AOS-CX Driver Overview

The Aruba AOS-CX driver is located in switches/connect/aruba_aoscx/connector.py. It uses the pyaoscx library provided by Aruba, and available at https://github.com/aruba/pyaoscx/

Documentation is a little sparse, but you can get started at https://developer.arubanetworks.com/aruba-aoscx/docs/python-getting-started

As of November 2023, this library supports all functionality that OpenL2M needs.

Documentation for the API in AOS-CX v10.13 is at https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/AOS-CX/10.13/PDF/rest_v10-0x.pdf

We implement get_my_basic_info() and get_my_client_data() by reading various switch REST API classes.

Note

Since the AOS-CX module pyaoscx implements objects with the same name as OpenL2M native classes, we import those AOS-CX object as AosCx<OriginalName> in order to avoid name collisions and confusion.

Basic device configs

Implemented in get_my_basic_info():

We make calls to the following pyaoscx classes: Device(), Vlan(), and Interface(),

We used the discovered data to fill in the appropriate data in the OpenL2M Connection() and Interface() objects.

Interface Info

When we get all interface information from as below with get_facts(), all data comes in dictionary form:

interfaces = Interface.get_facts(session)
for name, iface in interfaces:
    description = iface['description']
    state = iface['admin_state']
    # etc...

Each item in the result is an interface, but as a dictionary, where the keys are the attributes!

If you instantiate a specific interface object as shown below, the return a Interface() object! Ie. you can access attributes as object attributes:

iface = Interface(session, name)
    description = iface.description
    state = iface.admin_state

Arp/Lldp information

Implemented in get_my_client_data():

Ethernet data is learned per vlan. So we loop through all vlans, and read learned ethernet addresses for each Vlan() with the Mac() object.

LLDP neighbors are listed per interface, so we loop through each OpenL2M Interface(), get the AOS-CX Interface(), and next enumerate the LldpNeighbor() objects on that interface.

Making Changes

Interface level changes, ie enable/disable, description, are made with functions of the Interface() object.

PoE changes are made with the PoEInterface() object.

Vlan changes are made by assigning a Vlan() object to an interface via a call to Interface().set_untagged_vlan(Vlan())

VLAN Edit

Vlan edits are done use the Vlan() object. This is relatively straight forward.

Creating vlans:

new_vlan = AosCxVlan(session=self.aoscx_session, vlan_id=vlan_id, name=vlan_name, voice=False)
try:
    new_vlan.apply()

Edit vlan name:

vlan = AosCxVlan(session=self.aoscx_session, vlan_id=vlan_id)
vlan.get()
vlan.name = vlan_name
changed = vlan.apply()

Deleting vlans:

vlan = AosCxVlan(session=self.aoscx_session, vlan_id=vlan_id)
vlan.delete()

Fully Populated Objects

In many cases, you need a fully populated object (Interface(), Vlan() or whatever). To instantiate this, you need to call the .get() with selector=”configuration”.

If you do NOT do this, the object has many attributes missing or empty!

session = Session(...)
session.open(...)
iface = Interface(session=session, name="1/1/1")
iface.get(selector="configuration")

See more in the API Documentation under “GET method, selector parameters”