3.3. Using facts-finder - Method 2 (CleanFacts)

Import necessary package, modules

Define your input files ( i.e. capture files )

Generate and evaluate database from device

rearrange database columns of Excel

Important

Use this method, if parsed excel device fact also available along with device commands output captures. This will enables more advanced technique to modify for the custom variables later on.

3.3.1. Detailed How To

Import necessary package, modules
from facts_finder import CleanFacts, rearrange_tables
Define input files ( i.e. captures-log, facts-excel )
parsed_excelfile can be generated using capture_it utility. Along with device log capture it can generate the device facts by parsing the outputs concurrently.. It generates a separate sheet for each parsed command output.

see also: CaptureIT Documentation for more
capture_log_file = "file_with_output_captured.log"              # provide capture file
capture_xl_facts = "parsed_excelfile.xlsx"              # provide parsed excel fact file.
Clean Facts
Evaluating the device capture along with the parsed excel file is called Cleaning. It will automatically generate a new excel file suffixed with -clean.
cf = CleanFacts(
        capture_log_file,      ## Text Capture file
        capture_xl_facts,      ## Excel parsed output file
        new_suffix='-clean',   ## new output file to be suffixed with letters (deault: '-clean')
)
cf()
cf instance variable of an CleanFacts object, has below properties.

hostname: hostname of the device discovered from config

config: raw configuration of device. ( for cisco it will be running config, while for juniper it will be set commands configuration )

dev_type: detected device type (either cisco or juniper) string

clean_file: new output file name

Note

Incase if you have your own custom classes to modify the output database. than execute it here. cf instance will provide the necessary attributes in order to process the data further.

see next page for an example of such.
Rearrange columns in excel file in orders [optional step]
Orders are defined as per rearrange.py module of the package.
rearrange_tables(cf.clean_file)

Important

It is imperative to capture output for atleast below set of commands for Cisco Devices. Failing may result in incorrect or missing facts or even error while generating facts.

show lldp neighbors
show lldp neighbors detail
show cdp neighbors
show cdp neighbors detail
show interfaces
show interfaces switchport
show interfaces status
show interfaces description
show ipv6 interface brief
show mac address-table
show ip arp
show etherchannel summary
show ip bgp all summary
show ip bgp vpnv4 all neighbors
show vrf
show ip vrf interfaces
show route-map
show running-config
show version

command output format should be as follows

! ==========================================

! output for command: show runn

! ==========================================

<<output of command>> …

No hostname-prompt requires to be mentioned in command line.

Important

It is imperative to capture output for atleast below set of commands for Juniper Devices. Failing may result in incorrect or missing facts or even error while generating facts.

show lldp neighbors
show configuration
show version
show interfaces
show interfaces descriptions
show chassis hardware
show lacp interfaces
show arp

command output format should be as follows

# ===================================================

# output for command: show configuration | no-more

# ===================================================

<<output of command>> …

No hostname-prompt requires to be mentioned in command line.

Notice

Make a note that output differs between version to version on devices, and thus it is obvious that parsing may not work every where, as expected incase if format differs from expectation.

Make sure to cross-check the generated facts before using it.