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Managing wide area networks (WANs) efficiently is paramount for businesses. This Network Query Engine (NQE) serves as a critical tool, offering visibility into WAN circuits by integrating external data sources from service providers.OverviewIn today's digital landscape, businesses rely on wide area networks (WANs) to connect different parts of their operations. A common challenge is the lack of visibility into all WAN circuits, leading to inefficiencies and unnecessary costs. That's where this Network Query Engine (NQE) steps in, providing a solution that allows customers to use external data sources, such as CSV files, to better manage their networks. For instance, a customer can take a CSV from a service provider like AT&T, and use it to match IP addresses to devices in their network. This helps identify routers and WAN interfaces that might not be immediately visible, ensuring that only necessary circuits remain active. ResultsCustomers have found this capability invaluable for

Is there any additional documentation as to what needs to be included in any NQE query that is used to dynamically create l3vpn synthetic devices ?

If you've ever wished Demo Tuesdays were longer OR if you've always wondered what @Mike looks like in sequins-- this is the stream you've been waiting for.  Mike takes our Cisco Live Demo Theater audience through a full 30 minutes of Forward Enterprise product demonstration live in Las Vegas. 

How can i collect below information from Forward Network via API for Network devices. ?• IP address,• MAC address• Interface details• Device Name• Subnet details1.Which API should be used to get the above information? In the documentation, I see an API to get           networks/ Network collection/ devices  ;2.Is there a single API call that can pull the above information, or are there multiple API calls?3.If it's one API call, what's the Max pagination limit?4.Can you please provide a Sample API  or a Postman export to make an API call.

How can i collect NQE Query Data from Forward Network to Power BI Easily,

Hi All,Need to fetch interface alias details of Fortinet firewalls from NQE query. Please help me to build the logic.

Hi Team,I want to add only admin status up interfaces condition, CDP LLDP neighbor info in below query, please help me on this.Extra question- 1. any method to shirk the results to only getting WAN interfaces any idea on this.2. want to add one more column to fetch circuit id details from Interface or Interface description.NQE Query- pattern_interfaces = ["*WAN *"];testPatterns(s, p) = max (foreach pattern in pselect matches(toLowerCase(s), toLowerCase(pattern)));foreach device in network.devicesforeach interface in device.interfaceslet platform = device.platformlet ethernet = interface.ethernetwhere isPresent(interface.description)where testPatterns(interface.description, pattern_interfaces)select {  test: testPatterns(interface.description, pattern_interfaces),  deviceName: device.name,  Location: device.locationName,  Tags: device.tagNames,  Vendor: platform.vendor,  Model: platform.model,  interfaceName: interface.name,  negotiatedSpeed: ethernet.negotiatedPortSpeed,  negotiatedMod

I want to create a custom interface description nqe query in Forward Networks.Requirement is to getting only WAN, INT interfaces information through the query. I have used below logic through it i am not getting the results. Please help me out. foreach device in network.devicesforeach interface in device.interfaceslet platform = device.platformwhere interface.description=="WAN"select {  deviceName: device.name,  Location: device.locationName,   Tags: device.tagNames,  Vendor: platform.vendor,  Model: platform.model,  interfaceName: interface.name,  description: interface.description,operStatus: interface.operStatus,adminStatus: interface.adminStatus,cdpNeighborsCount: length(interface.cdp.neighbors),  lldpNeighborsCount: length(interface.lldp.neighbors) } 

Sorry about the lack of punctuation in the title, I can’t edit after ;-)So I don’t know if this is possible, but maybe someone has an idea.The script below provides the following output:OutputThe goal of the script is to figure out how ‘over provisioned’ we are on a switch. i.e. how many ports have never passed a packet. This is in order to size environments better for future refreshes.So the output provides all the necessary info, but I’m not sure how to get a row to tell me “% Utililized”This would be the total count of the ports in use (last column) divided into the the number of ports that specific switch, that show “0” across the board, and I’ll just take 1 zero and assume the rest are zeros (sometimes they are not, but this is just an estimate anyway). Any ideas are greatly appreicated./*** @intent Branch Counters* @description Branch Counters Interface Status show int counters on Arista & IOS-XE Switches * 1. Check to see what switch ports have had no traffic accross the wir

Apologies - This isn’t a question, and I can’t change it to a conversation -With recent changes in our NAC servers, we needed to check that our ‘ip helper-addresses’ were consistent to our regional standards. This is something we usually did with Python, but here’s a simple script to grab the helpers on each of the interfaces.  I got the script working, but had some formatting issues, and thankfully a colleague was able to use some logic to format (@danny,Ramirez) via this statement:let ips = (foreach ip in ServerIP where match.data.IntName == ip.data.IntName select distinct toString(ip.data.helper))Ideally, we would would define the NAC servers per region, and export them as a check, but I haven’t gotten there yet ;-)pattern = ```interface {IntName:string} ip helper-address {helper:ipv4Address}```;foreach device in network.devices// Feel free to trim the scope with a where// where "Branch" in device.tagNames && "Core" in device.tagNames && "C9500" in device.tagNames

Using the same logic in my previous post to grab ip helper addresses, I was thinking what else could I re-use this kind of script to grab, and it was for our OSPF configuration. If you are configuring OSPF type/timers/intervals/cost on interfaces, you can use this script to grab the values on each interface. This will make it easy to set up a violation check for anyone that wants. What would be ideal is if I could group the interfaces per devicehost-XYZ.  intf1:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Cost                    intf2:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Cost                    intf3:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Costhost-ABC.  intf1:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Cost                    intf2:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Cost                    intf3:  Type: DeadInterval: HelloInterval: Load : Cost // standard config// interface {ifaceName:string}// ip ospf network point-to-point// ip ospf dead-interval 20// ip ospf h

when going through devices with interface descriptions, for exampledescription “to site x interface gi0/0”;description “to site y interfaace gi0/1”:block pattern is description {desc:string}Since it is a description with multiple words and space delimited, is there a way to get the entire description no matter how many words there are?  As the above would only get the first word.similar to the way I would use grep for example:grep '^description' ciscoconfig.txtor if I wanted specific columns or text within lines beginning with description, I would grep and use awk like belowgrep '^description' ciscoconfig.txt | awk '{print $2}'grep '^description' ciscoconfig.txt | awk '{print $2 $4}'grep '^description' ciscoconfig.txt | awk '{print $4 $2}'Etc.can anybody provide an NQE Example, Thanks

The API can be used to perform most functions available in the GUI. To perform complex queries of data in the API, it is necessary to insert an NQE query into the API call, or reference an existing NQE query in the Repository.In this example, we first create an NQE query in the Org Repository called list-interfaces. This NQE query will iterate through each device, interface, and sub-interface and list the IP addresses and MAC addresses for each interface.foreach device in network.devicesforeach interface in device.interfacesforeach subinterface in interface.subinterfaceslet ipv4 = subinterface.ipv4foreach address in ipv4.addressesselect { deviceName: device.name, interfaceName: interface.name, subinterfaceName: subinterface.name, ip: ipSubnet(address.ip, address.prefixLength), macAddress: interface.ethernet.macAddress}The output of the NQE in the GUI looks like this: In order to access this information via the API, you must first commit the query. Then get the Query ID and the Com

Using NQE to do Configurations Compliance checks require having the proper structure for the searched text pattern.Ex: this will not match eventhough that line exists within the configurations, but it’s not in the root levelPATTERN=```set admintimeout 10```;So, to match this line we have to provide the proper structure, or recusively add an extra level until a match is foundSo, modifing that example to one of the below patterns should workPATTERN1=```config system global set admintimeout 10```;PATTERN2=```{(string)+} set admintimeout 10```;So, in this example it was only 1 level down, so it’s straight forward to fix.But having to work with different patterns with different nesting levels the below code can be used to automatically modify the provided pattern and recursively search all the different levels Beware that there are many limitations due to the actual version of the language.ex: splitting a string is not straight forward, so the pattern has to be provided as a list of strings

One of my colleagues told me that some of our devices had licence issues.output from show licence usage shows the issue easily, so custom command is the way to go SOMEDEVICE# show license usageFeature                      Ins  Lic   Status Expiry Date Comments                                 Count--------------------------------------------------------------------------------….NXOS_ESSENTIALS_M4            No    -   Unused             -   -FC_PORT_ACTIVATION_PKG        No    0   Unused             -LAN_ENTERPRISE_SERVICES_PKG   No    -   In use             Honor Start 70D 15H-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The key part is to extract the features for the device, and check that the No is present, with In Use also present.This is done via the following function, which determines valid input and detects violation.blockData =```{feature:string} {active:string} {licenceCount:string} {status:string}```;customCommand = "show license usage";getRe

I like to give my team little challenges to exercise their NQE skills. Why don’t you play along this weekend and let’s see all the different ways you can accomplish this goal. Tune in to see some creative ways to solve the FizzBuzz challenge with NQEFizzBuzzThe task is to write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100, but with a twist:For multiples of three, print "Fizz" instead of the number. For multiples of five, print "Buzz" instead of the number. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five, print "FizzBuzz" instead of the number.

One of the painful parts of trying to audit configurations, is accounting for the variations in the configuration that differ based on Vendor/Model/OS etc… Additionally, accounting for ‘old’ configurations/mis-configuration across these variations adds an extra (sometimes silent, sometimes not) “WTF” as one attempts to isolate the problems.With initial input from Arica , I wound up writing 2 scripts to find the ‘new’ configuration and one to find the old, then ‘xlookup-ed’ the differences in excel. Not to fun, but it was effective enough.  Then I figured, how hard could it be to combine them? It was harder than I though, so I created the shell, and then asked for some help from a colleague (thanks Ahmed).@AricaFN@AhmedKhedr The result of the script produces an easily scanned results for the problems.Model ---- DeviceName ---- GoodConfig --- BadConfig/*** @intent Ensure SNMP Communities are correct* @description 2 columns, one column showing where the "GOOD Strings are, and another colu

For the networks I work on there are a lot of different servers, mainly due to environmental conditions such as NAT that are used for the basic management of the devices. This include authentication, snmp-traps, ntp, syslog and so on.The following code allows us to see at a glance all the unique servers ip addresses, along with a reference to each device being used.It’s very easy to list this as individual records, but sometimes it’s nice to consolidate this to show the number of servers, and how many devices are using them. One such use case, may be when moving device from old/demising servers to new servers.This script is a skeleton for Tacacs, it does not deal with the various different command syntax across the various vendors and is just shown as an example. In this case for Cisco.Firstly a function to get the information from each device, namely the authentication server and the device name.getTacacsDeviceEntry(device) = foreach match in patternMatches(device.files.config, `t

Hello,With the actual version of NQE not providing direct way to initialise an Empty list ex:let empty_list = []orempty_list = [] A workaround for this is to construct the creation of that list and providing a value with the same data type you need// an empty List<String>FALLBACK =foreach x in [""]where x != ""select x; // an empty list of NumbersFALLBACK_NUMBERS=foreach x in [0]where x != 0select x; Taking this logic further we can create a function that provides us an empty list of whatever generic type. by taking a default value of that type as an input, then comparing against that value The below block contains the full PoC code// an empty List<String>FALLBACK =foreach x in [""]where x != ""select x;// an empty list of NumbersFALLBACK_NUMBERS=foreach x in [0]where x != 0select x;// An empty list of a generic type TemptyListT(default_val)=foreach x in [default_val]where x != default_valselect x;foreach a in [""]let empty_list_of_strings = FALLBACKlet empty_list_of_number

Before we head off into the weekend I was hoping to ask the community what their stance is on schema based network configuration interfaces like NetConf and OpenConfig GNMI. Question 1: Do you currently or plan to use NetConf and/or GNMI to manage policy across your network? Do you leverage this in your automation pipeline? If so, do you find sufficient vendor support?Question 2: If you do leverage NetConf/GNMI for configuration data, do you still want to inspect the policies via CLI?Thanks for your insights.

As part of doing configuration audits for our NX-OS devices, I needed a check to see if two conditions were met in a configuration to check compliance.If both conditions were present → GoodIf one condition was met and the other wasn’t → BADElse if → Both conditions were not present → Also good.This is relatively simple with a single condition, but adding another variable, kind of stumped me. Credit to Glen Turner @FN for solving the logic puzzle on this.The example below is for OSPF enabled and SNMP traps for OSPF is enabled. This logic can be used for many other two condition checks such as //VarsPatternNetFlow = ```feature netflow```;PatternNetFlow_Config = ```flow timeout active 60```;//FunctionsCheckPattern(config , pattern) = !hasBlockMatch(config, pattern);&& //VarsPatternBFD = ```feature bfd```;PatternBFD_Config = ```bfd interval 300 min_rx 300 multiplier 3```;//FunctionsCheckPattern(config , pattern) = !hasBlockMatch(config, pattern); /** * @intent Ensure DC NX-OS Devic

On May 21st we have shown the integration between Forward and NetBox in a joint webinar. UPDATE: The webinar recording is now available on YouTube:https://youtu.be/TSX14uke1NE.The description includes a link to the webinar slides and the GitHub repository. The integration is part of the NetBox’s Network Automation Architecture framework where Forward provides the Observability and Assurance piece, as shown in the picture below:NetBox Network Automation Architecture The first use case is about onboarding an empty NetBox instance with device data collected by Forward, such as Devices, Interfaces, Vendors, Location, and so forth.Onboarding an empty NetBox instanceThe integration is based on a Python script. It imports the data from Forward using NQE queries via REST APIs, transform the data from the Forward to the NetBox schema and then exports it to NetBoxThe process can be automated using a web-hook so that NetBox is updated every time Forward collects from the network.To run the integr

I have a problem where the two lines of this module output are not the same.  How can I put in essentially null place holders so that they resultant patterns are the "same"?example outputNotice that module 2 does not have Fw or Sw.Mod MAC addresses Hw Fw Sw Status 1 a03d.6f81.0740 to a03d.6f81.074f 1.1 15.0(1r)SG12 03.07.03.E Ok 2 b0aa.777d.d010 to b0aa.777d.d017 1.0 Ok  I was trying to use these two patterns and tried to put in placeholds of Fw and Sw at the end of "pattern03".  But the NQE does not like this.pattern02 = ```Mod MAC addresses {modNum:number} {string} to {string} {hwVer:string} {fwVer:string} {swVer:string} {modStatus:string}```;pattern03 = ```Mod MAC addresses {modNum:number} {string} to {string} {hwVer:string} {modStatus:string} {fwVer: null:string} {swVer: null:string}```;getMacAddrList(parsedOutput) = foreach pattern in [pattern02, pattern03] foreach match in blockMatches

Problem StatementOur company had issues where some network leafs were not connected to all our spines within an ACI fabric.Traditional methods to validate this were time consuming so we developed a basic NQE query to assist.How it workswe leverage the LLDP information for the network leaves and match this to our spines. In our case, we rely on the device naming convention to match LLDP entries to spines. Our spines have SP within the name.NQE ScriptFunction to gather the links to spines for a given device/* * function: countSpineNeighbours * * parameters: device: Device * * purpose * ------- * * count the number of links that are between the spines and the leafs * * spines are matched based on the SP in the device name, at position 8 * * returns: dict * * { * deviceName: string * interfaceName: string * } */countSpineNeighbours(device) = foreach interface in device.interfaces where interface.interfaceType == IfaceType.IF_ETHERNET foreach n in interface.lldp.neighbors where

Happy Thursday All!  I hope you’re having a great week. I know it’s been a busy one so I’ve highlighted this week’s most popular articles and discussions in the community. Did I miss one of your favorites? Add it in the comments below! Here’s the list... @AricaFN ‘s article on extracting data from custom commands is a great discussion for anyone that has to go beyond the data model to tailor the Forward platform to their organization’s specific needs. @Christopher is on fire (hehe) with this new NQE query that uses the Forward Enterprise aclEntry object to provide consistent output from any Firewall vendor. And if you’re interested in automation, @Christopher’s article on interfacing with Forward with API and Python is a great example to follow.  @Mike ‘s complete NQE tutorial video series is the go to for anyone learning NQE or experts brushing up on the finer points.  Building on @cariddir‘s scripts, @RobertWelch create this plug-and-play NQE to unify the Fortinet Version output for