Repetitive hosts groups

[jbemmel]

I want to use Netlab to generate the full configs for new switches we're deploying. Each switch is mostly fully loaded with hosts; groups of hosts are connected in the same way (to the same vlans, etc.)

I'd like to have an easy way to say: "Connect 10 hosts to ports 1-10 with this port configuration"

One way to implement this:

groups:
 _auto_create: True
 hosts:
  members: [h]
  device: linux
  count: 10          <-- *NEW*

links:
- h:
  s1:
   ifindex: 1        <-- gets incremented for each additional host
  vlan.access: X

The semantics would be to generate N copies wherever node 'h' is used, replacing it with h1, h2, ... etc.

[Astrotokii]

Wouldn't there need to be a range exclusion for links? Say you do the increment on switch 1, h1-10 get 10 interface connections. Then you use the same layout for switch 2, wouldn't netlab begin at h1 again assigning 10 interfaces to that range again. This issue being, say you have 20 count for hosts and you wanted h11-20 to be on switch 2, so you would need a way to explicitly state to netlab to exclude h1-h10, no?

[jbemmel]

One would have to define 2 host groups, one for h1-10 and a second one for h11-20

To generate accurate node names, we might need to allow for a format string, and an optional offset to start numbering at some other point than (default) 1

[ipspace]

When I wanted to simplify the creation of a leaf-and-spine fabric I created the fabric plugin: https://github.com/ipspace/netlab/tree/dev/netsim/extra/fabric

You might also find the topology components useful: https://netlab.tools/components/

[jbemmel]

Yes, would be implemented as a plugin