what sort of programming/scripting do you use at your networking job?

jrs91

Just wondering... I'm going through the cisco lab portfolio for bsci right now, and they use tcl for verifying connectivity on large networks. It got me wondering about other applications for it, and how common its use is among network engineers for tasks beyond connectivity verification.

I've had to make light modifications to perl scripts at work, but most of the programming i've done has been in relation to databases/sysadmin stuff, not actual networking.

I've got some ideas for scripts i might create based on the receipt of certain snmp traps on my nagios server (running tracepaths when IP SLAs drop below a certain point so that I can identify the area of the network that's a problem after the fact), but I'm wondering what sort of stuff others do.

Forsaken_GA

I do a very large amount of bash shell scripting. Everyone keeps telling me to learn perl, but bash along with a combination of sed and awk let me get away with pretty much anything I want to do

ColbyG

I wish I could code, I just don't have the brain for it. I've done a little Perl here and there for things at work. I had a simple script that would do "sh run int _____" on a bunch of interfaces from a text file, nothing major, but it saved me a ton of work. I also had one to do "sh run | i _____" to pull out static route statements associated with a list of IPs.

Super basic stuff, but I am horrible at coding.

dynamik

ColbyNA wrote: »

I wish I could code, I just don't have the brain for it. I've done a little Perl here and there for things at work. I had a simple script that would do "sh run int _____" on a bunch of interfaces from a text file, nothing major, but it saved me a ton of work. I also had one to do "sh run | i _____" to pull out static route statements associated with a list of IPs.

Super basic stuff, but I am horrible at coding.

While I agree that some people are wired for coding better than others, it will also come with practice. If you can achieve an NP, I'm pretty sure you can at least reach a proficient level with a little bit of practice

ColbyG

dynamik wrote: »

While I agree that some people are wired for coding better than others, it will also come with practice. If you can achieve an NP, I'm pretty sure you can at least reach a proficient level with a little bit of practice

It's not so much that I think I can't do it. It's that I just hate it, lol.

Slowhand

I've done a bit of scripting in bash back in the days when I still managed Linux boxes, I've spent more than one sleepless night hacking out some batch scripts for some weird issue or another for my Windows boxes, and I've even done a little bit of KiXtart scripting, which was very handy for more advanced stuff in the pre-PoSh days. These days, I'm actually learning more and more PowerShell, seeing as how we run an all Windows 2008 and Exchange 2008 shop.

I do enjoy coding, but I have to be careful. I work in a game development studio, and anytime I fire up a compiler or IDE the software engineers begin to poke around like drug-sniffing dogs, wondering if I'd like some "help". . . in other words, they'd love to take me under their wing to teach me enough Java/C#/ActionScript to offload work on me.

tiersten

I just use whatever I feel is best for the job. The languages I use on a fairly regular basis are general *nix shell, C, Perl, PHP, Python and TCL. I originally used to do hardware/software development so I've picked up quite a few.

Forsaken_GA

ColbyNA wrote: »

It's not so much that I think I can't do it. It's that I just hate it, lol.

Trust me, I'm right there with you. I'm actually a pretty good coder, I just don't have the mindset or the patience for it.

But you should pick up something, as there are some tasks that you really suck to do manually, over and over again. The vast majority of my scripts were born out of annoyance when my dislike of repetition finally surpassed my dislike of coding. I think the only ones I developed on purpose prior to needing to use them were a few scripts I use for doing cutovers

dredlord

Depends on the tools and infrasturcture you have, example if you deploy Nagios / NNM open view you would be using different scripting languages. I personaly use a combination of bash, batch , VB, C

ColbyG

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Trust me, I'm right there with you. I'm actually a pretty good coder, I just don't have the mindset or the patience for it.

But you should pick up something, as there are some tasks that you really suck to do manually, over and over again. The vast majority of my scripts were born out of annoyance when my dislike of repetition finally surpassed my dislike of coding. I think the only ones I developed on purpose prior to needing to use them were a few scripts I use for doing cutovers

You have them hosted anywhere? I'd like to check them out, and/or use them if the need arises. I've also found that the easiest way for me to pick up code is to dissect a script when I know the purpose of it.

Forsaken_GA

I'll check with my boss to see whether it's ok for me to release some of the stuff I've written

jrs91

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I'll check with my boss to see whether it's ok for me to release some of the stuff I've written

That would be cool. As I said, most of the coding i've done is database related, and has squat to do with networking. I'd be interested to see what kind of scripts people are doing for network-related tasks.

On a general note, I find it interesting how much programmers hate sys/net admin stuff, and how much most network/sys admin guys hate coding. At my current job i'm forced to do a lot of both. It's good in a way, but it makes it impossible to specialize, and specialization is the only way to go for a "real" career in IT imo.

Forsaken_GA

most scripts are a matter of convienence. For example, one script I wrote, I feed it an IP. It does the reverse dns lookup, the whois lookup, the radb lookup, and so on, and then just formats it the way I want it, so I can see all relevant information regarding that IP at a glance. i think my favorite one is the one we use when SWIP'ing out a netblock, just enter the information, the script generates any relevant emails and sends them off

Ahriakin

Proper scripting is something I really need to get to grips with. Right now I use my old copy of WISE installer...yes its a repackager application for install packages, I used to do that kind thing many moons ago, but it does allow file and registry manipulation so once I can **** the info I need to a text file I can extract and process it pretty well. I've written some small app.s to do things like generate thousands of loopbacks with matching ACLs and route statements for lab tests etc. It's actually pretty neat, but not as lean as a real script.

rsutton

I use batch files for everything.