NetScaler API is a Python interface for interacting with Citrix NetScaler application delivery controllers, utilizing the SOAP API to execute commands.
| python-suds: | Lightweight SOAP client |
|---|
Pass any kwargs to init that you would to the suds.client.Client constructor. A little bit of magic is performed with the ImportDoctor to cover missing types used in the WSDL.
- If you specify wsdl, this file will be pulled from the default http URL
- If you specify wsdl_url, it will override the wsdl file. Local
- "file://" URLs work just fine.
To save time for re-usable code, it is a good idea subclassing this to create methods for commonly used commands in your application:
class MyAPI(API):
def change_password(self, username, newpass):
return self.run("setsystemuser_password", username=username,
password=newpass)
In a script:
import netscaler
if __name__ == '__main__':
netscaler.DEBUG = True
wsdl_url = 'file:///home/j/jathan/sandbox/NSUserAdmin.wsdl'
client = netscaler.API('nos', username='nsroot', password='nsroot', wsdl_url=wsdl_url)
print client.logged_in
The default NetScaler WSDL is massive and is undoubtedly the most comprehensive SOAP API I have ever worked with. It is 2.5M as of this writing. It describes services everyything the NetScaler can do, which is overkill for most tools. Fetching the default NSConfig.wsdl will cause netscaler.py to compile them all.
This can take a long time:
% time ./nstest.py WSDL: file:///home/j/jathan/sandbox/NSConfig.wsdl Starting client... Done. ./netscaler.py 12.23s user 0.37s system 99% cpu 12.613 total
It will take even longer if you have to download the WSDL every time you start up your program. So you definitely want to filter your WSDL and the NetScaler has a CLI tool called 'filterwsdl' that does just that.
If you want more details on why to do it, please read http://bit.ly/aX57SS.
So let's say we just want to interact with user administration operations. How about login, logout, savensconfig (of course), and anything with systemuser in it. It goes like this (run from CLI shell on NetScaler):
# filterwsdl /netscaler/api/NSConfig.wsdl +"log*" +"*systemuser*" +"savensconfig" > /netscaler/api/NSUserAdmin.wsdl
Then scp the file to localhost from the device. Now let's compare:
-rw-r--r-- 1 jathan jathan 2.6M 2009-08-19 00:40 NSConfig.wsdl -rw-r--r-- 1 jathan jathan 14K 2010-03-02 16:36 NSUserAdmin.wsdl
Big difference. Observe how fast does subset WSDL compiles:
% time ./nstest.py WSDL: file:///home/j/jathan/sandbox/NSUserAdmin.wsdl Starting client... Done. ./netscaler.py 0.36s user 0.03s system 100% cpu 0.392 total
HUGE difference.
Before we play with it there is one thing to keep in mind about suds.client. It will cache the WSDL by default, which is helpful for production but can be confusing while testing and debugging, especially if you're tweaking your filtered WSDL. So whenever testing, always pass cache=None to the constructor to avoid this confusion.
Ok now let's play with it:
>>> import netscaler
>>> wsdl_url = 'file:///Users/jathan/sandbox/netscaler-api/NSUserAdmin.wsdl'
>>> api = netscaler.API('netscaler', username='nsroot', password='nsroot', wsdl_url=wsdl_url, cache=None)
setting username to nsroot
setting cache to None
setting password to nsroot
wsdl_url: file:///Users/jathan/sandbox/netscaler-api/NSUserAdmin.wsdl
soap_url: http://netscaler/soap/
Now if you print the api object, it acts just like a suds.client.Client object. Notice this subset of methods is way lower than the 2800+ methods from the master WSDL:
>>> print api
Suds ( https://fedorahosted.org/suds/ ) version: 0.3.9 GA build: R659-20100219
Service ( NSConfigService ) tns="urn:NSConfig"
Prefixes (2)
ns0 = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
ns1 = "urn:NSConfig"
Ports (1):
(NSConfigPort)
Methods (10):
addsystemuser(xs:string username, xs:string password, )
bindsystemuser_policy(xs:string username, xs:string policyname, xs:unsignedInt priority, )
getsystemuser(xs:string username, )
login(xs:string username, xs:string password, )
loginchallengeresponse(xs:string response, )
logout()
rmsystemuser(xs:string username, )
savensconfig()
setsystemuser_password(xs:string username, xs:string password, )
unbindsystemuser_policy(xs:string username, xs:string policyname, )
Types (54):
ns0:Array
ns0:ENTITIES
ns0:ENTITY
ns0:ID
ns0:IDREF
ns0:IDREFS
ns0:NCName
ns0:NMTOKEN
ns0:NMTOKENS
ns0:NOTATION
ns0:Name
ns0:QName
ns0:Struct
ns0:anyURI
ns0:arrayCoordinate
ns0:base64
ns0:base64Binary
ns0:boolean
ns0:byte
ns0:date
ns0:dateTime
ns0:decimal
ns0:double
ns0:duration
ns0:float
ns0:gDay
ns0:gMonth
ns0:gMonthDay
ns0:gYear
ns0:gYearMonth
getsystemuserResult
ns0:hexBinary
ns0:int
ns0:integer
ns0:language
ns0:long
ns0:negativeInteger
ns0:nonNegativeInteger
ns0:nonPositiveInteger
ns0:normalizedString
ns0:positiveInteger
ns0:short
simpleResult
ns0:string
stringList
systemuser
systemuserList
ns0:time
ns0:token
ns0:unsignedByte
ns0:unsignedInt
unsignedIntList
ns0:unsignedLong
ns0:unsignedShort
Now we can run a command:
>>> api.run("addsystemuser", username='jathan', password='jathan')
config changed, autosaving.
Done
(simpleResult){
rc = 0
message = "Done"
}
Config changed, autosaving!
You might as yourself why not just directly invoke api.client.service.addsystemuser(). That's a good question. It depends on whether you want to take advantage of the little perks I added like automatic login and automatic saving of the configuration on volatile operations. Some people might like these ideas, others might not. Autosave is enabled by default, but you can disabled it by passing autosave=False to the constructor.
Currently any command that does not start with login, logout, get, or save is considered volatile, and will trigger an autosave.
In the examples directory is nsuser.py, which is an example of how one might utilize subclassing to wrap some business logic around certain commands. Here it is:
class IllegalName(netscaler.InteractionError): pass
class UserAdmin(netscaler.API):
def is_safe(self, username):
"""Returns False for names containing 'root' or starting with 'ns'."""
if 'root' in username or username.startswith('ns'):
return False
return True
def add_user(self, username, password):
"""Custom user adder that won't allow unsafe names"""
if not self.is_safe(username):
raise IllegalName(username)
try:
resp = self.run("addsystemuser", username=username, password=password)
return True
except netscaler.InteractionError, err:
return False
def del_user(self, username):
"""Custom user remover that protects usernames"""
if not self.is_safe(username):
raise IllegalName(username)
try:
resp = self.run("rmsystemuser", username=username)
return True
except netscaler.InteractionError, err:
return False
def user_exists(self, username):
"""Returns True if user exists."""
try:
resp = self.run("getsystemuser", username=username)
return True
except netscaler.InteractionError, err:
return False
I used the example of blacklisting the creation or removal of any user that has "root" in the name or begins with "ns". So if you try any volatile operations on this user using this module, this is what happens:
>>> import nsuser
>>> wsdl_url = 'file:///Users/jathan/sandbox/netscaler-api/examples/NSUserAdmin.wsdl'
>>> api = nsuser.UserAdmin('netscaler', username='nsroot', password='nsroot',wsdl_url=wsdl_url, cache=None)
>>> api.del_user('nsroot')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "nsuser.py", line 29, in del_user
raise IllegalName(username)
nsuser.IllegalName: nsroot
If you run nsuser it does a little addition of missing users or removal of existing ones with some dummy accounts just to show how it works:
% py nsuser.py setting username to nsroot setting cache to None setting password to nsroot wsdl_url: file:///Users/jathan/sandbox/netscaler-api/examples/NSUserAdmin.wsdl soap_url: http://netscaler/soap/ Done logged in: True autosave? True checking jathan config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done jathan added! checking dynasty config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done dynasty added! checking john config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done john added!
And the other way:
% py nsuser.py setting username to nsroot setting cache to None setting password to nsroot wsdl_url: file:///Users/jathan/sandbox/netscaler-api/examples/NSUserAdmin.wsdl soap_url: http://netscaler/soap/ Done logged in: True autosave? True checking jathan jathan exists. deleting config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done checking dynasty config changed; autosaving. Done dynasty exists. deleting config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done checking john config changed; autosaving. Done john exists. deleting config changed; consider saving! config changed; autosaving. Done
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