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249 Topics
Mike
Community Manager
MikeCommunity Manager
published in Learn NQE
Getting Started with NQE - The Complete SeriesBeginner

Want to use NQE to gain insights into your network, but don’t know where to begin? Follow along as I cover the basics of NQE and shares example queries. Have questions? Ask them below!

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Mike
Community Manager
davetee
Community Manager
daveteeCommunity Manager
published in Welcome
Forward Networks Ranks and Badges

How to earn badges and move up the ranks Recognition is given to community members for their contributions and engagement within the Community. Here are the activities that lead to the awarding of badges and rank promotion: Replies Participating in discussions and responding to questions will give you points for replies. Topics Creating new topics and asking new questions demonstrates your ability to share new ideas with other members. Answers Other members and moderators can mark your responses to questions as correct. Likes Given / Received Recognizing the contributions of others is important in every community. Ranks Ramping Up Welcome! Every new community member starts here. Ask a few questions and like a few contributions from others and you’ll be moving up the ranks. Driver You’ll receive the rank of Driver after replying to your first discussion and liking posts by others. Spotter The Spotter rank is given to community members that not only participate in exiting topics, but ini

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davetee
Community Manager
davetee
Community Manager
daveteeCommunity Manager
published in Welcome
​​​​​​​Welcome to the Forward Networks Community!

We created a community to support Forward Networks users in building the world's most powerful network infrastructure. The most important part of any community is the people who participate - we’re excited to have you here! I recommend you check out these discussion boards to get started: Drop by the Paddock Chat with others managing complex networks. Discuss new technologies, current events, ideas you’d like to explore to take your network to the next level. Product Discussions Connect with others on how to access all the capabilities of the Forward Networks platform. Learn about setup, configuration, integration, and using Forward as part of your network automation strategy. NQE A great space to meet the NQE movers and shakers. Connect with experts for answers to your NQE questions and share your NQE knowledge with others. If you have questions, drop us an email at community@forwardnetworks.com.

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davetee
Community Manager
davetee
Community Manager
daveteeCommunity Manager
published in Welcome
User Guidelines

Our community is here for everyone. We want to make sure that the community offers a positive experience for all visitors. We have established the following guidelines so it is clear what is expected of all community members. If you have any questions, please contact us at community@forwardnetworks.com . Be friendly Let’s treat each other with respect. Users will not post any racist, sexist, discriminatory, derogatory, threatening or otherwise insulting content. Please refrain from using profanity or other offensive language. Keep it legal Users may not post any offensive material, share illegal or copyrighted content, attempt to distribute illegal substances, distribute viruses, or anything that is considered illegal by your country of residence. Stay on topic Please do not change the subject of a discussion to something not intended by the original poster. Any off-topic posting on threads will result in content being removed and ultimately can lead to denied community access. Save th

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davetee
Community Manager
shyawnkarim
Employee
shyawnkarimEmployee
published in NQE Discussions
Make Critical Info Pop in NQE TablesBeginner

In Inventory, you have probably noticed how some table columns make it easy to spot issues at a glance. Green means things are healthy and red means something needs attention. The Status column in the Network devices table, located in Inventory, is a good example: “processed” shows up in green while something like “connection refused” stands out in red. Now, you can bring the same visual feedback into your own NQE queries. We’ve added a new builtin called withInfoStatus . It lets you tag any value in your result table with a label: OK , WARNING , or ERROR . The results table uses that label to color values appropriately. Here is an example. Suppose you want to flag devices whose OS support has already ended. This query checks if the support date is in the past and then labels it. foreach device in network.deviceslet platform = device.platformlet osSupport = platform.osSupportwhere isPresent(osSupport) && isPresent(device.snapshotInfo.collectionTime)let collectionDate = date(device.snap

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shyawnkarim
Employee
rob
Employee
robEmployee
published in NQE Discussions
Check for Unused Firewall Rules (and Catch New Ones Too)Intermediate

This NQE script helps you spot firewall rules that haven’t processed traffic lately. It flags rules as unused if they haven’t processed any packets in the last 30 days—but only on active firewalls (not ones in BACKUP or STANDALONE_INACTIVE modes). If you have rules that are supposed to be quiet (like for failover scenarios), you can list them in expectedUnusedRules so they don’t show up as false positives. As a bonus, it also highlights newly created rules—anything added in the last 30 days—so you get visibility into what’s changing as well as what’s sitting idle. All timing is based on the device’s snapshot collection time. You can also find this script in the Forward NQE Library Forward Library > Security > Firewalls with Unused Security Rules /** * @intent Verifies that active firewalls have no unused security rules * @description This query considers a rule to be unused if it last processed * a packet more than 30 days ago. This query only applies this check to * firewalls that are

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rob
Employee
R
Spotter
Rohit_809 KumarSpotter
asked in Custom Commands
Custom command format for Foritnet

we are using below format to collect the data from Fortinet firewall for custom command. endconfig globalshow system dnsshow system ntp can anyone check and confirm ,these will not impact anything ,if i remove config gloabl , than command will not run.

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Christopher
Employee
Tyson Henrie
Employee
Tyson HenrieEmployee
posted in Koan Challenges
Play our NQE Koan Challenge - Finding Nemo

Hello NQE Enthusiasts, It has been two months, so time for another challenge. Challenge The task is to list Name, Age and Pets owned by all people under 20 years old, that own fish. Input: persons = [{ Name: "Tim" , Age: 21 , pets:[ "dog" , "mouse" , "fish" ] }, { Name: "Mark" , Age: 19 , pets: [ "dog" , "fish" , "cat" ] }, { Name: "Nina" , Age: 18 , pets: [ "snake" , "lizard" ] }, { Name: "Leroy" , Age: 24 , pets: [ "fish" ]}, { Name: "Sally" , Age: 11 , pets: [ "dog" , "fish" ] } ]; Example Result [Name, Age, Pet…….] Contributions: Unclaimed

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davetee
Community Manager
R
Rajesh vRamping Up
asked in Learn NQE
what scripting language NQE use?

what scripting language NQE use?

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R
A
Employee
andrewcarverEmployee
posted in General Discussions
On-Prem CVE DB Fetch Automation

This is for On-Prem environments, to securely retrieve the CVE database file through automation. Create a secure env file (path of your choosing) for your Forward SAAS credentials This keeps secrets out of code and scripts export FWD_USERNAME='your_username' # <-- Replace with your Forward SAAS UN export FWD_PASSWORD='your_password' # <-- Replace with your Forward SAAS PW Add the Python script (path of your choosing) to download the CVE index This is the meat and potatoes of retrieving the file for SAAS #!/usr/bin/env python3 import requests, os from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth username = os.environ.get("FWD_USERNAME") password = os.environ.get("FWD_PASSWORD") if not username or not password: raise ValueError("Missing credentials.") url = "https://fwd.app/api/cve-index" output_file = "/tmp/cve-index.bin.gz" r = requests.get(url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username, password), verify=False) r.raise_for_status() with open(output_file, "wb") as f: f.write(r.content) print(f"Saved to {outpu

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A
Employee
J
john_hayesRamping Up
asked in NQE Discussions
Forward NQE Query to Identify Modified Firewall Rules

Is it possible to write a Forward NQE query that will produce a list of firewall rules that have been modified in the last 30 days? It would be helpful to have firewall name, the rule ID numbers, and date/time last modified if possible.

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V
Employee
AricaFN
Employee
AricaFNEmployee
posted in NQE Discussions
NQE to Identify IP Subnet Utilization

This NQE uses the L3 interface info and ARP tables to find the subnets in use on your network. It lists the associated vlan, used addresses, devices, and usage statistics. An optional parameter allows you to search for an IP address, and whether the IP is in use or not, it will display the subnet it belongs to. import "@fwd/L3/Interface Utilities"; numHostsInSubnetV4(maskLength) = if 2 ^ (32 - maskLength) >= 4 then 2 ^ (32 - maskLength) - 2 else 2 ^ (32 - maskLength); numHostsInSubnetV6(maskLength) = 2 ^ (128 - maskLength); @queryquery(IP_Addresses: List<IpAddress>) = foreach device in network.devices foreach interface in getL3Interfaces(device) let addresses = (foreach address in interface.ipv4.addresses select { ip: address.ip, mask: address.prefixLength }) + (foreach address in interface.ipv6.addresses select { ip: address.ip, mask: address.prefixLength }) let neighbors = (foreach address in interface.ipv4.neighbors select address.ip) + (foreach address in interface.ipv6.neighbors s

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AricaFN
Employee
J
john_hayesRamping Up
asked in NQE Discussions
Forward NQE to Identify Unused Firewall Rules

Is it possible to write a Forward NQE query that will produce a list of firewall rules that have not been used in the last 90 / 180 / 365 days (based on hit count)? It would be helpful to have firewall name, the rule ID numbers, and last used date/time if possible.

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Mike
Community Manager
MikeCommunity Manager
published in Videos
Prevent the Network Blame Game with Forward Networks

Picture this… Your phone buzzes on a Saturday morning. "The app is down... it's probably the network." Sound familiar? We all have been there WAY too many times. I had a great conversation with Ethan Banks from #PacketPushers on how Forward Networks can help you get the network insights you need to in order to stop the blame game!. Imagine having the evidence to confidently say, "Nope, not us!" and actually enjoy your weekend. #StopTheNetworkBlameGame Questions about stopping the Network Blame Game? Ask below!

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Mike
Community Manager
AricaFN
Employee
AricaFNEmployee
published in NQE Discussions
From CLI to NQE: How I Use Forward to Be a More Efficient Network OperatorBeginner

Before I started using Forward Networks, I was deep in the weeds of daily network operations. Like many of you, I relied on the CLI to do everything—whether it was compliance checks, interface audits, or config validation. It worked, but it was slow, manual, and honestly, a bit exhausting. Then I discovered Network Query Engine (NQE), and everything changed. My Background: Life in the CLI Before discovering NQE, I managed networks using CLI commands across dozens or hundreds of devices every day. Logging into individual devices—one at a time Running the same commands repeatedly ( show run | include , show run | section , etc.) Copying results into spreadsheets to figure out what was going on Trying to get ahead of issues, but always feeling like I was behind This approach worked for a while, but it became clear that it couldn’t scale with the needs of a modern network. The Breakthrough: Pattern and Block Matching When I began exploring NQE, I realized I didn’t need to learn everything

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AricaFN
Employee
D
DannyRRamping Up
asked in Forward API
API Path Searching with FQDNs

Hello Forward Networks! I have a question regarding if it's possible to add support to resolve FQDNs in the Path Search API? Or would we have to rely on our own DNS servers to make the resolutions first to then add the discovered IP Address to the source or destination. Can it be possible for Forward Networks to model FQDNs as independent objects? Apologies if this seems like a silly ask! Thank you

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D
Christopher
Employee
ChristopherEmployee
posted in NQE Discussions
NQE Query to list prefixes advertised to public BGP peers

This query returns a list of devices, their public BGP peers, and the prefixes advertised to each peer. Note that the line where neighbor.neighborAddress not in nonPublicIps limits the output to peers whose IP is not an RFC 1918 or link-local IP address. /*** @intent Lists public BGP peers and what prefixes are advertised to them*/ import "@fwd/L3/IpAddressUtils"; // The prefixes that are advertised from device to neighborAddressgetAdvRoutes(device, neighborAddress) = foreach x in [1] where isPresent(device.bgpRib) let bgpRib = device.bgpRib foreach afiSafi in bgpRib.afiSafis foreach neighbor in afiSafi.neighbors where neighbor.neighborAddress == neighborAddress where isPresent(neighbor.adjRibOutPost) let adjRibOutPost = neighbor.adjRibOutPost foreach route in adjRibOutPost.routes select distinct route.prefix; // List of IP subnets to excludenonPublicIps = ipAddressSet(privateSubnets + [ipSubnet("169.254.0.0/16")]); foreach device in network.devicesforeach networkInstance in device.net

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Christopher
Employee
GTurner
Employee
GTurnerEmployee
posted in NQE Discussions
Normalized Ranking Without Sorting in NQE

Motivation A customer recently approached me with a challenge: they wanted to feed downstream systems with ordered and banded firewall data. Specifically, they had the following use cases: Identify Top-N firewalls based on configuration complexity and other attributes like greatest number of permissive or shadow rules. Flag percentile-based thresholds for various attributes (e.g., top 10%, bottom 25%) Enable dynamic device selection for exhaustive, compute-heavy rule analysis The challenge? NQE is designed for efficient set-based analysis, therefore it doesn’t require sorting or ranking functions in general. Nevertheless, this customer’s use case called for an approach to simulate these behaviors without external processing. So instead of relying on a built-in sort function, we can create a lightweight, math-driven approach that simulates ranking behavior. It’s fast, deterministic, and works entirely inside the NQE layer so that no external processing or comparisons are required. In th

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GTurner
Employee
I
IvanRamping Up
asked in NQE Discussions
Is it possible to use regex in a pattern block?

I am trying to match against a Palo Alto configuration looking for rules that are using a specific destination object. Rules are under this structure: config devices {string} vsys {string} rulebase security rules {rule_name: (string)*} and an example of what I am trying to match is: "Example Rule" e32ff2ab-a82f-43b6-953e-7e113v624779 { destination [ non-client "External SRC EDL" "Another EDL-wehave"]; First line would be the rule name and the second is where I would really want to do the regex match. The items past “destination” can be a single entry or multiples within []’s. If there are spaces in the names then the whole name is confined in “’s. My goal is to find all rules which have “External SRC EDL” in the destination and I can’t quite figure out how to do it. Any help would be appreciated.

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I
R
Spotter
Rohit_809 KumarSpotter
asked in NQE Discussions
How can i get output in single coloum 

How can i get output in single coloum . team , i am using below query to get the NTP Server data , however is tried all option to get the output in single coloum , but i am not sucess. NQE Query ciscontppattern= ``` ntp server {server:string} ```; ciscontppattern2= ``` ntp server {vrf:string} {dir:string} {ser:ipv4Address} ```; patternf5 = ``` sys ntp servers { server1:string} {server2:string} ```; cisco1(device) = foreach command in device.outputs.commands let response = parseConfigBlocks(device.platform.os, command.response) foreach match in blockMatches(response, ciscontppattern) select match.data.server; cisco2(device) = foreach command in device.outputs.commands let response = parseConfigBlocks(device.platform.os, command.response) foreach match in blockMatches(response, ciscontppattern2) select match.data.ser; getServers(device) = foreach command in device.outputs.commands where command.commandText == "list sys ntp" let filtered_response = replace(command.response, "{", "") let f

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R
Spotter
Christopher
Employee
ChristopherEmployee
posted in Integrations
How to Integrate ServiceNow (SNOW) with Forward Enterprise

Forward Enterprise can integrate with ServiceNow in the following ways: Incident Management - Opening or updating a ServiceNow ticket based on an intent verification failure or change: Forward Docs - Create ServiceNow Incidents CMDB Integration - Pushing updates to the CMBD database with data from Forward Enterprise: Forward Docs - CMDB Integration As a Data Connector with NQE - Extracting data from ServiceNow using an NQE query for use in the NQE Library, Inventory+, or a Decorator by configuring ServiceNow as a Data Connector: Forward Docs - Data Connectors From ServiceNow - By using Flow Designer or Business Rules to access the Forward API. Consult ServiceNow documentation and access one of Forward Enterprise’s API endpoints listed here: Forward Docs - API ---- The first two integration types above are enabled under Settings > Integrations: The following article shows how to use the Forward API to automate workspace network creation, collection, and diff comparison for Change Contro

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L
V
Spotter
VarunS
asked in Forward API
API URL

need to get api nodes url

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L
R
Spotter
Rohit_809 KumarSpotter
asked in General Discussions
How can i remove some static values for output.

we are using below NQE Query to get the NTP Server details , i need to remove some static value in server coloum, ciscontppattern= ``` ntp server {server:string} ```; getServers(device) = foreach match in blockMatches(device.files.config, ciscontppattern) select { serverIP: match.data.server}; foreach device in network.devices let platform = device.platform where device.platform.vendor == Vendor.CISCO select { device: device.name, vendor: device.platform.vendor, tags: device.tagNames, os: device.platform.os, OSVersion :platform.osVersion, servers: (foreach server in getServers(device) select server.serverIP) } Example : i dont want to show entry those have server value - “Inte”

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Tyson Henrie
Employee
S
Driver
SteveBamfordDriver
asked in General Discussions
Arista WIFI

Hi all Has anyone onboarded Arista WIFI yet, the models we have are managed centrally via CV-CUE the Wifi version of cloudvision, although you can extract some commands via SSH. Had a quick look around and couldn’t find anything, I will in the meantime dig around about custom devices 😀 Thanks

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S
Driver
S
Driver
SteveBamfordDriver
asked in NQE Discussions
Arista APs Validate only authorised SSIDs have been configured.

This NQE will validate that only the SSID’s in allowedSSID’s can be used, if it does not exists in the list it will fail the query. Taking advice from an earlier post I have used blockMatches this time, there is some tuning required to remove the duplicates as a result of the table have the entry for each /** * @intent Validate that the arista AP's have only the approved SSID's configured * @description This will check each arista AP for the approved SSIDs and violate when ther SSID does not match * the allowedSSID list. * * You will get multiple entries due to the VAPS list having an entry for each frequency. This will be a future * fix to show only once when the unauthoirised SSID exists */pattern = ```VAP-ID : {VAPId:string} ESSID : {SSID:string}```;// Replace the SSID's with your own.allowedSSID = ["ssid1","ssid2","ssid3"];foreach endpoint in network.endpointswhere endpoint.profileName == "Arista Wireless AP's"foreach command in endpoint.cliCommandResponseswhere command.command ==

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Driver

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