Rules Engine

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This page describes the toolkit’s rules engine.

Data Collection Rules

The decision how to collect data from a network device is governed by the rules engine. It is abstructed in the form of YAML.

Basic Conditions

The following rule applies to any Linux distribution. The purpose of the rule is to discover the paths to all binaries in the user’s PATH environment variable. The information collected is stored in a reference database with tags binaries and configuration`.

- description: 'collect the file listing of binaries in PATH'
  cli: 'find $(env | grep "^PATH=" | sed "s/PATH=//;s/:/ /g") -maxdepth 10 -type f -print | sed "s/\/\//\//"'
  tags: ['ref:binaries', 'configuration']
  saveas: '%h.files.bin.txt'

Later, we could utilize the references in other rules.

For example, there will be no collection of IP addressing information unless ifconfig binary is present.

- description: 'collect ip addressing information via sysctl'
  cli: 'ifconfig -a'
  tags: ['network']
  conditions_match_any:
  - 'tag:binaries:.*bin/ifconfig$'

At the same time, the plugin will collect information if ip binary is present:

- description: 'collect ip routing information'
  cli: 'ip route'
  tags: ['network']
  conditions_match_any:
  - 'tag:binaries:.*bin/ip$'

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Derivatives

In some cases, it is necessary to run follow up commands to discover more data.

The below rule instructs the plugin to read kernel network interface table /proc/net/dev and run follow up ethtool commands if ethtool is available.

- description: 'collect kernel network interface statistics'
  cli: 'cat /proc/net/dev'
  tags: ['network', 'test']
  saveas: '%h.ifstats.txt'
  derivatives:
  - os:
    - generic_linux
    regex:
    - pattern: '^\s*(?P<IF_NAME>\S+):'
      flags: ['add_cli']
    actions:
    - description: 'collect network interface driver and hardware settings from <IF_NAME>'
      cli:
      - 'ethtool <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-pause <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-coalesce <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-ring <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --driver <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-features <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --statistics <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-nfc <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-ntuple <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-eee <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-priv-flags <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-channels <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-time-stamping <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-permaddr <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --module-info <IF_NAME>'
      - 'ethtool --show-eee <IF_NAME>'
      saveas: '%h.ethtool.<IF_NAME>.txt'
      append: yes
      required: ['IF_NAME']
      conditions_match_all:
      - 'tag:binaries:.*in/ethtool$'
      allow_empty_response: no

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Similarly, the below rule applies to Cisco NX-OS devices. The plugin run show ip bgp summary vrf all on a device only if router bgp process is configured. Once collected, the plugin collects BGP neighborship information from the output of the command. If the plugin finds a BGP neighbor, it will collect the advertised-routes and received-routes from that neighbor.

- cli: show ip bgp summary vrf all
  tags: ['routing', 'bgp']
  conditions_match_any:
  - '^router bgp'
  derivatives:
  - description: 'BGP neighbor details'
    os:
    - cisco_nxos
    regex:
    - pattern: 'BGP summary information for VRF (?P<VRF>\S+), address family'
      flags: ['purge']
    - pattern: '\s*(?P<IP_ADDRESS>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3})\s+\d\s+'
      flags: ['add_cli']
    actions:
    - cli: 'show ip bgp neighbors <IP_ADDRESS> vrf <VRF>'
      required: ['IP_ADDRESS', 'VRF']
      format: 'txt'
    - cli: 'show ip bgp neighbors <IP_ADDRESS> advertised-routes vrf <VRF>'
      required: ['IP_ADDRESS', 'VRF']
      format: 'txt'
    - cli: 'show ip bgp neighbors <IP_ADDRESS> received-routes vrf <VRF>'
      required: ['IP_ADDRESS', 'VRF']
      format: 'txt'

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No Newline

In some cases, there is a need to check the command line options available to a user. Traditionally, a user would do it with question mark at the end of the user’s request.

Here, the user issues show service-policy inspect ? to get available options. However, when doing so, the user does not press Enter. The no_newline field mimic the describes behavior. If the field does not exist or if it is set to no, then the newline character will be appended to the user’s request.

- description: 'Collect a list of all possible inspection policies.'
  cli: 'show service-policy inspect ?'
  no_newline: yes
  os:
  - cisco_asa
  tags: ['inspect', 'test']
  conditions_match_all:
  - '^policy-map\s'
  - '^\s+class\s'
  - '^\s+inspect\s'
  derivatives:
  - description: 'Collects information about individual inspection policies'
    os:
    - cisco_asa
    regex:
    - pattern: '^\s*(?P<INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME>\S+$)\s+Show'
      flags: ['add_cli']
    actions:
    - description: 'Collects statistics for inspect <INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME> policy'
      cli: 'show service-policy inspect <INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME>'
      required: ['INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME']
      format: 'txt'

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Success and Error Overwrites

One of the derivative show service-policy inspect commands produces an error:

show service-policy inspect h323
ERROR: % Incomplete command

In order to avoid an error, a user may add success_if field. This causes the plugin to declare the output to be a success, despite that it is failing.

- description: 'Collects statistics for inspect <INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME> policy'
  cli: 'show service-policy inspect <INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME>'
  required: ['INSPECTION_POLICY_NAME']
  format: 'txt'
  success_if:
  - '.*'

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Facts

The plugin’s configuration files has sections dedicated to fact discovery based on the outputs related to software and/or hardware information. For example, CentOS servers have /etc/os-release file.

The contents of the file are as follows:

NAME="CentOS Linux"
VERSION="7 (Core)"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="7"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 7 (Core)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:7"
HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/"

CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-7"
CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="7"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7"

The engine has rules to match against that output:

- pattern: '^NAME="?(?P<os_name>.*)["]?$'
  add:
  - 'os_class=generic_linux'
  strip_quotes: yes
- pattern: '^VERSION_ID="?(?P<os_version>\d+)"?'
  strip_quotes: yes
- pattern: '^ID=(?P<os_subclass>\S+)$'
  strip_quotes: yes

Please note the strip_quotes key. When plugin discovers its presence, it strips double quotes from the captured values.

The plugin’s analytics engine adds the metadata in the following format:

facts:
  os_class: generic_linux
  os_name: CentOS Linux
  os_subclass: centos
  os_version: '7'

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Rule Design

Each command executed by the plugin runs in one of the below modes:

  • noop
  • analytics
  • configure
  • pre
  • post

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Condition Precedent

The condition_precedent_all is a list of conditions. Each condition in the list is a string. The string must conform to the following format: item predicate value.

The item is what the toolkit will be looking for in facts dictionary.

The predicate are the type of a predicate used:

  • eq: equals (both numeric and string, unless there is a type mismatch)
  • ne: equals (both numeric and string, unless there is a type mismatch)
  • ge: greater or equal (numeric evaluation)
  • gt: greater than (numeric evaluation)
  • lt: less than (numeric evaluation)
  • le: less or equal (numeric evaluation)
  • rgx: regular expression evaluation via match, as opposed to search

The value is variable.

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