the drop-down of “Create Device Queue from” and select “Table” option. Since there is only
one global data table (Table1 of the first canvas “Canvas”) in the Qapp, The system list it
automatically in the second drop-down menu.

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In the pane of variables list all variables of the global data table. Export the variable “_device” to
device queue table, set this variable as device and click “Apply” button.

(2) Click “this” node and set “Device Selector”. Since there is only variable, Device Selector
automatically take it as input.

(3) In CLI command node, enter “show process cpu”. Retrieve a sample command and define
parser.

Export the variable to “Table” node and create a “Monitor” output. As the way we have introduced
before to define a “monitor” output, define analysis for the variable “cpu_1m”.

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12. Canvas Block and Dialogue
A Qapp to troubleshoot a general problem or document a complex design often requires the user
input or control during the execution. For example, when you run a Qapp to highlight the BGP AS
number, you may want the Qapp to allow you to input a specific AS number for highlighting rather
than highlight all BGP AS.

In this chapter, Dialog is introduced for this purpose. A dialog is a GUI component to receive the
input from the user. Qapp Execution Flow can contain multiple Canvas and/or dialogs. Each
Canvas has its own loop control. By default, a Qapp containing multiple Canvas blocks executes
in the order defined by the overall execution flow, such as Canvas1, Canvas2, etc. However users
can instruct it to skip a Canvas or jump into a specified Canvas.

12.1 Create a Dialog

Let us create a simple Qapp to understand the basic concepts of a dialog: create an alert if a device
CPU is higher than a threshold value. However instead of hard coding the threshold value, a dialog
will pop up for you to enter the threshold value.

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Create a new Qapp. The system automatically creates a canvas within Execution Flow. In
Command node of the Canvas we can enter a CLI command, “show process cpu” and define the
parser to retrieve the CPU as you know well.

Now we will add a Dialogue block. As the dialog will be used to get the input of the threshold
value from the user and it should be executed before Canvas.

Delete default Canvas block in “Execution Flow”, hover your mouse cursor over “Input” block and
drag to create a “Dialog” block. After creating the “Dialog”, create a “Canvas” block after the
“Dialog” block

Click the “Dialog” and in the “Dialog” pane are the visual programming interfaces for you to create
the dialog, which contains four fields:

1. Toolbox: list all the components you can use in a dialog.

2. Action pane: list all operations you can perform on the components in a dialog and adjust the
dialog background.
3. Working area: where you edit the controls to generate the dialog.
4. Properties pane: display and edit the properties of the selected component.

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To add a component to a dialog, simply drag and drop the component from the toolbox to the
working area and then edit the properties of this component in the properties pane. To delete
a component, click on the component in the working area and press the Delete key in the
keyboard.

Drag and drop the Edit Control from the toolbox to a desired position of working area. Adjust the
position and size of the control as you like.

In the property pane, enter a name such as cpuThreshold. No space or special characters are
allowed for the object name. You can keep the default name. However it is recommended to
change the name to something meaningful since this object will be referenced later.

Now drag and drop a static text to the dialog to let user know what to enter in the edit control.
Usually you do not need to change the name of a text object since it will be not referred later. In
its property pane change the text to “Please enter a CPU threshold:” Adjust its size and position
so that it is nicely aligned next to the edit object. Similarly add another text object after the edit
object and change its text to “%”.
You may also want to adjust the position of default OK button to finish the dialog.

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In Canvas block, enter “show process cpu” in command field and define the keyword parser “one
minute: $int:cpu_1m%”.

Export the variable “cpu_1m” to “Table” node of the Canvas and in “Output” compare $cpu_1m
against the threshold value the user will enter in the edit control object cpuThreshold. The text
value of an edit object is a string and can be retrieved by <Dialog name>.<Edit control
name>.Text, for example, Dialog. cputhreshold.Text. Therefore we fine logic node and action
node in “Output” as follows:

If: $CLI1.cpu >= $ Dialog. cputhreshold.Text

Message 1 (warning): The CPU is high!

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Save and run the Qapp. Select two Cisco IOS devices as input devices. A dialog window opens as
expected. Enter a threshold value such as 5 for testing and click the OK button.

The system executes the Canvas and outputs warning message if its CPU is higher than the
threshold value.

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12.2 Dialogue Control Components

The toolbox provides a list of controls or resources for you to create dialogs for different purposes.
These components are like the standard programming development environment such as Visual
Basic. They can be divided into three categories:

Execution controls
These components allow users to control the Qapp execution flow. They are displayed as a button.

OK Qapp will continue to run based on your selection.

Cancel Qapp will continue to run but the selection does not take effect.
Exit Exit the Qapp.
Go to Exit from the current block and jump to the specified block.
Continue Qapp will stop running on the current device and continue to run on the
next device in the device queue.
Break Exit the current block.

Basic components
These components are similar to those in the Visual Basic. Four components, Combo Box, List
Box, List Control and Filter Box, require variable definitions. For these four components, besides
getting the user input from the dialog, their variable values are often set by the probes prior to it.

Check Box For the user to select one from the multiple choices.
Edit Control For the user to enter a text which can be referred in the subsequent
probes.
Combo Box A combo box consists of a list and a selection field. The list presents the
options that a user can select, and the selection field displays the current
selection.
Radio Button Similar to the check box.
Static Text The static text which is often used to illustrate the meaning of other user
editable control such as edit control.
List Box A control window containing a simple list of items from which the user can
choose.
List Control It contains information about the programming elements used
with list boxes.
Filter Box For the user to select one or more options.

Extended Components

These components call the system built-in components or operations to implement a specific
function.

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 Select Device Control Open the built-in Select Device window
Select Interface Control Open the built-in Select Interface window.
Select File Control Select a file from the window file system.
Select Folder Control Select a file folder from the window file system.
IP Address Control For the user to enter an Internet Protocol (IP) address in an
easily understood format.
Hyperlink Create a hyper link.
Picture Control Add a picture.

The operations listed in the action pane are primarily used to align multiples control objects in the
dialog. To align two or more objects, select them (press Ctrl and object to select multiple objects
in a dialog) and select the align method in the action pane:

Icon Effect

Left Edges: align the left edges of all selected objects with the left-most object.

Right Edges: align the right edges of all selected objects with the right-most object.

Top Edges: align the top edges of all selected objects to the position of the top-most
object.
Bottom Edges: align the bottom edges of all selected objects with the lowest object.

Adjust all selected objects to the same length according to the length of the last object
you dragged to the dialog.
Adjust all selected objects to the same length according to the length of the last object
you dragged to the dialog.
Adjust them to the same size according to the size of the last object you dragged to
the dialog.

The dialog patterns can be also set in the action pane:

Icon Operation
Add or remove the dotted filling patterns

Add or remove the bounding box.

To understand these components better, let us create a more complex Qapp to map and highlight
BGP AS configurations and neighbors with the following steps:

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(1) Use the BGP AS number from the configurations.
(2) Create a dialog for the user to select the BGP AS number.
(3) Create a map for the devices running BGP AS numbers and the related configurations.

Creating a Qapp containing multiple blocks or Canvas requires careful planning works before
writing the Qapp: for example, you have to think through how many canvas to be created; what
functions each Canvas or dialog performs.

In this example, we create three blocks in Execution Flow:

Block 1(Canvas): use Configuration commands to get BGP AS numbers.

Block 2（Dialogue）: create a dialog containing a List Control for the user to select the AS numbers.
The AS numbers available for the selections are set at the Block1. In order to set the values of the
list control, you must add a list control to the dialog.

Block 3(Canvas1): get the BGP AS numbers the user selected and map out the device and its BGP
configurations if the device includes the BGP AS number the user selects.

12.2.1 Dialogue Control

In this Qapp, since the primary purpose of Dialog is used to receive AS number from Canvas, let
us complete components of Dialogue first in the execution flow so that in Canvas can push
variable (AS number) to Dialogue.

Drag and drop a List Control to the dialog. Enlarge the list control and you will see that there are
two columns for the list control. Set its properties in the properties pane such as the name. There
are two key properties:

Multiselect: specifying whether the user can select multiple entries from the list. Here we keep

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the default value “True” since the user may want to create a map for multiple BGP AS devices.

Variables: the variables related to the columns. Click the Add Variables link at the bottom of the
properties pane to add a variable. You can add multiple variables for the list control. Here let us
add a string variable AS.

Add a static text field above the list control to tell the user what can be done for this object, such
as “Please select AS number(s):”

Also change the text of default OK button to Map and add a Cancel button. Align these objects
nicely in the dialog.

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12.2.2 Push Variable Value to Dialogue

After finishing dialog settings, set “Canvas” block. In the Canvas, create a “Configuration
Command” after “this” node.

To retrieve the BGP AS number in Command, select the Filter parser and then built-in Design
Reader Filter to filter out the BGP configurations. Under the filter parser, define a child keyword
parser,

router bgp $as

Export the variable “AS” to “Table” node and then define output. Rather than define “Alerts”,
“Map” or “Highlight” in Basic Output , we need to define a particular output to push the AS
number retrieved in the Canvas to the List Control columns of Dialog for selection and this
function can be achieved in “Advanced Output” by scripting.
Create an “Advanced Output” and define scripts under “Script for Row Data Analysis” tab:

if $as not in $Dialog.Listctrl.AS:

$dialogvalue = {"AS":$as}
$Dialog.Listctrl.AddRow($dialogvalue)

(1) The AS variable of the list control must be referred $Dialog.Listctrl.AS.

(2) $dialogvalue = {"AS":$as}, this script is to assign the value of the variable “$as” to the AS
variable of the list control.
(3) $Dialog.Listctrl.AddRow($dialogvalue), this script is to add a row for list control and the row
value is the value of “$as”

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12.2.3 Analysis and Output Based on Selection in Dialog

In this step, we will set the Qapp to map out and highlight the devices if the device includes the
BGP AS number selected in Dialog.

In the Block 3, add a Configuration Command and define parser exactly as Block 1.

Export the variables “$as” to “Table” node and create an “Advanced Output” for data in “Table”
node.

Define scripts under “Script for Row Data Analysis” tab as follows:
if str($as) in $Dialog.Listctrl.Selected.AS:
DrawDevice($this)
HighlightDeviceEx($this,"BGP AS: "+str($AS))

(1) if str($as) in $Dialog.Listctrl.Selected.AS: this script is to check whether the variable $as is in

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the $Dialog.Listctrl.Selected.AS, which means that AS number is selected by the user.
(2) DrawDevice($this). DrawDevice() is one of NetBrain Built-in scripts, by this script, you could
draw a device on map.

(3) HighlightDeviceEx($this,"BGP AS: "+str($AS)): HighlightDeviceEx () is one of NetBrain Built-

in scripts to highlight a device according to the string “legend name”. Here the legend name is the
string “$as”

Save and run the Qapp. The dialogs are displayed as follows:

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A sample out is as follows:

13. Using Predefined Tables to Analyze

Network Problems
In Qapp, there is a special kind of command and this kind of command exists in table format. In
writing Qapp, you could directly use and analyses the data in these tables without creating a
command to retrieve and parser them again.

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13.1 Understanding Built-in Data table

There are six types of built-in data tables and they are respectively Route Table, ARP Table, MAC
Table, CDP Table, STP Table and NCT Table.

The data of these six tables can be generated in retrieving live data and system benchmark. Once
these data are generated, you could use them directly in writing Qapp if needed.

Retrieve Live Data

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 Server Benchmark

13.2 Use and Analyze Predefined Data Table in Qapp

In this section, we are going to create a Qapp to highlight a device’s interface with VRF
information configuredand we will use these predefined tables.

Create a new Qapp. In the Canvas block, instead of creating a Command node to retrieve a
router’s route table by CLI command “show ip vrf”, here we select the predefined table “NCT Table”
after “this” node.

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In NCT Table node, click the drop-down menu and select “MPLS VRF”. Click “Retrieve Sample”
button and select a device with VRF information. In the table of the right pane, a sample vrf table
is displayed. By default, the data source is “Live Network”, and you could select “Current Baseline”
from the drop-down menu if you have run “server benchmark” before.
Mouse over the “Command_Table” node. Click and drag the mouse from the right edge of
“Command_Table” node to the right side. Release the mouse and select the “Advanced Output”
option in the popped-up menu

In the “Advanced Output”, we define “Hightlight” as follows:

if $Interface is not None:

DrawDevice($this)
HighlightInterface($this,$Interface,"VRF")

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The above scripts mean that if a devices has interfaces configured with VRF, the Qapp draw the
device on a map and hightlight the interface with VRF configured.

When you enter a netbrain built-in function in script window, the system will pop up all related
functions and thses functions’ calling style and you could follow the style to enter scrpits). For
example. When “HightlightInterface” is entered, the system pop up the style of this function as
follow:
HightlightInterface(str:oCurDev, Str:sIf, str:Legend, str:sMap="",)
In “str:oCurDev”, enter the current device that the Qapp is executed on.(in most cases, the current
device is $this)
Str:sIf means the device’s interface and enter the interface you want to highlight.
str:Legend means the map legend and the Qapp will display the legend name and hightlight map
based on legend.
There are other fields following these three most important fields, since they do not affect our
hightlight, just leave them empty.

Save and run the Qapp. A sample result is as follows:

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14. Using Qapp to Analyze Data of Imported
Table
In previous sections, all Qapps we have created are based on “Device Input” and the devices we
have input at Qapp execution are directly from workstation. In this section, we will introduce
how to create a Qapp based on “Table Input”.

With “Table Input”, you could import a CSV with device information, analyze the information and
give analysis results by Qapp.

In this section, we will import a table with core devices’ information to Qapp and create a Qapp to
check these devices’ version number for upgrade reference and export devices with relatively
lower version.

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14.1. Define Table input

Create a new General Qapp. In “Execution Flow” window, click “Table Input” Tab.

There are two ways to create a table: “New” and “New from CSV”.
(1) Create a table from “New” button
Click “New” button and a table with Name “Table” will be created. In the table of the right pane,
you could edit this table and fill in information. For example, click the default header name “Col1”
and modify it to “Hostname”.

Click “ ” and create a new column by “Static Variable” For example, create a column by

“Static Variable” and modify the default header name “var1” to “IP”.

For imported table, it value type is “string” by default and you could click the drop-down menu of

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value type to define it if necessary. For example, set the value type as “ip address” for IP column.

If you check the checkbox “Allow editing at run time”, row values such as “IP address” and “Device”
are changeable and you could modify them at Qapp execution.

After creating a new table and finishing editing row values, we need to go to “Device Input” tab
and set the Qapp to obtain devices from imported table.
Under “Device Group” type, select the option “Import from a table defined in Table Input”.

When you run the Qapp, the Qapp can automatically obtain the device(s) you have edit in the
table. You could also click option button “ ” to modify the row values.

(2) Create a table from “New from CSV” button

You could also create a table by importing a table to Qapp. Click “New from CSV” button and
“Import Table” window opens.

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To import a table successfully, there are some requirements about the format of imported table:

!! core devices and each device's Management IP

##table1 count_device(int)=3

Device Management IP(ip address)

BJ-R1 10.10.10.1
BJ-R2 10.10.10.2

BJ-R3 10.10.10.3

The First Row: the description of this table. The description contents must start with “!!”. This row
is optional and your table do not have to have this row.
The Second Row: the first column of the second row is the table name that starts with “##” and
it is required. The second column and its subsequent columns of the second row could be the
attribute about the table, such as row counts.
The Third Row: Header of each column, such as “hostname”, “IP”. The value type of imported
headers are “string” and please modify them after importing the table.

In our sample, we are going to import a table with core devices. To import the table successfully,
fill in table content as follows:

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Import the table to Qapp and it displays as shown in the figure below:

After importing the table successfully, go to “Device Input” tab and check the option “Import from
a table defined in Table Input” so that the Qapp could obtain devices defined in the table.

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If there are multiple tables, you need to define the table that you want to input in the step 1. In
the step2, define which column is used as the index of device.

14. 2 Define Variables and Parser for Imported Data

In this step, we are going to define variables for the data in table and define parser to retrieve
wanted variables and values.

In “Canvas”, click “Device Queue” node and select to create “Device Queue” from “Table”.

Export the variables that you are interested with to device queue table. In this sample, export
“Hostname” and “IP”. Click the variable “Hostname” and check the checkbox “Set as device” to

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set “Hostname” column as device list.
After finishing settings, click “Apply” button and the device queue table will display as follows:

Click “this” node and select “Hostname” as device selector. Since there is only one device column,
the system selects “Hostname” by default.

In “Command” node, input “show version” and define variable and parser as follows:

Version $double:version\(3\), RELEASE

Export the variable “version” to table node.

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14. 3 Analyze Table Data

In this step, we are define analysis and export the version number of devices defined in the
imported table to a CSV file.

Since “Export CSV” is only available for a global data table, it needs to convert the table to global
type by the table operator “Convert”.

After “Table1” (a global table), create an “Output” node and define it as follows:

If “$_device” is not none

Create a “CSV Export”

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Save and run the Qapp. The Qapp automatically obtains the devices defined in the input table.

15. Using Qapp in Multi-vendor environment

Quite often, in our network, there are devices from different vendors or even different device
types from one same device vendor. To resolve network problems in multi-vendor network, it is
relatively complicated since we sometimes need to define different CLI commands based on
different device vendors or different types from one same vendor.

To tackle with this challenge, Qapp integrates a multi-vendor platform by “Device Selector”,
allowing users to writing one Qapp that could be applicable to multi-vendor devices.

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In this chapter, we will create a Qapp to highlight devices(Cisco IOS XR, Cisco Nexus switch and
Cisco IOS Router Switch) configured with EIGRP routing protocol. We are going to check whether
a Cisco IOS XR is configured by CLI command “show ip protocols”, Cisco Nexus switch by “show
ip eigrp” and Cisco IOS Router Switch by “show ip protocols”.

15.1 Set Branch Conditions for Different Device Types

(Vendors)

Create a new General Qapp. In the “Canvas” block, click “this” node.

By default, a Qapp has one branch named as “Default”. Click “Insert Branch” button to create
another branch. For three types of devices, we here create three branches.

Click one branch tab and edit it accordingly.

For Cisco IOS Router Switch, define as follows:

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For Cisco Nexus switch, define it as follows:

For Cisco IOS XR, define it as follows:

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15.2 Define Different Commands for Different Device Types
(Vendors)

Based on different device types/vendors, we could respectively define different commands for
them. When a device is passed to Device Selector, the Device Selector will check the device type
of this device and decides to use which branch (which command node).

In our sample, after “this” node, we define three command nodes. For Cisco IOS Router Switch,
select “Cisco IOS Router Switch” in the drop-down menu of “Apply to Device Selector Branch:”
and enter CLI command “show ip protocols”;

For Cisco Nexus Switch, select “Cisco Nexus Switch” in the drop-down menu of “Apply to Device
Selector branch:” and CLI command “show ip eigrp”

For Cisco IOS XR, select “Cisco IOS XR” in the drop-down menu of “Apply to Device Selector
Branch:” and enter CLI Command “show ip protocols”.

After defining device selector branch for a command, the realtion between a device selector
branch and a command in the flowchart is show as the figure below：

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Highlight EIGRP As number and define parser to retrieve the “AS” value.

Cisco IOS Router Switch:

Cisco IOS XR:

Cisco Nexus switch:

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Click any of these three command nodes and create a “Table” node. Hover your mouse over the
one of the other two command nodes, drag the arrow line, and make the line lead to “Table Node”.

Export the variable “AS” to “Table” node respectively for these three command nodes. Please
note that for different command nodes, it is suggested to define the variable with same name.

For a device, it just belongs to one device type or device vendor and will therefore pass one branch.
That is why it is ok to define just one table node for multiple device type or vendors.

Next, we could define an output node and highlight the devices with EIGRP routing protocols.

If “$AS” is not none (which means that a device is configured with EIGRP)

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Then map the device and Highlight AS number:

Save and run the Qapp, a sample output is as follows:

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16. Qapp Management

16.1 Degug Qapp

“Debug Qapp” function is to execute Qapp node by node and check whether the procedures in
Qapp run correctly. During Debug, you can check the correctness of any table data visually by
click any canvas node.

Here we take the Qapp created in Chapter 15 (Qapp to highlight devices configured with EIGRP
routing protocol) for example.

(1) To debug a Qapp, click the “Debug” icon at the top menu bar. The Qapp will run in debug mode.

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(2) Click the “Continue (F5)” button and “Debug Input” dialogue box pops up. Click “…” button to
select devices for debug and click “OK” to start debug.

(3) To view detail of each step, click “Step Into (F11)” and the Qapp debug will display the step it
is processing. Click the “V” button to extend more detailed debug information.

In Canvas block, keeping click “Step Info(F11)”, you could view what the Qapp have done at each
node in the Canvas. For example, at “this” node, the devices match the branch “Cisco IOS Router
Switch” and the “Cisco IOS Router Switch” tab are highlighted and its content are in grey;

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By the debug, you will find that a Qapp just loop one row of the Device Queue table at one time.
In our sample, we have selected two devices. It first loop the first row “BJ*POP” and then loop the
second row “BSTX.Core” after finishing retrieving and analyzing the value of “BJ*POP”.

Keep pressing “Step Info(F11)” till the Qapp goes to “Output” node. If Qapp works properly, it
will give out analysis results according to your settings in “Output” node.
For the devices we have selected for debug, the sample result is as follows:

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Click “View Logs” hyperlink, you could click execution logs of the Qapp and data table retrieved
during execution process.

During debug, you could click “Step Over (F10)” to step over the current step and “Step Out (F12)”
to step out of the current step.

16.2 Qapp Task Management

Qapp Task is used to group Qapps together for a common task or technology. The Device and
Table Input for each Qapp can be defined in advance so that Qapps can be run directly. If import
a map to task, the devices on map will be considered as Device Input, and the execution result will
be displayed on this map directly.

It takes two steps to create Qapp Task:

1. Define Task
Under “Qapp” tab, click “New Task” in “Qapp Task Operation” ribbon to open “Qapp Task
Properties” window.

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Name: by default, the name of the task is ‘Task1”. You could replace it with a more meaningful
name.

Description: To describe the function of Qapp in this field.

Qmap Page: you could save important devices to a map. Import the map to a task and the task
will automatically take devices in the map as device input at execution.

Add Qmap: Click “Add Qapp” button and the “Run Qapp” window opens. Select one or multiple
Qapps to the task.

Device Input: after adding Qapps to task, define devices on which you want to run the task. If you
have imported a map by “Map Page”, the task will display “From Map”. Besides the devices on a
map, you could also add more devices.

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2. Save and run the Task

Click “OK” and save the task. In “Qapp Task Operation” ribbon, click “Run Task” and select the
task that you want to run.

Click “Run” button, a sample out is as follows:

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Note:
(1) In the “Qapp Center” pane, right-click a file folder, such as “Built-in Files”, “Shared Files” or
“My Files” and select “Import Files” to add a local task file to the Qapp Center for management.

(2) You could follow the same way to create General Qapp Task to create Monitor Qapp Task

16.3 Qapp Recommendation

Qapp Recommendation is to recommend one or multiple frequently used Qapps for certain
devices. When running a Qapp, the system will prompt recommended devices related to the
Qapp for reference.

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When right-clicking a device to run a Qapp, recommended Qapps related to the device will be
displayed in the menu.

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To create Recommendation Qapps for certain devices, under “Qapp” tab, click “Recommendation”
in the “Other” ribbon.

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Click “Add” button and “Add Shared Recommendation” window opens.

In “comment” field, enter description about the recommended Qapp, and under “Device”, click
“Add” button to add recommended devices.

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Under “Qapp”, click “Add” button to add recommended Qapps in Qapp Center for the
recommended devices. Please note that only built-in and shared Qapp in Qapp Center is available
for recommendation.

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Click “OK” button and in “Qapp Recommendation” window click “close” to save and exit.

Run any Qapp you have recommended and under “Recommend Qapp” check the recommended
devices for the Qapp.

Right-click the recommended devices map, in the menu view recommended Qapps for the device.
The number behind is each recommended Qapp is the counts the Qapp run on the device.

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Appendix 1. NetBrain Built-in Variables
NetBrain Built-in Variables:

Variable Name Description Note

$_device A global PyDevice object It is a simple PyDevice
representing the device on object and not an array of
which the Qapp is run. PyDevice objects. The
Qapp is automatically
looped through each of the
selected devices and
$ _device is the device on
which the Qapp is run now.

$_device_queue A variable representing the

device queue table that the
Qapp loops on.
$_command The Command that the
output is based on

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 Appendix 2. NetBrain Built-in Functions

2.1 Global functions: General Functions

Function Name Description Example

list() Create an empty Array, same as the function $list1 = list()

List() of Python script.

PyTable() Create an empty table. It returns a PyTable $Table1= PyTable ()

object.

PyIP(stringip) Create a PyIP object. The input string can have $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1
the following formats： 255.255.255.0”)
•1.1.1.1
•1.1.1.1/24
•1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0

PyMac(strmacaddress) Create a PyMac object. The input MAC $mac1=

address string can have the following PyMac(“aaaaaa.bbbbbb”)
formats：
•aaaaaa.bbbbbb
•aaaaaa-bbbbbb
•aaaaaabbbbbb
•aaaaaa:bbbbbb
•aaaaaa/bbbbbb
•aaaa.bbbb.cccc
•aaaa-bbbb-cccc
•aaaabbbbcccc
•aaaa:bbbb:cccc
•aaaa/bbbb/cccc
•aa.bb.cc.dd.ee.ff
•aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff
•aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
•aa/bb/cc/dd/ee/ff

PyInterface(stringsIP) Create a PyInterface object from an IP $interface1 =

address. PyInterface(“1.1.1.1”)

PyInterface( Create a PyInterface object from a hostname $interface1 =

and an interface name. PyInterface(“R1”, “e0/0”)

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stringsDevice,
stringsInterface)

PyDevice(stringdev) Create a PyDevice object with a hostname. $dev1 = PyDevice(“R1”)

GetMax (list:array) Get the maximum value from a list. List1 = [1,2,4,5,6]
$variable1 = GetMax(List1)

GetMin (list:array) Get the minimum value from a list. List1 = [1,2,4,5,6]
$variable1 = GetMin(List1)

GetInterface(string sIp) Get an interface object from an IP address. $inteface1 =

GetInterface(“1.1.1.1”)

GetDevice(string Get a device object by the hostname or IP $device1 = GetDevice

sNameOrIP) address. (“1.1.1.1”)
$device2 = GetDevice (“R1”)

GetDevice(PyIP IP) Get a device object by the IP address (the $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1/24”)
input is a PyIP object, not a string). $device1 = GetDevice ($ip1)

NewDeviceAttribute(sFiel Add a new customized attribute for the device NewDeviceAttribute(“Field

d) properties. 1”)

NewInterfaceAttribute(sF Add a new customized attribute for the NewInterfaceAttribute

ield) interface properties. (“Field1”)

NewModuleAttribute(sFi Add a new customized attribute for the NewModuleAttribute

eld) module properties. (“Field1”)

SetDeviceAttribute(sDev Set the value of a customized attribute for a SetDeviceAttribute(“R1”,

Name, sField, sValue) device. “Field1”, “value1”)

SetInterfaceAttribute(sD Set the value of a customized attribute for an SetInterfaceAttribute (“R1”,

evName, sIfName, sField, interface. “e0/0”,“Field1”, “value1”)
sValue)

SetModuleAttribute(sDev Set the value of a customized attribute for a SetModuleAttribute (“R1”,

Name, sModule, sField, module. “slot1”,“Field1”, “value1”)
sValue):

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IfNameFullToBkn(sIfNam Return the short interface name given a full $ifname =
e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(“ethernet
0/0”)
$ifname will be ”e0/0”

IfNameFullToMib(sIfNam Return the MIB interface name given a full $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(“ethernet
0/0”)
$ifname will be ”eth0/0”

IfNameBknToFull(sIfNam Return the full interface name given a short $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(”e0/0”)
$ifname will
be “ethernet0/0”

IfNameBknToOriFull(sIfN Return the original full interface name given a $ifname =

ame) short interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(”e0/0”)
$ifname will be
“ethernet0/0”

IfNameBknToMib(sIfNam Return the MIB interface name given a short $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(”e0/0”)
$ifname will be “eth0/0”

IfNameMibToFull(sIfNam Return the full interface name given a MIB $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(”eth0/0”)
$ifname will be
“ethernet0/0”

IfNameMibToBkn(sIfNam Return the short interface name given a MIB $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(”eth0/0”)
$ifname will be “e0/0”

IfNameBkn(sDev, Return the short interface name given a device $ifname =

sIfName) and a long interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(“R1”,
“ethernet0/0”)
$ifname will be ”e0/0”

MapAutoLayout( sMap='', Auto layout a map page. The inputs are: MapAutoLayout( “c:\\Test.q
sPage='', nPageType=1) •sMap: the full filename of the map. If it is map”, “L3 Page1”)
empty, then the function is applied to the
current map; if no current map is open,
the system will create a new map.
•sPage: the name of the page. If it is
empty, the function will apply to the
current page of the current map; if no

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 current page exists, the function is
applied to the first page of the map.
•nPageType : the page type (int)
➢1 f 1 for L3 page (default).
➢2 2 For L2 page.

MapAutoLink( sMap='', Autolink a map page. Refer to the function MapAutoLink

sPage='') MapAutoLayout for the inputs. ( “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
Page1”)

DrawDevice( Dev, Draw a device in a map page. DrawDevice( “R1”, True,

bAutoLink=True, sMap='', •Dev: the string (device name) or “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
sPage='') PyDevice object. Page1”)
•bAutoLink: autolink between this device
and other devices already in the map
page.
•sMap and sPage: see the function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawDeviceIf(Dev, sIf, Draw a device interface in a map page. DrawDevice( “R1”,”e0”,

sMap='', sPage='') •Dev: the string (device name) or “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
PyDevice object. Page1”)
•sIf: the interface name (string).
•sMap and sPage: see the function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawNeighbor( Dev, Draw a device and its neighbor in a map page. DrawNeighbor ( “R1”,”R2”,
sNbrDevice, sMap='', •Dev: the string (device name) or “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
sPage='') PyDevice object. Page1”)
•sNbrDevice: the neighbor device name
(string).
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawIfNeighbor( Dev, sIf, Draw an interface and the neighbor device DrawIfNeighbor ( “R1”,”e0”,
sNbrDevice, sMap='', connected by the interface in a map page. “r2”,“c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
sPage='') •Dev: the string (device name) or Page1”)
PyDevice object.
•sIf: the interface name (string).
•SNbrDevice: the name of the neighbor
device (string). If it is empty, only the
interface is drawn.
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

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DrawDeviceNote( Dev, Draw a device note in a map page. DrawDeviceNote ( “R1”,”My
sNote, sMap='', sPage='') •Dev: the string (device name) or R1 Note”,“c:\\Test.qmap”,
PyDevice object. “L3 Page1”)
•sNote: the note content (string).
•sMap and sPage: see the function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawDeviceNoteEx( Dev, Draw the device note in a map page. DrawDeviceNoteEx( “R1”,
sTitle, sNote, nStyle, •Dev: the string (device name) or “Title”,”My R1 Note”, 0,
sMap='', sPage='', PyDevice object. “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
nPageType=1) •sTitle: the note title (string) Page1” , 1)
•sNote: the note content (string)
•nStyle: the map note style (int): 0 is the
error (read), 1 is the warning (green) and
2 is information (black)
•sMap, sPage and nPageType: see the
function MapAutoLayout.

DrawMapNote( sNote, Draw a map note in a map page. DrawMapNote (”My Map
sMap='', sPage='' ) •sNote: the note content (string). Note”,“c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
•sMap and sPage: see the function Page1”)
MapAutoLayout.

DrawMapNoteEx( sTitle, Draw the map note in a map page with the DrawMapNoteEx(“Title”,”M
sNote, nStyle, sMap='', title and customized style: y Map Note”, 2,
sPage='', nPageType=1 ) •sTitle: the note title (string) “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
•sNote: the note content (string) Page1”)
•NStyle: the map note style (int). 0 is the
error (read), 1 is the warning (green) and
2 is information (black).
• sMap, sPage and nPageType: see the
function MapAutoLayout.

DrawDeviceSmartNote( Draw the device note in a map with DrawDeviceSmartNote( “R1

Dev, sTitle, sNote, customized style of font, color and display. ”, “Title”, ”My Map Note”,
nSNType = SN_APPEND, •Dev: the string (device name) or sNote, 0 , False, RGB(0,0,0),
bExpand = False, PyDevice object. 8, 0, RGB(0,0,0), 16711680,
fontColor = RGB(0,0,0), •sTitle: the note title (string) “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
fontSize = 8, fontAlign = •sNote: the note content (string) Page1”)
ALIGN_LEFT, frameColor •nSNType: display method of new device
= RGB(0,0,0), note (int) :
backgroundColor = ➢0 (default value): Only two duplicated
RGB(255,255,128), device note entries can be shown within
sMap='', sPage='', device note field, each with the time
nPageType=1): stamp that the entry was generated. If a

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 new device note entry is duplicated with
an existing note, the system will only
update the time stamp of the 2nd
duplicated entry. The new device note
entry that is not duplicated with any of
the existing entries will be appended at
the end with the time stamp.
➢1: new generated device note entry will
overwrite the exiting device note entry no
matter it is duplicated or not.

➢2：Only one duplicated device note

entry can be shown within device note

field. If the new device note entry is
duplicated with existing note, the system
will update the time stamp of the existing
entry. New device note entry that is
not duplicated with any of the existing
entries will be appended to the end with
the time stamp.

•bExpand: show the device note in the

collapse mode or expanded mode.
➢True: expanded mode.
➢False (default value): the collapsed
mode.
•fontColor: Define the fond color.
•fontSize: Defines the font size.
•fontAlign: Defines the alignment
method.
➢ALIGN_LEFT = 0
➢CENTER = 1
➢ALIGN_RIGHT = 2
•frameColor: Defines the color of the
frame.
•backgroudColor: Defines the
background color.

Note: To define the color for fontColor,

fontSize and frameColor, you can use the
format of RBG(a,b,c), or use the RBG int
calculated by these three primary colors.
Frequently used RGB Int are shown as below:

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 BLACK_COLOR = 0
RED_COLOR = 255
ORANGE_COLOR = 33023
GREEN_COLOR = 65280
YELLOW_COLOR = 65535
BLUE_COLOR = 16711680
PINK_COLOR = 16711935
CYAN_COLOR = 16776960
WHITE_COLOR = 16777215
•sMap, sPage and nPageType :
see function MapAutoLayout

DrawHyperLink( sDisplay, Draw a hyperlink in a map page. DrawHyperLink ( ”My Map

sUrl, sMap='', sPage='') •sDisplay: the content displayed in the Hyperlink”,
hyperlink (string). “Http://www.google.com”,“
•sUrl: the URL (string). c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3 Page1”)
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawProcedureHyperLin Draw a hyperlink pointing to the procedures in $Procedure1=[“c:\\Procedur

k( sDisplay, listProc, a map page. e1.qapp”, {“SrcIP”:”1.1.1.1”}]
IsAttachMap=False, •sDisplay: the content displayed in the $Procedure2=[“c:\\Procedur
sMap='', sPage='') hyperlink (string). e2.qapp”,
•listProc: the list of procedures and their {“DestIP”:”1.1.1.1”}]
input variables. $ Procedurelist =
•IsAttachMap: whether to attach the [$Procedure 1,$ Procedure
procedures to the map. 2]
•sMap and sPage: see function DrawProcedureHyperLink
MapAutoLayout. ( ”Run Procedure1”,
$Procedurelist,
False,“c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
Page1”)

DrawHop( Dev0, If0, Draw a path hop in a map page. DrawHop( “r1”, “e0”, “r2”,
Dev1, If1='', sText='', •Dev0: the source device name (string) or “e1”, “1.1.1.1”, -1,
nStyle=0, sMap='', PyDevice object. “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
sPage='') •If0: the output interface name of the Page1”)
source device (string).
•Dev1: the destination device name
(string) or PyDevice object.
•If1: the input interface name of the
destination device (string).
•sText: the content of the hop (string).

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 •sStyle: the style of the hop (string). Can
be -1 (random) or 0-4 (different built-in
styles).
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

HighlightDevice( Dev, Highlight a device in a map page. HighlightDevice ( “r1”, “BGP

sLegendName, sMap='', •Dev: the string (device name) or 100”, “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
sPage='') PyDevice object. Page1”)
•sLegendName: the name of the legend.
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

HighlightInterface( Dev, Highlight an interface in a map page. HighlightInterface ( “r1”,

sIf, sLegendName, •Dev: the string (device name) or “e0”, “Ospf 1”,
sMap='', sPage='' ) PyDevice object. “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
•sIf: the interface name (string). Page1”)
•sLegendName: the name of the legend.
•sMap and sPage: see function
MapAutoLayout.

DeleteDeviceNoteInMap( Delete a device note in a map page. DeleteDeviceNoteInMap

Dev, sTitle, sNote, •Dev: the string (device name) or ( “R1”, “Title”,”My R1 Note”,
sMap='', sPage='', PyDevice object. “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
nPageType=1 ): •sTitle: the note title (string) Page1” , 1)
•sNote: the note content (string)
•sMap, sPage and nPageType :
see function MapAutoLayout.

GetRootDir() Return the full directory of the NetBrain OE $dir = GetRootDir()

Workstation installation folder.

GetCurrentWorkspaceDir Return the full directory of the current $dir =

() workspace folder. GetCurrentWorkpaceDir ()

GetL2NeighborIPs(sDevic Get the IP address(es) of L2 neighbor(s) from a $IPs =

e, sInterface) hostname and an interface name. L2 GetL2NeighborsIPs(“R1”,
neighbors are retrieved from the backend L2 “e0/0”)
topology. The return variable is a list and each
entry within the list is a PyIP.

GetL2Neighbors(sDevice, Get the interface name(s) of L2 neighbor(s) $Interfaces =

sInterface) from a hostname and an interface name. L2 GetL2Neighbors (“R1”,
neighbors are retrieved from the backend L2 “e0/1”)
topology. The return variable is a list and each
entry within the list is a PyInterface.

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GetDevicesInLan(sLan) Get the devices within a LAN segment from $Devices =
the workspace data. The return variable is a GetDevicesInLan(“1.1.10/24
list and each entry within the list is a PyDevice. ”)

GetConnectedSwitchPort Get the interface name(s) of L2 neighbor(s) GetConnectedSwitchPort

(sDevice, sInterface) from a hostname and an interface name. L2 (“R1”, “e0/1”)
neighbors are retrieved from the backend L2
topology. The return variable is a list and each
entry within the list is a PyInterface.

AddSwitchConn(strDevic Add a switch connectivity entry to the existing AddSwitchConn(“switch1”,”

e1, strPort1, strDevice2, switch connectivity table. port1”,”switch2”,”port2”,Fal
strPort2, bInDiscover) •bInDiscover: Represents whether the se)
entry was added via the live L2 discovery.
You can set this to be False for manually
added entries.

AddOnIpMacTable(strLan Add an entry to the one-IP-table. AddOnIpMacTable

, strIp, strMac, strAlias, •strLan: the LAN segment to which the
（“1.1.1.0/24”，
strGateway, iStatus, entry belongs.
strDeviceName, •strIp: the IP address of the entry.
“1.1.1.1”，
strInterface, iServerType, •strMac: the Mac address of the entry.
iSwitchType, •strAlias: the alias of the entry. “FFFF::FFF::FFFF”,”alias1”,”
strSwitchName, •strGateway: the gateway device of the gate1”,1,”r1”,”e0/1”,
strPortName, iUserFlag, IP to be added. 1,1,”switch1”,”port1”,
iVlan) •iStatus : 0,100）
•strDeviceName: the switch name
connected to the IP address.
•strPortName: the port name connected
to the IP address.
•iUserFlag: can be 0 (manually added) or
1. (auto discovered).
•iVLAN: VLAN number to which this IP
address belongs .

GetARandomDevice() Get a random device from the workspace. The $device1 =

return variable is a list; the only entry within GetARandomDevice()
the list is a PyDevice.

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GetRandomDevicesInIsla Get random devices from the workspace, one $devices =
nd() random device will be select for each island GetRandomDevicesInIsland
automatically created by the system. The
return variable is a list; each entry with the list
is a PyDevice.

FindVendorbyMac(mac): Get the vendor information from the MAC $string1 =

address. FindVendorbyMac

（“FFFF::FFF::FFFF”）

ReadFile(sFileName, Return the file content from a given path. The $content1 =
PathType = 0): return value is None if the system fails to read ReadFile(“c:\test.txt”, 0)
the file.
•sFileName: the path of the file, can be
absolute path or relative path depending
on the input value given by PathType.
•PathType:
➢0: the absolute path.
➢1: the relative path relative to RootDir,
see function GetRootRir function.
➢2: the relative path relative to the
workspace directory.

WriteFile(sFileName, Write the content to a file. The return variable WriteFile (“c:\test.txt”,
sContent, Mode=”w”, is True or False indicating whether the “ddddfssdfsd”, “w”, 0)
PathType = 0): operation is successful.
•sFilename: see function ReadFile.
•sContent: The content to be written to the file.
•Mode: The method to write the content.
➢“w” : Overwrite the existing content within the
specified file with the input content.
➢“ap” : Append the input content to the end of the
existing content within the specified file.
•PathType: see function ReadFile.

GetCurrentRT(dev, vrf = Return the (vrf) routing table for the device.
GetCurrentRT（”r1”，
"") The routing table is retrieved from the live
network. The return variable is a PyTable. “red”）

GetBaselineRT(dev, vrf = Return the (vrf) routing table for the device.
GetCurrentRT（”r1”，
""): The routing table is retrieved from the current
workspace. The return variable is a PyTable. “red”）

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DeleteMapNote(sTitle, Delete a map note in a map page. DeleteMapNote(“title”,
sNote, sMap='', sPage='', •sNote: the note content (string). “note content”)
nPageType=L3PAGE) •sMap, sPage and nPageType :
see function MapAutoLayout.

HighlightDeviceEx(Dev, Highlight a device in a map page. This is an HighlighDeviceEx(“r1”,

sLegendName, color = improved function for HighlightDevice(). You “r1_legend”, 255)
RANDOM_COLOR, can append highlight color to existing
bAppend = True, sMap='', highlight color.
sPage='', •Dev: the string (device name) or
nPageType=L3PAGE) PyDevice object.
•sLegendName: the name of the legend.
•Color : Define the color of the highlight
line, by default it is the random. See
function DrawDeviceSmartNote on how
to define color code.
•bAppend: Whether to append the
highlight color.
•sMap, sPage and nPageType :
see function MapAutoLayout.

DrawInterfaceNoteEx(De Draw interface note in a map page. DrawInterfaceNoteEx(“R1”,

v, sIf, sTitle, sNote, •Dev: the string (device name) or “e1/1”, “Title”, ”My Map
fontColor = RGB(0,0,0), PyDevice object. Note”, RGB(0,0,0), 8, 0,
fontSize = 8, fontAlign = •sIf: the interface name (string). RGB(0,0,0), 16711680,
ALIGN_LEFT, frameColor •sTitle: sTitle: the note title (string) “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
= RGB(0,0,0), •sNote: the note content (string) Page1”)
backgroundColor = •fontColor, fontSize, fontAlign, frameColor and
RGB(255,255,128), backgroundColor: see function
sMap='', sPage='', DrawDeviceSmartNote
nPageType=1) •sMap, sPage and nPageType : see function
MapAutoLayout.

DrawInterfaceSmartNote Draw interface smart note in a map page. This DrawInterfaceSmartNote( “

( Dev, sIf, sTitle, sNote, is an improved function for R1”, “e1/1”, “Title”, ”My
nSNType = SN_APPEND, DrawInterfaceNoteEx(). Map Note”, sNote, 0 , False,
bExpand = False, •Dev: the string (device name) or RGB(0,0,0), 8, 0,
fontColor = RGB(0,0,0), PyDevice object. RGB(0,0,0), 16711680,
fontSize = 8, fontAlign = •sIf: the interface name (string). “c:\\Test.qmap”, “L3
ALIGN_LEFT, frameColor •sTitle: the note title (string) Page1”)
= RGB(0,0,0), •sNote: the note content (string)
backgroundColor = •other arguments: see function
RGB(255,255,128), DrawDeviceSmartNote()
sMap='', sPage='',
nPageType=L3PAGE):

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DeleteDeviceNoteInMap Delete a device note in a map page. DeleteInterfaceNoteInMap(
( Dev, sIf, sTitle, sNote, •Dev: the string (device name) or “bjgw”, “f0/0”, “t1”, “n1”)
sMap='', sPage='', PyDevice object.
nPageType=L3PAGE ) •sIf: the interface name (string).
•sTitle: the note title (string)
•sNote: the note content (string)
•sMap, sPage and nPageType :
see function MapAutoLayout.

HighlightNeighbor( sSrcD Highlight the neighboring device and draw an HighlightNeighbor(“r1”,

ev, sDesDev, sLName, arrow from the source device to the “r2”, “legend”, “r1_txt”,
sSrcText = '', sDesText = neighboring device. “r2_txt”)
'', color = •sSrcDev : Source device.
RANDOM_COLOR, •sDesDev: Destination device.
bSingle = False, •sLName: The legend name.
nLinkThick = 2, •sSrcText: Text on the source arrow.
nLineStyle = PS_DOT, •sDesTest: Text on the destination arrow.
sMap='', sPage='', •Color: Define the color of the highlight line, by
nPageType=L3PAGE ) default it’s random. See function
DrawDeviceSmartNote for how to define color
code.
•bSingle: defines the line type (bool).
■True: one-arrow line pointed to the destination
device.
■False: two-arrow line pointed to the source and
destination device.
•nLinkThick: Defines the width of the line.
•nLineStyle: Defines the style of the line:
➢PS_SOLID(0) ----------------
➢PS_DASH(1) -------
➢PS_DOT(2, default)
.......
➢PS_DASHDOT(3) _._._._
➢PS_DASHDOTDOT(4) _.._.._
•sMap, sPage and nPageType : see function
MapAutoLayout.

HighlightInterfaceEx( Dev Highlight an interface in a map page. This is an HighlightInterfaceEx(“bjgw

, sIf, sLegendName, color improved function of HighlightInterface. ”, “g0/0”, “legend”,
= RANDOM_COLOR, •Color: define the color of the highlight RGB(255,0,0)
sMap='', sPage='', line. The default value is random. See
nPageType=L3PAGE ) function DrawDeviceSmartNote for how
to define color code.

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 •For other arguments, see function
HighlightInterface.

CompareText(sDev1, Check whether two paragraphs of texts are the CompareText(“txt1”,”title1”

sTitle1, sContent1, sDev2, same. , “content1”, “txt2”, “title2”,
sTitle2, sContent2) •sDev1: the source device to be “content2”)
compared. It can be the string (device
name) or the PyDevice object.
•sTitle1: the title of the device.
•sContent1: the contents of the source
device.
•sDev2: the other device to be compared.
It can be the string (device name) or the
PyDevice object.
•sTitle2: the title of the other device
•sContent2: the contents of the other
device.

DRCompare(sDev1, Check whether the config lets for two devices DRCompare(“bjgw”, “Full
sFilterName1, sDev2, filtered by design reader are same. Configuration”, “LA_Core”,
sFilterName2) •sDev1: the source device to be compared. It can be “Full Configuration”)
the string (device name) or the PyDevice object.
•sFilterName1: the Design Filter name applied to
the source device device1.
•sDev2: The other device to be compared. . It can
be the string (device name) or the PyDevice object.
•sFilterName2: the Design Filter name applied to
device2.

DrawEndSystemFromOn Draw an end system to a map page. DrawEndSystemFromOneI

eIp( sIpOrMac, sMap='',•sIpOrMac: the IP address (string) or MAC address p(“10.10.10.33”)
sPage='', (string) of the device.
nPageType=L2PAGE ) •sMap and sPage: see function MapAutoLayout.
•nPageType: the page type (int). End
system will be drawn on L2 map page by
default.

AddDeviceToDeviceGrou Add a device to a device group. AddDeviceToDeviceGroup(

p(dev, strgroupname, •dev: The string (device name) or PyDevice object. ”r1”, “dg1”, 1)
ntype = None) •Strgroupname : device group name.
•ntype: the property of device group. It
can be 1 (static) or 2 (dynamic).

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 Note: the device group must exist in the
workspace.

ET_AddDevice(sDev, Add a new device to the topology. ET_AddDevice($_device.Ho

itype) •Device Name: the hostname of the device. stName(), 1004 )
•Device Type: the type of the device you want to
add (int). You need to enter the integer that
represents the device type, refer to section
Appendix 2H for device type code.

ET_AddDMVPN(devnam Add a new DMVPN cloud to the topology. ET_AddDMVPN($DMVPN,

e, subnet) •devname: the name of the DMVPN cloud 10.10.10.0/24)
•Subnet: the subnet address of the DMVPN cloud

ET_AddInterface(dev, Add a Layer 3 interface to a device. ET_AddInterface(“nb_route

ifname, iplist) •dev: the hostname of the device. r1”, ”e1/1”, “192.168.1.1/24”
•ifname: an interface name that you want to add.
•IP list: the optional argument, IP address of the
interface you want to add and the format is
IP/Mask, for example 1.1.1.1/24. You can define
more than one IP addresses for the interface.

ET_AddIPtoInterface(dev
Add an IP address to an interface of a device. ET_AddIPtoInterface(“R1”,”
, ifname, ip) See function ET_AddInterface for the input. e1/1”, “1.1.1.1/24”)

ET_AddLAN(lanname, Add a LAN Segment to the workspace. ET_AddLAN($LAN,

subnet) •lanname: the name of the LAN segment. “1.1.1.0/24”)
•subnet: the subnet address of the LAN

ET_AddLink(srcdev, srcif, Add a link between two interfaces. ET_AddLink(“R1”, “e1/1”,

srcip, dstdev, dstif, dstip,
•srcdev: the string (device name) or PyDevice “1.1.1.1”,
linktype) object of the source device. “R2”,”e2/1”,”1.1.1.2”, 1)
•Source Interface: the source interface of the link
•Source IP: the IP address of the source interface
•Destination Device: the hostname of the
destination device of the link
•Destination Interface: the destination interface of
the link
•Destination IP: the IP address of the destination
interface

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 •Link Type (integer): the type of the link.
➢1: serial
➢2: VPN
➢3 :StandBy

ET_AddWAN(wanname, Add a WAN cloud. ET_AddWAN(“R1”,

subnet) •wanname: the name of the WAN segment. “1.1.1.0/24”)
•Subnet: the subnet address of the WAN cloud

ET_DisableInterface(dev, Disable an interface in the workspace. ET_DisableInterface(“R1”,”e

ifname) •dev: the string (device name) or PyDevice object of 1/1”)
the source device.
•ifname: the interface name
Note: if AN interface is disabled, all links
connected to this interface will also be disabled.

ET_RemoveLink(srcdev, Remove a link between two interfaces. ET_RemoveLink(“R1”,

srcif, srcip, dstdev, dstif, See function ET_AddLink for the input “e1/1”, “1.1.1.1”,
dstip, linktype) arguments. “R2”,”e2/1”,”1.1.1.2”, 1)

GetCurrentWorkspaceDir Get the current workspace directory. $dir =

() GetCurrentWorkspaceDir()

IfNameMibToFull(sIfNam Return the full interface name given a MIB $ifname =

e) interface name. IfNameFullToBkn(“eth0/0”)
$ifname will be
“ ethernet0/0”

GetOneIpRecords(strIp = Get a list of IP table entries: GetOneIpRecords($IP)

"", strMac = "", dev = •strip: the IP address. GetOneIpRecords()
None, strPort = "") •strMac: the Mac address
•dev : the device name
•strPort : the port name (string)
Note: if no arguments are defined, all entries
will be returned.

GetSwitchConnRecords(d Return a list of switch connectivity. $swtich_connectivity =

ev = None, strPort = "")•dev : the device name GetSwtichConnRecords
( $dev1, $port_name )
•strPort ：port name (string)

Note: if the port name is not specified, the

function returns all connections of the specified

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 device. If no device is specified, all switch
connectivity entries will be returned.

GetDevStatus(dev) Return an integer: 1 if the device is up, 0 if the $dev_status =

device is down, and -1 if the system fails to get GetDevStatus($_device)
the device status.
•dev: the string (device name) or
PyDevice object.

GetIfStatus(dev, ifname) Return an integer: 1 if the interface is up, 0 if $inf_status =

the interface is down, and -1 if the system fails GetIfStatus($_device)
to get the interface status.
•Dev: the string (device name) or
PyDevice object.
•Ifname : the interface name

GetCpuUtilization(dev) Return the CPU utilization (an integer). $CPU =

•Dev: the string (device name) or GetCpuUtilization($dev1)
PyDevice object. Return 50 meaning that the
CPU utilization is 50%

GetLinkErrorsUtilization( Return a list of the link errors from the inbound $ret =
dev, ifname) and the outbound interface. GetLinkErrorsUtilization($d
Ret = (inlinkerror, outlinkerror) eva, e1/0)
•Dev: the string (device name) or
PyDevice object.
•Ifname: interface name (string)

GetMemUtilization(dev) Return the the memory utilization (an integer). $MEM =

•Dev: the string (device name) or GetMemUtilization($dev1)
PyDevice object. Return 50 meaning that the
memory utilization is 50%

GetTrafficUtilization(dev, Return traffic utilization for a specified $traffic_util =

sIf, bBandwidthLive = interface. The return variable is a list meaning GetTrafficUtilization(“R1”,”
True) (InOctects, OutOctects, Bandwidth). e1/1”)
•Dev: the string (device name) or
PyDevice object.
•sIf: the interface name (string).
•bBandwidthLive: bool type, set it to
True to retrieve the bandwidth
information from live network, False to
retrieve it from the cached data.

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MonitorDevice($dev, Return the value of monitored item on device MonitorDevice($_device.Ho
"Type:itemName", such as the CPU utilization. This function is stName(), "Double:CPU",
$value) primarily used in Qapp. $CLI1.cpu)

MonitorInterface($dev, Return the value of monitored item on an MonitorInterface($_device.

$intf, "Type:itemName", interface such as the interface CRC error. This HostName(),
$value) function is primarily used in Qapp. "Int:CRC_Error",
$CLI1.infs.CRC_Error)

Monitornbr($dev1, $dev2, Return the value of monitored item on link MonitorNbr($_device,

" Type:itemName", (from one device to the other device) such as GetDevice($P2.bgp_nei_id),
$value) the BGP advertised routes. This is primarily "int:Prefix_Advertised",$P3.
used in Qapp. adv_route_count)

AddToDeviceQueue(devi Add device to the device queue. AddToDeviceQueue($dev)

ce)

RemoveFromDeviceQueu Remove device from the device queue RemoveFromDevice($dev)

e(device)

ClearDeviceQueue() Remove all devices from the device queue ClearDeviceQueue()

ResetToInitialDeviceQue Reset the device queue to its initial status ResetToInitialDeviceQueue

ue() (device queue on which the probe is run in
the first probe block)

LoadDeviceGroupToDevi Add all devices of a device group to the device LoadDeviceGroupToDevice

ceQueue(groupname) queue Queue(“All BGP Devices”)

InitDeviceQueue(deviceli Use a device list to reset the device queue. InitDeviceQueue($dev_list)

st)

GetInitialDeviceQueue() Return a device list of original device queue $dev_list =

when the procedure starts to run. GetInitialDeviceQueue()

2.2 PyMac Member Functions

Name Description Example

PyMac::IsValid() Return true if this is a valid $mac1 = PyMac(“aaaaaa.bbbbbb”)

MAC address. $bRet = $mac1.IsValid()

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 PyMac::MacStr() Return the MAC address as a PyMac(“aaaaaa.bbbbbb”)
string. $ret = $mac1.MacStr ()

2.3 PyIP Member Functions

Name Description Example

PyIP:: Network() Get the network address. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)
$ret = $ip1.Network ()
$ret will be ”1.1.1.0/24”。
PyIP:: Mask () Get the mask address. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)
$ret = $ip1. Mask ()
$ret will be “255.255.255.0”.
PyIP::GetIPAddress() Get the IP address without the $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)
mask. $ret = $ip1.GetIPAddress()
$ret will be “1.1.1.1”

PyIP::IPMaskLen() Get the mask length. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

$ret = $ip1.IPMaskLen ()
$ret will be 1.1.1.1/24.
PyIP::IsSamesSubnet(PyIP ip) Check whether this IP address $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)
is in the same subnet as the $ret =
input IP address. $ip1.IsSameSubnet(PyIP(“1.1.1.3/24”)
$ret will be True.
PyIP::IsSupernet() Check whether the IP address
is a superset.
PyIP::IsSubnet() Check whether the IP address
is a subnet IP address.
PyIP::IsSummarynet(PyIP ip) Return true if the input IP
address is a summary net of
this IP address.
PyIP::IsFullMask() Return true if the mask length $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255”)
is 32. $ret = $ip1.GetIPAddress()
$ret will be True
PyIP::ClassMask() Return the class mask address.
PyIP::GetIPInt() Return the integer format of $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255”)
the IP address. $ret = $ip1.GetIPInt()
$ret will be 16843009
PyIP:: Network() Get the network address. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

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 $ret = $ip1.Network ()

$ret will be ”1.1.1.0/24”。

PyIP:: Mask () Get the mask address. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

$ret = $ip1. Mask ()

$ret will be “255.255.255.0”.

PyIP::GetIPAddress() Get the IP address without the $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

mask.
$ret = $ip1.GetIPAddress()

$ret will be “1.1.1.1”

PyIP::IPMaskLen() Get the mask length. $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

$ret = $ip1.IPMaskLen ()

$ret will be 1.1.1.1/24.

PyIP::IsSamesSubnet(PyIP ip) Check whether this IP address is $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0”)

in the same subnet as the input
IP address. $ret =
$ip1.IsSameSubnet(PyIP(“1.1.1.3/24”)

$ret will be True.

PyIP::IsSupernet() Check whether the IP address is

a superset.

PyIP::IsSubnet() Check whether the IP address is

a subnet IP address.

PyIP::IsSummarynet(PyIP ip) Return true if the input IP

address is a summary net of this
IP address.

PyIP::IsFullMask() Return true if the mask length is $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255”)

32.
$ret = $ip1.GetIPAddress()

$ret will be True

PyIP::ClassMask() Return the class mask address.

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 PyIP::GetIPInt() Return the integer format of the $ip1 = PyIP(“1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255”)
IP address.
$ret = $ip1.GetIPInt()

$ret will be 16843009

2.4 PyInterface Member Functions

Name Description
PyInterface:: Ip () Return the IP address of this interface object.
PyInterface::SecondaryIPs() Return a list of secondary IP addresses of this
interface (the element is a PyIP object).
PyInterface::Name() Return the interface name such as “e0/0”.
PyInterface::Device() Return the device object (PyDevice) this interface
belongs to.
PyInterface::IsInWorkspace() Check whether this Interface object is in the
workspace.
PyInterface::IsAccessable() Check whether the device can be accessed from the
OE via the shared device setting configured for this
device.
PyInterface::Neighbors() Return a list of L3 neighbor devices (PyDevice).
PyInterface::NeighborInterfaces() Return a list of L3 neighbor interfaces (PyInterface).
PyInterface::L2Neighbors() Return a list of L2 neighbor devices (PyDevice).
PyInterface::L2NeighborInterface() Return a list of L2 neighbor interfaces (PyInterface).
PyInterface::IsSamesSubnet (string sip) Check whether the Interface IP is in the same
subnet of the input IP address.
PyInterface::HasIpAddress(string sip) Check whether the input IP address is one of the IP
address configured on Interface.

2.5 PyDevice Member Functions

Name Description
PyDevice:: HostName() Return the hostname (string)
PyDevice:: Interfaces() Return a list of interfaces of this device (PyInterface)
PyDevice::IsInWorkspace() Check whether this device is in the workspace

PyDevice::LocalIfbyNeighbor(PyInterfaceNb Get the local interface connected to a remote interface

rIf) (PyInterface)

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PyDevice::LocalfbyNeighborIp(string: Get the local interface connected to the remote IP
Remote_IP） address (PyInterface)

PyDevice::LocalIfbyIP(IP) Return the local interface having the given IP address

(PyInterface)

PyDevice::RemoteNeighborbylocalIf(String Return a list of remote interfaces (PyInterface)

Local_If|) connected to the given local interface, which must be
the short name such as e0/0
PyDevice::Neighbors() Return a list of all L3 neighbor devices (PyDevice)
PyDevice::NeighborInterfaces() Return a list of all L3 neighbor interfaces (PyInterface)
PyDevice::L2Neighbors() Return a list of all L2 neighbor devices (PyDevice)
PyDevice::L2NeighborInterfaces() Return a list of all L2 neighbor interfaces (PyInterface)
PyDevice::VisibleInterfaces() Return the visible interfaces of this device in a Q-map
(visible interfaces are interfaces drawn in the map).
PyDevice::Config(string:sFilePath) Return the configurations of this device (string).
 sFilePath: the full path name of the
configuration file. If it is empty, then return the
configurations in the default DataFolder defined while
running the procedure.
PyDevice::GetMgmtIP() Return the Management IP address of this device (CIP).
PyDevice::DeviceType() Return the device type number of this device. (int)

2.6 PyTable Member Functions

Name Description Example

PyTable::GetColumnCount() Return the number of columns.

PyTable::GetRowCount() Return the number of rows.

PyTable::CompareWith(PyT Return the compared results with table1 = PyTable({"f1":[11,22]})

ableAnotherTable, colMap) another table. table2 = PyTable({"f3":[11,33]})
 PyTableAnotherTable:
the other table to be compared. $me = table1.CompareWith(table2,
 colMap : the mapping [('f1', 'f3')])['me']
from the columns of this table to $other =
the columns of the other table to be table1.CompareWith(table2, [('f1',
compared . 'f3')])['other']
$same =

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 table1.CompareWith(table2, [('f1',
'f3')])['same']

$me will be {'f1': [22]}

$other will be {'f3': [33]}
$same will be {'f1': [11]}
PyTable::AllSame(string Check whether all entries in the table1 = PyTable()
column) column have the same value. …
 column: the name of the $ret =
column (string). table1.AllSame(“devicename”)

PyTable::AllDifferent(string Check whether the values of the $table1 = PyTable()

column) column are different. …
$ret = table1.AllDifferent
(“devicename”)

PyTable::GetSame(string Return all rows having the same table1 = PyTable()

column, value) value as the input value in the given …
column. The return variable is a $ret = table1.GetSame
PyTable. (“devicename”，“R1”)
PyTable::GetDifferent(string Return all rows having a different . The return value is PyTable.$table1
:column, value) value from the input value in the = PyTable()
given column. The return variable is …
a PyTable. $ret = table1.GetDifferent
(“devicename”，“R1”)
PyTable::GetPrefix(string:co Return all rows having an IP address $table1 = PyTable()
lumn, string:IPAddress) which is in the same subnet of the …
input IP address in the given $ret = table1.GetPrefix (“Subnet”，
column. The return variable is “1.1.1.1”)
PyTable. Or
Note: the variable type of the given $ret = table1.GetPrefix (“Subnet”，
column must be CIP type. “1.1.1.1/24”)

PyTable::AllContain(string:c Check whether all entries in the $table1 = PyTable()

olumn, str:value) column contain the input value. …
$ret = table1.AllContain
(“devicename”，“R1”)

PyTable::GetOneColumn(str Return all entries in the given $table1 = PyTable()

:ColumnName) column. The return variable is a list. …
$ret = table1.GetOneColumn
(“devicename”)

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PyTable::GetOneRow （ int: Return a dictionary including the $table1 = PyTable()
index） mapping of the column name to the …
value of the given row. The return $ret = table1.GetOneRow (3)
variable is a dictionary.
PyTable::GetOneCell(str:Col Return the value of the given $table1 = PyTable()
umnName，int: index) column and index. …
$ret = table1.GetOneCell
(“devicename”, 3)

PyTable::AddRow(dict:One Add the row into the table. $table1 = PyTable()

DictRow) Note: The row must be a dictionary $table2 = PyTable()
variable. It is the mapping from the …
value to the column name. $row = table1.GetOneRow (3))
$ret = table2.AddRow($row)

PyTable::SortByField(str:Col Sort the table according to the $table1 = PyTable()

umnName, int:sortType) method applied to the given …
column. $table1.SortByField( “devicename”,
 ColumnName: the column to be 0)
sorted.
 sortType: the type of values to be
sorted.
 0: for integer or other general types
in ascending order.
 1: for integer or other general types
in descending order.
 2: for the IP address in ascending
order.
 3: for the IP address in descending
order.

2.7 Device/Interface/Module Property attributes

PyDeviceProperty(sDev Return the device property object.

or IP) The object will be used to get all the
properties of the device.
 SDev or IP: hostname or IP address of

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 this device.
DeviceType() Return the device type as an integer. $device_type_num =
Refer to section Appendix 2H for the PyDeviceProperty($_device).Device
device type that each ID stands for. Type()
DeviceTypeName() Return the device type as the $device_type =
meaning string. PyDeviceProperty($_device).Device
TypeName()
CategoryName() Return the category name of the $Category =
device. PyDeviceProperty($_device).Categ
oryName()
Driver() Return the driver used for the device. $driver =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Driver(
)
HostName() Return the hostname $hostname =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).HostN
ame()
SysObjectOID() Return the system object ID $SysOID =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).SysOb
jectOID()
Vendor() Return the vendor information $Vendor =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Vendo
r()
Model() Return the model information $Model =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Model
()
SoftwareVersion() Return the software version $Soft_ver =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Softw
areVersion()
SerialNumber() Return the serial number $serial_num =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).
$device_type_num =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Serial
Number()
AssertTag() Return the asset tag $asset_tag =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Assert
Tag()

SystemMemory() Return the system memory $mem =

PyDeviceProperty($_device).Syste
mMemory()
Location() Return the location $location =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Locati
on()

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Contact() Return the contact $contact =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Conta
ct()
HierarchyLayer() Return the hierarchy layer $hierachy_layer =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Hierar
chyLayer()
Description() Return the description $description =
PyDeviceProperty($_device).Descri
ption()
Site() Return the site that the device $site =
belongs to PyDeviceProperty($_device).Site()
ConfigFileTime() Return the time stamp that the $config_time =
config files was last updated PyDeviceProperty($_device).Config
FileTime()
CustomData() Return the customized device $customized_data =
property information. (dictionary) PyDeviceProperty($_device).Custo
mData()
ManagementIp() Return the management IP address $mgmt_ip =
of the device PyDeviceProperty($_device).Manag
ementIp()
ManagementInterface() Return the management interface of $mgmt_inf =
the device PyDeviceProperty($_device).Manag
ementInterface()
ManagementInterfaceMA Return the MAC address of the $mgmt_mac =
C() management interface of the device. PyDeviceProperty($_device).Manag
ementInterfaceMAC()
SetPropertyValue(PropNa Set the device properties for THE PyDeviceProperty($_device).SetPro
me, PropValue) specified filed. The properties, pertyValue(“location”, $location)
Vendor, model, softwareversion,
serialnumber, asserttag,
systemmemory, location, contact,
hierarchylayer and description can be
set by this function.

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 PyInterfaceProperty(s Return the interface property object. The
Dev, sInterface) object will be used to get all the properties
of the interface.
 SDev: the device name or PyDevice object.
 sInterface: the interface name.

MIBIndex() Return the MIB index number $index =

PyInterfaceProperty($dev1,
$inf).MIBIndex()
BandWidth() Return the bandwidth as an integer. $Bandwidth =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1,
$inf).BandWidth()
InterfaceName() Return the interface name $intf =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
InterfaceName()
DeviceName() Return the device name $dev =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
DeviceName()
ModuleSlot() Return the module slot the interface $index =
belongs to PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
ModuleSlot()
ModuleType() Return the module type $module_type =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
ModuleType()
InterfaceStatus() Return the interface status $intf_status =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
InterfaceStatus()
Speed() Return the speed $speed =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Speed()
Duplex() Return the duplex $duplex =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Duplex()
Description() Return the description $description =
PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Description()

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MPLSVrf() Return the MPLS VRF info configured $mpls_vrf =
on the interface PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
MPLSVrf()
Vlan() Return the VLAN this interface belongs $vlan =
to PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Vlan()
VoiceVlan() Return the Voice VLAN name if $voice_vlan =
available PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
VoiceVlan()
RoutingProtocol() Return the routing protocol running on $routing =
the interface. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Note: all routing protocols configured RoutingProtocol()
under the interface will be returned, for
example “OSPF 1 AREA 0.0.0.1,RIP 2”
Counter() Return the counter used for the $couter =
interface. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Counter()
MulticastMode() Return the multicast mode running on $multicast_mode =
the interface. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
MulticastMode()
Mode() Return the mode of the interface, $mode =
Trunk or Access. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
Mode()
IsPhysicaIf() Check whether this interface is a $Is_physical =
physical interface. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
IsPhysicaIf()

InterfaceFullName() Return the interface full name $intf_full =

PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
InterfaceFullName()
CustomData() Return the customized data of the $customized_data =
interface. (dictionary) PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
CustomData()
InterfaceIp() Return the IP address of the interface. $intf_ip =
The return variable is a CIP. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
InterfaceIp()
MACAddr() Return the MAC address of the $mac =

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 interface. The return variable is a CMA. PyInterfaceProperty($dev1, $inf).
MACAddr()
SetPropertyValue(PropNam Set the interface properties for PyInterfaceProperty($dev1,
e, PropValue) specified filed of an interface. The $inf).SetPropertyValue(“description
properties mibindex, bandwidth, , $description)
interfacestatus, speed, duplex, description
and interfacefullname can be set by this
function.

CModuleProperty(sD Return the module property object. The

ev, sSlot) object will be used to get all the properties
of the module.
 SDev: the device name or PyDevice object.
 sSlot: the slot of the module.
Slot() Return the slot name. $slot =
CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).Slot()
DeviceName() Return the device name that the slot $dev =
belongs to. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).DeviceName()
CardType() Return the module type retrieved from $module =
this device. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).CardType()
Ports() Return the port number of the slot. $port_number =
CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).Ports()
SerialNumber() Return the serial number of this slot. $serial_num =
CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).SerialNumber()
HWRev() Return the hardware revision of this $hw_rev =
slot. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).HWRev()
FWRev() Return the firmware revision of this $fw_rev =
slot. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).FWRev()
SWRev() Return the software revision of this $sw_rev =
slot. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).SWRev()

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CardDescription() Return the description of this slot. $description =
CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).CardDescription()
LastTimeStamp() Return the time stamp that the slot $time_stamp =
was last discovered. CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).LastTimeStamp()
CustomData() Return the customized module $cutomized_data =
property information. (dictionary) CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).CustomData()
MACAddr() Return the MAC address of this slot $mac =
CModuleProperty($dev1,
“slot1”).MACAddr()
SetPropertyValue(PropNa Set the module properties for specified CModuleProperty($dev1,
me, PropValue) filed of a module. The properties, cardtype, “slot”).SetPropertyValue(“carddesc
ports；serialnumber, hwrev, fwrev, swrev, ription, $description)
and carddescription can be set by this
function.

2.8 Device type ID and name

ID Name
1004 End System
1007 LAN
1008 WAN
1010 DMVPN
102 Juniper Router
1021 Unclassified Device
1024 MPLS Cloud
1025 Cisco WAP
1026 Mute LAN
10327 Dell PowerConnect Switch
10339 Xirrus Wireless Array
10352 Adtran
10357 Cisco ACE
1036 Unknown IP Device
10369 A10 Load Balancer

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1037 Internet Wan
10380 Fortinet FortiGate Firewall
10381 Netscaler Load Balancer
10402 Sidewinder Firewall
10415 F5 Load Balancer-SNMP
10416 Hirschmann Switch
10417 Alcatel Lucent Service Router
10418 Alcatel OmniSwitch
10429 Radwin Radio Devices
10430 HuaWei Switch
10457 RuggedCom ROX Switch
10466 Riverbed WAN Optimizer
2 Cisco Router
2001 Cisco IOS Switch
2002 Cisco PIX Firewall
2003 F5 Load Balancer
2004 Cisco Nexus Switch
2007 Checkpoint Firewall
2008 NetScreen Firewall
2009 Cisco ASA Firewall
2011 HP ProCurve Switch
2012 Juniper EX Switch
2013 Arista Switch
2015 Dell Force10 Switch
2018 Juniper SRX Firewall
2021 Unclassified Router
2023 Extreme Switch
2024 Brocade Switch
2030 Unclassified Firewall
2035 Unclassified Load Balancer
2041 HP Menu-Driven Switch
2060 Cisco Catalyst Switch
2061 Unclassified Switch
2062 CSS
2110 Nortel Switch
2130 Palo Alto Firewall
2140 Ciena Switch
2150 Enterasys Switch
2999 Cisco IOS XR
3001 Call Manager
3002 IP Phone

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3003 Cache Engine
3033 WLC
3034 LWAP
3333 3Com Switch

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Appendix 3 Brief Introduction of Python
Scripting

3.1 Setting up the Python Environment

The Python version used by NetBrain is Python 3.1x. Download Python 3.1.4 from this link:
http://www.python.org/getit/releases/3.1.4/. Select the Windows x86 MSI Installer.

Start the Python Shell by running Python 3.1/IDLE.

3.2 Python Programming Basics

Python is an easy-to-learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data

structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. This section is
not a tutorial of the Python script language. Instead this is going to give a brief introduction and
hopefully cover what you need in order to write a complex NetBrain procedure.
First start the Python GUI (the shell) and type the following commands in the shell UI:

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You just learned some basic data types and data structures of Python. The first command assigns
the numerical value (2+2) to the variable “k”. The second command print k tries to print out the
value “k” but failed due to a syntax error. Print is a function and the correct syntax to call it is
print(k) (it needs an argument between the parentheses). The third command prints the value “k”
successfully.

Unlike C or Java, you do not need to explicitly declare a variable to be an integer, a string, a list or
other type of data. Instead, after the variable is assigned a value, its data type is defined. For
example, the command after print(k) assigns a string to the variable “str” and so this variable “str”
is a string, not an integer.
You need to become familiar with the string data type and its functions. For example, the function
len(str) returns the length of a string and the str.split() function splits the string “str” by the
delimiter (by default, it is space) and returns a list of substrings. If you are not familiar with object-
oriented programming, the function call str.split() may look a little strange. You can think about
it this way: “str” is an object and it has the function split(). To call a function for an object, you put
“.” between the object and the function, which means the function is applied to this object alone,
not other objects.

The most used data structure is list. The function str.split() returns a list and the command a =
str.split() sets the variable “a” as a list. You can print a list by print(a). Another useful data
structure is dictionary. An entry of the dictionary includes a key and a value. Dictionaries are
indexed by keys, which can be any immutable type; strings and numbers can always be keys. The

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command dict1[“dog”] = “steven” assigns the value “steven” (string) to the key “dog”. You often
need to loop through a data structure. The frequently used flow through a list or dictionary is for
loop.

Try typing the following commands in the shell UI:

Remember to add “:” in the control flow. Otherwise you will get a syntax error. Other common
control flow statements are while, if, break and continue. The break statement breaks out of the
smallest enclosing for or while loop. The continue statement, borrowed from C, continues with the
next iteration of the loop. To illustrate these statements, the following code shows two ways to
add all numbers from 1 to 100:

The second method uses the range statement and produces a different result from the first

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method. If we look closely, we can see why. This is a common error with the range statement—
range(1,100) means that “i” will loop from 1 to 99, and stop on 100. Now let us change the task to
add the numbers from 1 to 1000. For these types of repeatable operations, you can define a
function:

The keyword def introduces a function definition. It must be followed by the function name and
the parenthesized list of formal parameters. The statements that form the body of the function
start at the next line, and must be indented. The return function returns a value from a function.
Return without an expression argument returns Null. Falling off the end of a function also returns
Null. This is different from some other languages where return is necessary to exit out of certain
functions.
Now that you have some basic understanding of Python, let us try a “real” task. For some type of
device such as Extreme, the timestamp of a route table output has this type of formatting:
6d:22h:59m:17s. Now we will write a function to get the number of seconds for this timestamp.
Up to now, we have been working on the shell interface for learning purposes. For real coding,
you need to edit the code in a file. From the Python shell UI, open a new file under the File menu
and write the code. If you are unsure of the syntax, you may want to refer to the following code
example:
# Transfer the timestamp 6d:22h:59m:17s to a second
def getAge(age):
time = age.split(':')
if (len(time) != 4):
return 0
for i in range(0, 4):
time[i] = time[i].strip('dhms')
rtn = (int)(time[3]) + ((int)(time[2]) + ((int)(time[1]) + (int)(time[0])*24)*60)*60
return rtn
If this code is not easy to understand, it may be worth following the tutorial link at the end of this
section. There are a few things worth pointing out here:

 You can add comment lines into Python. The comment lines start with #.

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  The age.split(“:”) function splits the string by the delimiter “:”.
 time[0] to time[3] are string variables. To recast them as integers, you can put (int)
before them.
 Python has strict indent rules. Make sure that your lines are indented correctly for each
control flow or functions. Otherwise you will get a syntax error.

Now, we can test the function. To do this, we need to add the following code. When the Python
runs this code, it will execute the blocks starting from if (__name__ == "__main__"):
if (__name__ == "__main__"):
print (getAge("6d:22h:59m:17s"))

This is a brief introduction to Python to give you a quick start. Please refer to
http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html for a more in-depth Python tutorial.

3.3 If Conditions

Defining the Analysis of a Qapp or Trigger of a Procedure often involves conditions. This section
should cover all you need to know about conditions.
The conditions are either True or False (with no quotes!). These are the only
possible Boolean values. In Python the name Boolean is shortened to the type bool. It
is the type of the results of true-false conditions or tests.
The general Python syntax for a simple if statement is
if condition :
Indented code blocks
If the condition is true, then do the indented code blocks. If the condition is not true,
then skip the indented code blocks.
The simplest condition is to compare two variables. All the usual arithmetic
comparisons may be made, but many do not use standard mathematical symbolism,
mostly for lack of proper keys on a standard keyboard.

Meaning Math Symbol Python Symbols

Less than < <
Greater than > >
Less than or equal ≤ <=
Greater than or equal ≥ >=
Equals = ==
Not equal ≠ !=

There should not be space between the two-symbol Python substitutes.

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Notice that the obvious choice for equals, a single equal sign, is not used to check for
equality. An annoying second equal sign is required. This is because the single equal
sign is already used for assignment in Python, so it is not available for tests.
All variables can be also compared to None, the built-in variables for NetBrain system,
such as following:
$var1 is None Same as “$var1 == None”. True if $var1 is not set to
any value; False otherwise
$var1 is not None Same as “var1 != None”. True if $var1 has a value;
False otherwise

So you can have the following simple valid conditions:

$var1 > 90
$var1 > $var2
($var1 - $var2)/($var3-$var4) > 1

Two simple conditions can be combined by “and” and “or” to form the complex conditions such
as:

$var1 <90 and $var1>80

$var3 == 1 or $var4 == 1

3.4 Basic Regular Expressions

Regular expressions are powerful tools of pattern recognition in strings. A key task of the parser
is to search the CLI show command output and retrieve any useful data. Since the CLI command
output always follows certain patterns, this task can always be done with regular expressions.

Regular expressions can contain both special and ordinary characters. Most ordinary characters,
like 'A', 'a', or '0', are the simplest regular expressions; they simply match themselves. You can
concatenate ordinary characters, so Version matches the string ‘Version’.

Some characters, like '|' or '(', are special. Special characters either stand for classes of ordinary
characters, or affect how the regular expressions around them are interpreted. The following are
some special characters frequently used:

'.'
Match any character except a newline.

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'^'
Match the start of the string or the line.

'$'
Match the end of the string or just before the newline at the end of the string.

'*'
Cause the resulting RE to match 0 or more repetitions of the preceding RE, as many repetitions
as are possible. ab* will match ‘a’, ‘ab’, or ‘a’ followed by any number of ‘b’s.

'+'
Cause the resulting RE to match 1 or more repetitions of the preceding RE. ab+ will match ‘a’
followed by any non-zero number of ‘b’s; it will not match just ‘a’.

'?'
Cause the resulting RE to match 0 or 1 repetitions of the preceding RE. ab? will match either ‘a’ or
‘ab’.

*?, +?, ??
The '*', '+', and '?' qualifiers are all greedy; they match as much text as possible. Sometimes this
behavior isn’t desired; if the RE <.*> is matched against '<H1>title</H1>', it will match the entire
string, and not just '<H1>'. Adding '?' after the qualifier makes it perform the match in non-greedy
or minimal fashion; as few characters as possible will be matched. Using .*? in the previous
expression will match only '<H1>'.

[]
Indicate a set of characters. In a set:
Characters can be listed individually, e.g. [amk] will match 'a', 'm', or 'k'.
Ranges of characters can be indicated by giving two characters and separating them by a '-', for
example [a-z] will match any lowercase ASCII letter, [0-5][0-9] will match all two-digit numbers
from 00 to 59, and [0-9A-Fa-f] will match any hexadecimal digit. If - is escaped (e.g. [a\-z]) or if it’s
placed as the first or last character (e.g. [a-]), it will match a literal '-'.

'|'
A|B, where A and B can be arbitrary REs, creates a regular expression that will match either A or
B.

(...)
Matches whatever regular expression is inside the parentheses, and indicates the start and end of
a group; the contents of a group can be retrieved after a match has been performed.

\s
Matches any whitespace character; this is equivalent to the set [\t\n\r\f\v].

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\d
Matches any decimal digit; this is equivalent to the set [0-9].

\w
Matches any alphanumeric character and the underscore; this is equivalent to the set [a-zA-Z0-
9_]

Appendix 4 Table Operators

Table Operator is used to manage “Table” node and the variable data in the “Table” node, such
as merging variables of two tables into one table, deleting a variable in “Table” and etc.

There are totally five types of table operators in NetBrain Qapp: Convert, Delta, Sub-table,
Merge and Neighbor Join.

1. Convert Operator
Convert Operator is used to convert a general table into a Global Data Table. A general table can
only store data for one device for further analysis in one loop, and the data of device in last loop
will be overwritten by the data of device in the current loop (for variables rows in Device Queue
table, Qapp just loop one row one time), but the Global Data Table is able to store all devices’ data
rather than just a device in Device Queue. In addition, variables in Global Data Table can be
referenced by all Canvas blocks in a Qapp while variables in a general table can be referenced
within one Canvas and if you want to call variables of other canvas, you want to convert a general
table to global data table.

There are two options under Convert Operator:

(1) Append data: default option of Convert Operator. Add variables obtained in one loop to the
global data table until all rows in Device Queue are looped.

(2) Overwrite data: overwrite variables and data obtained in last loop with the variables in the

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current loop.

For use cases about Covert Operator, please refer to Using General Qapp for Dynamic
Documentation and Multiple Canvas Execution Flow and Loop Control

2. Sub Table

Sub Table is used to remove or keep a row in a table.

There are two options under Sub Table Operator:

(1) Remove Row: to remove a row from “Table” if a variable or multiple variables defined in
expression below meet the condition set

(2) Keep Row: to just keep the rows that a variable or multiple variables defined in expression
below meet the condition set. It means that rows will be deleted if the variables of the rows do
not meet the condition set.

For use case about Sub Table, please refer to the Qapp to monitor CPU usage for devices configured
with OSPF routing protocol in the Chapter “Multiple Canvas Execution Flow and Loop Control”.

3. Delta Operator:
Delta Operator is used to calculate the difference of a variable between the current value and the
value in the last polling cycle.

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Delta Operator is only applicable to Monitor Qapp since Monitor Qapp loops periodically and can
obtain the value of a variable in last loop and current loop.

Select key for Delta calculation: the key is used as an index to target the variables for delta
calculation. In most cases, if a variable for delta calculation is interface-level data, such as MTU,
CRC and Input Error, Interface name is set as the key; If a variable for calculation is device-level
data, such as CPU usage and version number, the device name is set as the key.

Device-level Variable

Interface-Level variable:

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4. Neighbor Join

This operator is used to integrate a device’s data and it neighbors’ data into one table for
comparison and analysis according to their neighbor relation in Device Queue.

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For example, to check MTU consistency of a pair of neighbor interfaces. After obtaining a interface’s
MTU value and its neighbor interface’s MTU value, you could put the two variables into one table
according to the correspondence between the two variables in Device Queue.

Neighbor Join

Correspondence between the two variables in Device Queue

Key Matching: the variables in the Device Queue are predefined, such as this, this_intf, nbr and
nbr_intf and these variables may be different from the variables that you have named in
Command node and Key Match is used to define variables you have defined to match which
system predefined variables. For example, you may define the variable representing interface’s

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name as this_intf_nm which is different from system predefined this_intf and you could define
that this _intf_nm is identical to this_intf in the key matching.

For use cases on Neighbor Join, please refer to Using General Qapp for Neighbor Check

5. Merge Table

Merge Operator is to merge the variables of two tables into one merged table according to the
variable that the two tables both have.

For example, by inputting 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2 in SNMP Command, you could retrieve the interface
names and their corresponding index values.

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By inputting SMNP OID 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8 in another SNMP Command, you could retrieve the
interface status (1 represents “Up” and 2 represents “Down”) and their corresponding index value
(here index represents an interface).

For two command nodes, they both have the common variable $index and you could merge the
two tables into one table according this variable.

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Under “Merge 2 tables by specified key”, select the common variable that the two tables both
have and then click “Calculate Table” button to apply settings.

Click the merged table and in this merged table, you could see clearly an interface and its status.

For detailed use case on Merge Table, please refer to SNMP Command and Merge Table Operator

Note:
(1) Merge Table is not just applicable to SNMP command, it could be applicable to varieties of
command types and the key factor is that two tables must have a common variable.

(2) Merge Table and Neighbor Join belong to two-table operator and are used to put variables in two
tables into one table. But they are different is in use situation. Merge Table is used to merge two tables
with a common variable into a table by taking the common variable as an index, while Neighbor Join
is used to join variables of two neighbor tables into one table based on correspondence of two
neighbor devices in Device Queue.

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Appendix 5 Command Types
There are five Command types in NetBrain Qapp: CLI Command, Configuration Command, Ping
Command, Traceroute Command and SNMP Command.

Command nodes are used to retrieve data of a device and define rules to parser the retrieved data.
These five types of command nodes are similar to each other in function but different in use cases.

1. CLI Command

CLI Command is the most commonly used command type and it retrieves live data by various
“Show” commands. For example, to monitor a device’s health, CLI Command “Show Process CPU” is
used to obtain CPU data and then based on CPU retrieved, Monitor Qapp could display the CPU
value on map.

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2. Configuration Command

The Configuration Command provides a way to use device configurations in more flexible
ways. It retrieve data contained in Device Configuration without by “Show
Commands”. “Configuration Command” is often used in the following cases:

(1) Create a report for the devices containing a particular configuration line. For example,
find the devices with the “no service password-encryption" configuration, which violates
basic security policies.

(2) Highlight or draw a particular configuration in the Q-map. The design reader can be used
to filter the configurations or you can create a Filter parser to parse any configuration.

(3) Do a preliminary check before applying an additional troubleshooting Qapp. This can
improve the Qapp performance since the Configuration Command uses the baseline
configurations without retrieving the data from the devices. For example, we can check
whether OSPF is configured to run on a router before applying any Qapp to troubleshoot
OSPF routing issues.

Create a Qapp to map devices without “no service password-encryption”.

(1) Use “Configuration Command” after “this” node in Canvas. “Configuration Command” is often
used based on current baseline. When click “Retrieve Sample”, you could define “current baseline” as
datafolder and the Qapp will not retrieve live configuration data, which improves Qapp performance.

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(2) The built-in variable $_orginal_result is the baseline configuration of a device. we only
check whether $_orginal_result contains any special configuration(no service password-
encryption )in Output node.

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(3) Run the Qapp and a sample output is as follows:

(3) Ping and Traceroute Command

Ping Command and Traceroute Command are used to troubleshoot network connection between
two devices. For example, you could create a Ping probe to ping the core device or server from the
network devices

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For “Ping” command, the system has three built-in variables:$lost_rate, $average_time and
$ping_result. You could use the variable “ $ping_result” to check whether the ping from a source and
destination IP is successful in “Output” node.

For “Traceroute” Command, the system has two built-in variables:$last_hop and “tracerout_result”.
You could use “tracerout_result” to check the traceroute result.

For use instance, please refer to the chapter Troubleshooting Connection Problems via Qapp

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(4) SNMP Command

NetBrain uses SNMP polling to retrieve a lot of data, such as CPU/MEM usage, bandwidth
usage and link error. NetBrain can also generate SNMP configuration files through SNMP
polling. These OIDs are defined within NetBrain , which provides a flexible method to
retrieve data by specific OIDs.

For example, enter an SNMP OID and the system will walk through this OID. For example, enter the
OID 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2 to retrieve the interface name for each index. A sample is shown here.

For last number of each OID, it indicates an interface. For example, in the sample command,
1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1 = OCTETS: FastEthernet0/0, here “1” is the index of FastEthernet0/0
1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.10 = OCTETS: Loopback11, “10” is the index of Loopback11

You could base on the data retrieved by SNMP Command to analyze their network devices.

For use instance, please refer to the chapter Troubleshooting Connection Problems via Qapp

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