ncclient: Python library for NETCONF clients

ncclient is a Python library that facilitates client-side scripting and application development around the NETCONF protocol. ncclient was developed by Shikar Bhushan. It is now maintained by Leonidas Poulopoulos (@leopoul) and Einar Nilsen-Nygaard (@einarnn)

Docs: http://ncclient.readthedocs.org

PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ncclient

Recent Highlights

| Date | Release | Description | | :----: | :-----: | :---------- | | 03/15/26 | 0.7.1 | See release page | | 08/25/25 | 0.7.0 | See release page | | 10/18/23 | 0.6.15 | See release page | | 04/10/22 | 0.6.13 | See release page | | 05/29/21 | 0.6.12 | See release page | | 05/27/21 | 0.6.11 | See release page | | 02/18/21 | 0.6.10 | See release page | | 08/08/20 | 0.6.9 | See release page | | 08/01/20 | 0.6.8 | Pulled due to accidental breaking API change | | 12/21/19 | 0.6.7 | See release page | | 05/27/19 | 0.6.6 | See release page | | 05/27/19 | 0.6.5 | Pulled due to bug in PyPi upload | | 04/07/19 | 0.6.4 | See release page | | 09/26/18 | 0.6.3 | See release page | | 08/20/18 | 0.6.2 | See release page | | 07/02/18 | 0.6.0 | Minor release reinstating Python 3.7 and greater compatibility, but necessitating a change to client code that uses async_mode. | | 07/02/18 | 0.5.4 | New release rolling up myriad of small commits since 0.5.3. Please note that this release is incompatible wth Python 3.7 due to the use of a new Python 3.7 keyword, async, in function signatures. This will be resolved in 0.6.0 |

Requirements

• Python 2.7 or Python 3.5+
• setuptools 0.6+
• Paramiko 1.7+
• lxml 3.3.0+
• libxml2
• libxslt

If you are on Debian/Ubuntu install the following libs (via aptitude or apt-get):

• libxml2-dev
• libxslt1-dev

Installation

Install via pip:

pip install ncclient

# to install dependencies to use ssh-python instead of Paramiko
pip install ncclient[libssh]

Also locally via pip from within local clone:

pip install -U .

Examples

[ncclient] $ python examples/base/*.py

As of 0.7.0 it is possible to use ssh-python instead of Paramiko. For a simple example of how to use ssh-python see nc11.py

Usage

Get device running config

Use either an interactive Python console (ipython) or integrate the following in your code:

from ncclient import manager

with manager.connect(host=host, port=830, username=user, hostkey_verify=False) as m:
    c = m.get_config(source='running').data_xml
    with open("%s.xml" % host, 'w') as f:
        f.write(c)

As of 0.4.1 ncclient integrates Juniper's and Cisco's forks, lots of new concepts have been introduced that ease management of Juniper and Cisco devices respectively. The biggest change is the introduction of device handlers in connection paramms. For example to invoke Juniper's functions annd params one has to re-write the above with device_params={'name':'junos'}:

from ncclient import manager

with manager.connect(host=host, port=830,
                     username=user, hostkey_verify=False,
                     device_params={'name':'junos'}) as m:
    c = m.get_config(source='running').data_xml
    with open("%s.xml" % host, 'w') as f:
        f.write(c)

Device handlers are easy to implement and prove to be futureproof.

Supported device handlers

When instantiating a connection to a known type of NETCONF server:

• Alcatel Lucent: device_params={'name':'alu'}
• Ciena: device_params={'name':'ciena'}
• Cisco:
  • CSR: device_params={'name':'csr'}
  • Nexus: device_params={'name':'nexus'}
  • IOS XR: device_params={'name':'iosxr'}
  • IOS XE: device_params={'name':'iosxe'}
• H3C: device_params={'name':'h3c'}
• HP Comware: device_params={'name':'hpcomware'}
• Huawei:
  • device_params={'name':'huawei'}
  • device_params={'name':'huaweiyang'}
• Juniper: device_params={'name':'junos'}
• Server or anything not in above: device_params={'name':'default'}

For Developers

Running Unit Tests Locally

To run the same tests locally as are run via GitHub's CI/CD integration with Travis, the following istructions can be followed:

1. Create a virtual environment, in this case using virtualenvwrapper:

   mkvirtualenv ncclient-testing
   

2. Install your local ncclient package (ensuring you are in your virtual environment):

   pip install -U .
   

3. Install testing dependencies:

   pip install pytest coverage coveralls mock
   

4. Finally, run the tests:

   pytest test --verbosity=3
   

   For coverage, showing missing lines do:

   coverage run -m pytest test --verbosity=3 && coverage report -m
   

Making a Release

Releases are built with hatchling and versioned from Git tags using hatch-vcs. Tags must use the vX.Y.Z format (for example v0.7.1).

1. Ensure tests pass and docs/changelog are updated.

2. Create and push a release tag:

   git tag v0.7.1
   git push origin v0.7.1
   

3. Build distributions locally (optional preflight):

   hatchling build
   

4. Validate artifacts (optional preflight):

   python -m twine check dist/*
   

5. GitHub Actions handles PyPI publishing on pushed v* tags.

Contributors

• v0.6.12: @einarnn
• v0.6.11: @musicinmybrain, @sstancu, @earies
• v0.6.10: @vnitinv, @omaxx, @einarnn, @musicinmybrain, @tonynii, @sstancu, Martin Volf, @fredgan, @avisom, Viktor Velichkin, @ogenstad, @earies
• v0.6.8: Fred Gan, @vnitinv, @kbijakowski, @iwanb, @badguy99, @liuyong, Andrew Mallory, William Lvory
• v0.6.7: @vnitinv, @chaitu-tk, @sidhujasminder, @crutcha, @markgoddard, @ganeshrn, @songxl, @doesitblend, @psikala, @xuxiaowei0512, @muffizone
• v0.6.6: @sstancu, @hemna, @ishayansheikh
• v0.6.4: @davidhankins, @mzagozen, @knobix, @markafarrell, @psikala, @moepman, @apt-itude, @yuekyang
• v0.6.3: @rdkls, @Anthony25, @rsmekala, @vnitinv, @siming85
• v0.6.2: @einarnn, @glennmatthews, @bryan-stripe, @nickylba
• v0.6.0: @einarnn
• v0.5.4: @adamcubel, Joel Teichroeb, @leopoul, Chase Garner, @budhadityabanerjee, @earies, @ganeshrn, @vnitinv, Siming Yuan, @mirceaaulinic, @stacywsmith, Xavier Hardy, @jwwilcox, @QijunPan, @avangel, @marekgr, @hugovk, @felixonmars, @dexteradeus
• v0.5.3: Justin Wilcox, Stacy W. Smith, Mircea Ulinic, Ebben Aries, Einar Nilsen-Nygaard, QijunPan
• v0.5.2: Nitin Kumar, Kristian Larsson, palashgupta, Jonathan Provost, Jainpriyal, sharang, pseguel, nnakamot, Алексей Пастухов, Christian Giese, Peipei Guo, Time Warner Cable Openstack Team
• v0.4.7: Einar Nilsen-Nygaard, Vaibhav Bajpai, Norio Nakamoto
• v0.4.6: Nitin Kumar, Carl Moberg, Stavros Kroustouris
• v0.4.5: Sebastian Wiesinger, Vincent Bernat, Matthew Stone, Nitin Kumar
• v0.4.3: Jeremy Schulman, Ray Solomon, Rick Sherman, subhak186
• v0.4.2: katharh, Francis Luong (Franco), Vincent Bernat, Juergen Brendel, Quentin Loos, Ray Solomon, Sebastian Wiesinger, Ebben Aries
• v0.4.1: Jeremy Schulman, Ebben Aries, Juergen Brendel