Rick Donato

Git Graph is an extension recently released for Microsofts Visual Studio Code, and I have to say, it's pretty cool! For those of you who are new to VSCode, it can save you a ton of time when developing - highly recommended - check it out here. In

Network Automation newsletter. Edition 004 - Feb2021

When it comes to open-source network automation tools, NAPALM is one of the heavy hitters in the industry. For those of you who are new to NAPALM, it is: ... a vendor-neutral, cross-platform open-source project that provides a unified API to network devices. Typically NAPALM is used for configuring devices, and

One project that I'm starting to use more and more is Rich. In short, Rich is a Python library for: writing rich text (with colour and style) to the terminal and displaying advanced content such as tables, markdown, and syntax highlighted code. ... and I have to say, it

In previous posts, we looked at some of the tools (Flake8 and Black) that can be used for performing stylistic and syntax checking against your Python code. However, there is something else we must also consider - security! Let me introduce - Bandit. Bandit is a Python-based open-source security linter.

DR/BDR Roles Within OSPF, the role of the Designated Router (DR) and a Backup Designated Router (BDR) is to act as a central point for exchanging of OSPF information between multiple routers on the same, multiaccess broadcast network segment. Each non-DR and non-BDR router only exchanges routing information with

The Full Mesh Problem Due to the BGP split-horizon rule (within iBGP), all iBGP peers within an AS must be fully meshed. Why may you ask? Whereas eBGP uses the AS-PATH for loop avoidance, iBGP neighbours do not add their ASN to the AS_PATH when sending updates. So what

VScode is an extremely popular free open-source IDE. Which is great for Network Automation. Here are 3 VSCode shortcuts that can save you a TON of time! Multi-Line Selection * Windows: CTRL+ALT+⬇/⬆ * Mac: CMD+OPTION+SHIFT+⬇/⬆ Search Across All Files * Highlight the text you want to search for. * Execute search:

Previously we looked at how to -- Style your Python Code like a Pro -- using the tool, Black. However, what about if there is a typo in your code? For example, a missing colon or closing bracket. This is where linting comes into play. Linting is the process of