NAME

Net::Appliance::Phrasebook - Network appliance command-line phrasebook

VERSION

version 2.103642

SYNOPSIS

 use Net::Appliance::Phrasebook;
 
 my $pb = Net::Appliance::Phrasebook->new(
     platform => 'IOS',
     source   => '/a/file/somewhere.yml', # optional
 );
 
 print $pb->fetch('a_command_alias'), "\n";

DESCRIPTION

If you use Perl to manage interactive sessions with with the command-line interfaces of networked appliances, then you might find this module useful.

Net::Appliance::Phrasebook is a simple module that contains a number of dictionaries for the command-line interfaces of some popular network appliances.

It also supports the use of custom phrasebooks, and of hiearchies of dictionaries within phrasebooks.

TERMINOLOGY

This module is based upon Data::Phrasebook. A phrasebook is a file which contains one or more dictionaries. A dictionary is merely an associative array which maps keywords to values. In the case of this module, the values happen to be command line interface commands, or related data, that help in the remote management of network appliances.

METHODS

"new"

This method accepts a list of named arguments (as a hash).

There is one required named argument, which is the class of device whose dictionary you wish to access. The named argument is called "platform".

One further, optional argument to "new" is the filename of a phrasebook. If this is not provided, Net::Appliance::Phrasebook will use its own internal phrasebook (see "SUPPORTED SYSTEMS"). This named argument is called "source".

The "new" constructor returns a Data::Phrasebook query object, or "undef" on failure.

"load"

This is an alias for the "new()" constructor should you prefer to use it.

"fetch"

Pass this method a single keyword, and it will return the corresponding value from the dictionary. It will die on lookup failure, because that's what Data::Phrasebook does when there is no successful hit for the given keyword in available dictionaries.

SUPPORTED SYSTEMS

You can select the platform that most closely reflects your device. There is a hierarchy of platforms, so any entry in a given "lineage" will use itself and its "ancestors", in order, for lookups:

 ['FWSM3', 'FWSM', 'PIXOS', 'Cisco']
 ['ASA', 'PIXOS7', 'PIXOS', 'Cisco']
 ['Aironet', 'IOS', 'Cisco']
 ['CATOS', 'Cisco']
 ['JUNOS', 'Cisco']
 ['HP', 'Cisco']
 ['Nortel', 'Cisco']
 ['ExtremeXOS', 'Cisco']

For example the value "FWSM" (for Cisco Firewall Services Modules with software versions up to 2.x) will fetch commands from the "FWSM" dictionary and then the "PIXOS" dictionary, then the "Cisco" dictionary, before failing.

CUSTOM PHRASEBOOKS

Phrasebooks must be written in YAML, with each dictionary being named within the top-level associative array in the stream. Please see Data::Phrasebook::Loader::YAML for more detail on the format of the content of a YAML phrasebook file.

In the world of network appliances, vendors will sometimes change the commands used in or even the appearance of the command line interface. This might happen between software version releases, or as a new product line is released.

However, typically there is an ancestry to all these interfaces, so we can base a new product's dictionary on an existing dictionary whilst overriding some entries with new values. If you study the source to this module, you'll see that the bundled phrasebook makes uses of such platform families to avoid repetition.

It is recommended that when creating new phrasebooks you follow this pattern. When doing so you must pass an array reference to the "platform" argument of "new" and it will be used as a list of dictionaries to find entries in, in order. Note that the array reference option for the "platform" argument will only work when used with a named external source data file.

TIPS

The phrasebook that ships with this module is stored in a separate file, alongside the module itself on your computer. For example:

 .../Net/Appliance/Phrasebook.pm
 .../Net/Appliance/Phrasebook/nas-pb.yml

So the file you want to copy to start your own phrasebook is "nas-pb.yml", as above. Having copied it, make some changes and use that file in the "source" named parameter. Make sure you pass the "platform" parameter a value too, in that case.

Read the manual pages for Data::Phrasebook::Loader::YAML and Data::Phrasebook to understand what a default dictionary is, and why you probably always want to have (an empty) one in a phrasebook.

In YAML, an empty associative array is represented by "{}". Be sure to put that into your cutom dictionaries where needed, otherwise Data::Phrasebook::Loader::YAML will misbehave.

DIAGNOSTICS

"missing argument to Net::Appliance::Phrasebook::new": You forgot to pass the required "platform" argument to "new".
"unknown platform: foobar, could not find phrasebook": You asked for a dictionary "foobar" that does not exist in the internal phrasebook.
"couldn't find the NAS Phrasebook home directory": The module searched for the phrasebook it shipped with, but failed to find it. Please report this error (including the message itself) to the module maintainer.
"NAS Phrasebook file at Net/Appliance/Phrasebook/nas-pb.yml does not seem to exist": The module searched for the phrasebook it shipped with, but failed to find it. Please report this error (including the message itself) to the module maintainer.

DEPENDENCIES

Other than the the contents of the standard Perl distribution, you will need the following:

Data::Phrasebook::Loader::YAML >= 0.06
Data::Phrasebook >= 0.26
List::MoreUtils
Class::Data::Inheritable
YAML >= 0.62

BUGS

If you spot a bug or are experiencing difficulties that are not explained within the documentation, please send an email to oliver@cpan.org or submit a bug to the RT system (http://rt.cpan.org/). It would help greatly if you are able to pinpoint problems or even supply a patch.

AUTHOR

Oliver Gorwits <oliver@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.