Ultra Config Blog

Ideas and Tutorials for Network Engineers

Jinja2 Tutorial - A Crash Course for Beginners

Matt Albrecht, February 1st 2021

Jinja2 is one of the most elegant templating languages out there. It is seriously awesome. I loved it from the moment I first came across it. The user experience centres around readability and simplicity. In this crash course, I'll show you what I mean with a ton of examples.

Cisco Model-Driven Telemetry tutorial with Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana

Matt Albrecht, June 30th 2020

Network monitoring is an essential practice for maintaining a healthy and resilient network. Traditionally, SNMP has been the dominant protocol for gathering telemetry from network devices. In recent years, however, that has begun to change. Today, we'll discuss Model-Driven Telemetry backed by YANG models. We'll stream telemetry from a Cisco router and display the data on a beautiful Grafana dashboard.

Nornir Framework - Full Tutorial for Beginners

Matt Albrecht, May 27th 2020

When designing a network automation solution, it is critical to keep scalability as a key priority. How can jobs be executed on a large number of devices in parallel? What about inventory management? One solution is Nornir - an automation framework that uses the Python programming language. Today, let's do a deep dive tutorial. We'll manage a Cisco and Juniper router to show off the power of Nornir.

RESTCONF Tutorial - Everything you need to know about RESTCONF in 2020

Matt Albrecht, May 16th 2020

As you may know, NETCONF is an incredibly powerful protocol for automating the management of network devices. What about RESTCONF, though? What is it and why was it invented? Also, how can we use RESTCONF in the real world by managing configuration on a Cisco router? These questions will be the topic of today's discussion.

NETMIKO Automation on Juniper Routers - Full Tutorial for Beginners

Matt Albrecht, January 11th 2020

Automating SSH sessions with network devices can be a painful job if the appropriate tools are not chosen. That's why, today, I want to talk about Netmiko - a powerful python library that every network engineer should at least be familiar with.

Learn YANG - Full Tutorial for Beginners

Matt Albrecht, January 3rd 2020

As I'm sure you've noticed, we are living in a time of explosive growth for the network automation industry. A core component of modern automation technology is the language YANG (Yet Another Next Generation). In today's tutorial, let's do a deep dive and learn the language from scratch.

Introduction to NAPALM Network Automation on Cisco IOS

Matt Albrecht, November 26th 2019

The challenge of automating network configuration is compounded in multi-vendor environments. A solution to this challenge is NAPALM, an open-source Python library. Today, let's take a look at the library and see how we can use it to push configuration to a Cisco router.

Introduction to the Bitcoin Network Protocol using Python and TCP Sockets

Matt Albrecht, October 22nd 2019

Blockchain technology is built around consensus algorithms that allow distributed nodes to share a common ledger. A fundamental dependency of these algorithms is a common network protocol to enable communication between participating nodes. Today, let's write a Python program from scratch to interact with a real Bitcoin node.

Will SD-WAN kill the jobs of Network Engineers?

Matt Albrecht, October 6th 2019

The advent of SD-WAN has brought a great deal of fearmongering. SD-WAN vendors have pitched the technology as so ground-breaking and easy to implement that the job security of Network Engineers has been called into question. Is there justification around the fear? Let's discuss.

How to Configure NTP on Cisco IOS XE

Matt Albrecht, September 29th 2019

Network Time Protocol synchronizes the clocks of all computers, servers, phones, and routers. Let's learn how to configure it on a Cisco IOS XE router.

Introduction to Ansible NETCONF Automation on Juniper Routers

Matt Albrecht, September 22nd 2019

Ansible is one of the most popular automation frameworks in recent years. Today, we'll take a look at an Ansible NETCONF module that we may use to automate our network infrastructure.

How to Configure an IPV6 Interface on a Cisco Router

Matt Albrecht, September 15th 2019

Today, we'll take a look at how to configure an IPV6 address on a Cisco router. We'll use a Cisco ISR 1100 Series router but the configuration may be adjusted to work on any IOS XE device.

Top 10 IPV6 Facts that every Network Engineer MUST Know

Matt Albrecht, September 8th 2019

Over the past 10 years, global adoption of IPV6 has grown from less than 1% to now more than 25% of all Internet traffic. The relevance of IPV6 to a network engineer's career is now higher than ever before. As such, enjoy today's post on our top 10 IPV6 facts that every Network Engineer must know.

What is CaaS? Configuration as a Service explained

Matt Albrecht, September 1st 2019

CaaS (Configuration as a Service) has grown to become a critical requirement in the successful digitization of network infrastructure. CaaS enables a multitude of benefits over classical configuration management. Today we'll explain exactly what CaaS is and how it can transform a business.

Python Automation on Cisco Routers in 2019 - NETCONF, YANG & Jinja2

Matt Albrecht, August 25th 2019

It's no secret that software skills have grown into a prized asset for Network Engineers in recent years. Let's have some fun today automating the configuration of a Cisco router using Python, NETCONF, YANG models, and Jinja templates.

The Best Network Engineering Blogs in 2019

Matt Albrecht, August 19th 2019

Network Engineering is a fast-paced industry flowing with innovation. In a world where technology transforms every year, it can be hard to keep up. That's why, today, we are compiling a list of the best blogs to follow for network engineers in 2019.

How to Packet Capture on a Cisco ASA Firewall

Matt Albrecht, August 12th 2019

Monitoring traffic on a network is a powerful troubleshooting technique that most network engineers employ. Today's post will delve into the details of how to packet capture on a Cisco ASA firewall.

BGP Configuration between a Cisco IOS XE and Junos Router

Matt Albrecht, August 5th 2019

Configuring BGP between Cisco and Juniper routers is a goal that all network engineers will encounter during their careers. Let's take a look at how it's done using a Cisco CSR 1000v router and a virtual SRX router by Juniper. The configuration we use today may be adjusted to work on other Cisco and Juniper device families.

How to Configure Juniper Routers with NETCONF via XML RPCs

Matt Albrecht, July 28th 2019

This post is part two of a multi-part series on the NETCONF protocol. Today will detail the steps required to configure a Junos device through the NETCONF interface using raw XML Remote Procedure Calls.

VRRP Configuration between a Cisco IOS XE and Junos Router

Matt Albrecht, July 20th 2019

Let's take a look at the configuration required for a multi-vendor VRRP deployment. For this post, we'll be using a Cisco CSR 1000v router and a virtual SRX router by Juniper; the configuration may be adjusted to work on other Cisco and Juniper device families.

DHCP Server Configuration on a Cisco ISR Router running IOS XE

Matt Albrecht, July 13th 2019

Let's take a look at the configuration required for a DHCP Server on an IOS XE router. For this post, we'll be using a Cisco ISR 1100 Series router but the configuration may be adjusted to work on any IOS XE device.

Day Zero Configuration for Viptela SD-WAN Edges

Matt Albrecht, July 10th 2019

How can we configure a Viptela edge router on day zero to establish a secure tunnel to our vManage orchestrator? That is, what configuration is required to essentially activate our edge? Today, we'll answer that question in the context of the Cisco ISR Series.

Configuring Static Routes on Junos

Matt Albrecht, July 3rd 2019

How can we configure static routing on Junos? And how can we use route preferences for more granular control? That will be the subject of today's topic.

Introduction to NETCONF and Juniper YANG Models

Matt Albrecht, February 10th 2019

This post is part one of a multi-part series on the NETCONF protocol. Part 1 will introduce NETCONF and explain how to run operational junos commands via the NETCONF interface.

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