Getting Started with Meraki API using Python Part 6 - Functions   Welcome to Part 6 of this Getting Started series!   In this part, we will look at functions.    If you missed the earlier parts of our series, please make sure you go back to review part one before diving in.    Functions are a very important concept in programming. They allow you to reuse code so you don’t have to write the same code every time.    For example, many operations with the Meraki Dashboard require you to have the organization ID and network ID.    Here is an API endpoint to claim devices into a network which requires the network ID.     Here is an API endpoint to claim your order and add to the organization inventory.     So rather than rewrite the code for getting the network ID and organization ID every time we need those values, we can instead create a function for it and call on the function anytime we need the ID.    Let’s get started on how to create Python functions!   If you have followed all the parts in this series so far, you should now be familiar with retrieving a list of organizations and filtering the list for particular organization parameters. Let’s have a look at the same code but now as a function.   Here is a function for getting the organization ID of DevNet Sandbox:   Let’s analyze the code line by line.   This statement imports the meraki and os python libraries.   import meraki,os   This block of code allows the script to read the .env file.   from dotenv import load_dotenv load_dotenv()   This statement sets the API key for the meraki library functions imported.   dashboard = meraki.DashboardAPI(API_KEY)   This block of code is the function.   def get_org_id():    response = dashboard.organizations.getOrganizations()    for org in response:       if org[‘name’] == ‘DevNet Sandbox’:          org_id = org[‘id’] return org_id   Let us focus on this block of code in a bit more detail. First, we define a function using def and the name of the function. Here we call it get_org_id().    def get_org_id():   Then we do a GET request to retrieve a list of organizations. This line is indented to tell the script that this is run within the function block.   response = dashboard.organizations.getOrganizations()   Then we use a for loop, as we have seen before to iterate through the list of organizations stored in response and look for the specific organization name ‘DevNet Sandbox’ and then if the name matches, store its organization ID in a variable org_id.   for org in response:       if org[‘name’] == ‘DevNet Sandbox’:          org_id = org[‘id’]   Then we return the value of the organization ID whenever this function is called using the return statement.   return org_id   How do you call a function?    Here is the statement which does that.   org_id = get_org_id()   We create a variable called org_id and then call our function get_org_id. Remember that the function returns the value of the organization ID, which gets stored in the variable org_id. Now that we have the value of the organization ID stored in the variable, all we need to do is to print the variable!   print(org_id)   Let us look at one more example.   Now that we have the organization ID, what can we do with it? The next step would be to get the network ID of a network within the organization, we can then configure firewall rules, claim devices etc for the network with the network ID. So let’s create a function for that.       Let’s analyze this code block.   First, we create a function called get_net:   def get_net(org_id):   Within the braces, we have the parameter org_id. We can pass values to function code blocks using parameters within braces. In this case, we are sending the organization ID, which the function needs in order to retrieve a list of networks in the organization.   Next, we take the org_id parameter passed to the function and then store it in a variable called organization_id.    organization_id = org_id   Then we do a GET request for a list of networks in the organization.   response = dashboard.organizations.getOrganizationNetworks(                 organization_id, total_pages='all')   We use a for loop to iterate through the list of networks stored in response, and if the network name matches ‘DevNet Sandbox ALWAYS ON’, then we print the network name and ID.   for net in response:         if net['name'] == 'DevNet Sandbox ALWAYS ON':         print(net['name'], '->', net['id'])   Then we call the function:   get_net(org_id)   We send the value stored in org_id to the function when we call it.   The output is given below:     That’s it for this post! I will leave it here to let you try it out yourself! Also don’t forget to subscribe to Getting Started to get notified on the next post! ... View more

Getting Started with Meraki API using Python Part 3   Hi Everyone! Welcome to Part 3 of a series of posts to get you started with Meraki APIs using Python!   In the last part we saw how to use the Meraki library in Python to do a GET request in order to retrieve a list of organizations and how to securely use your API key, but we ended up with a response that is hard to read and process by just looking at it. We would need a way to be able to process the response, to do things like filter the list to look at specific organizations or maybe even get only certain fields from the list like the organization name and ID. In this post we will look at how to use python to process the response.   If you haven’t gone through Part 1 and Part 2 yet, please do so before proceeding.   So, at this point, we have the following output after issuing the GET list of organizations.       The text within the red box is the list of organizations. How can we process/filter this?    First let us check what Python thinks of this response by using the type method.       Here we can see that Python see’s the response as a “list” datatype.   To keep it simple, a list in python is just a list of items, for eg:   [‘item 1’, ‘item 2’, ‘item 3’]   We can store this list in a variable so we can always refer to the list by name whenever we need it.       Now we have a list of items stored in a variable called items. Now, if I wanted just one of the items in the list I can call it by its index number. Please keep in mind, Python always starts counting from 0 instead of 1.   So each item has the following index value:       Of course, this is a small list. What if the list had a large number of items (like our list of orgs)?   One way to parse through this list is to use a “for” loop as follows:       So let us try the for loop with our list of orgs which is stored in response variable, we will print out the org ID and its name.       Here we iterate through each item stored in response (each item being an organization) and store it in a variable called org. Then we print out whatever is stored in org. Try it out yourself!   Here is the output:       Each item in response is now printed one line at a time. Great!   We can see each organization has some parameters such as id, name, url etc. We probably don’t want all of that, maybe just the name and id. How do we extract those?    For that let us check what data type Python sees in each item stored in the variable org.       Here we use the same for loop to iterate through each item in response, but we now ask to print the type of data in the variable org using the type method, then we print the data stored in org as well, I have also added a print to add a line after each item so the output is easier to read.   Here is the output:       Here we can see that each item is seen as type class dict. What is that?   Dict refers to a “dictionary” which in Python is another data type. An example is shown below:       Here we have a variable called d_items and it has name, weight and height values. These are called key:value pairs, the keys being in this case name, weight and height, the values being X, XX and YY respectively.    So what if I wanted just the name from d_items?       Simple! What we did here was called on the key called name here and used the print statement to print the value stored in ‘name’. Let us try this now with our list of organizations stored in response.       Here is the output:       Ha! Now we just printed out the name of the org’s! What if we needed the organization ID as well? Simply, we just add that to our print statement.       Cool, now we got the organization name and its ID!   So, in this way we just use the key name in our print statement to print the values stored in the key.   Now, what if I wanted to just print out the name and ID of only one org, not the whole list? No problem! Assuming you know what organization you are after, we can use if..else condition to do that.     Here we use an if condition. We say that if the organization name key has a value “DevNet Sandbox”, then we print the id and the name, otherwise do nothing. So in the output we see the organization id and name of DevNet Sandbox.   Now, lets try a more complex one, let us say we want the organization name and also the cloud region for the organization.       Aha! Now we have the organization name and its location! What happened here? Let’s look closely at a section in the print statement, org[‘cloud’][‘region’][‘name’]. If we look back at the time when we printed each organization as is, this is what we saw.       The cloud location is stored in ‘cloud’ and within that in ‘region’ and then within ‘region’, ‘name’. Or in other words it's nested as cloud -> region -> name. So to get to the value nested, we follow the hierarchy, print org[‘cloud’][‘region’][‘name’], simple!   Ok, now that we have seen how to process a response from the dashboard using for and if statements, I will leave it here and let you try and explore with this.   We will sign off here now, but look out for Part 4 in this series to continue the journey further! Please leave your comments/questions/feedback below to help us continue this further. Also don’t forget to subscribe to Getting Started to get notified on the next post! ... View more

Getting started with Meraki API using Python: Part 2   Hi everyone! Welcome to Part 2 of a series of posts to get you started with Meraki APIs using Python!   Hopefully you are here because you have read Part 1 and are continuing your journey. If you haven’t, please do have a look at Part 1 so you get an understanding of the basic behaviour of Meraki API.   Ok so let’s get started!   First of all, of course, you need to have Python installed. This series will not cover installing Python, mainly because it depends on the Operating System you want to use, and also because it is relatively easy to install.   You can head to Download Python and download it.    Alternatively you can head to https://www.pythonanywhere.com/ and use their cloud bash shell.   If you will be using Python on your local machine, it is strongly recommended to use Python virtual environments when you are testing to prevent accidentally crashing your system.  I strongly recommend getting into the habit of creating virtual environments for testing code.   “But how do you create a virtual environment?”, I hear you ask. Let’s go through it!   First, you will use the python venv module to create a virtual environment.     Python -m This option is used to call a python module. venv In this case we call upon the venv module. meraki_api_practice This is the name we are giving for the virtual environment. Now you will see a directory created with the name you provided. If you list the directory, you will see a bunch of files:       We don’t need to worry too much about the files for now, but we do need to activate the environment.   Since I am already in the directory, I will use the following command:       I can see that my prompt now shows that I am in my virtual environment, so whatever I do here will not affect my operating system!   Ok, now that my environment is ready, let us go through a few concepts before our first code.   To send requests to the Meraki Dashboard there are two ways:   Use the python meraki library Use the python requests library     The Meraki Library is installed using pip, whereas the requests library is native to Python. This is one of the reasons why Python is very popular when it comes to programming. There are a lot of libraries out there that can be installed and used, which means that one doesn't have to recreate code; just check if there is a library, install, and use it!   So, let’s install the Meraki library in our environment.       Another pip package I like to install is IPython. While it’s not really necessary, IPython gives a nice interface to run Python code, which leads to another Python concept.   One of the cool things about Python is that you don't have to compile it before you run code. You can pretty much run it directly from the Python interpreter.       Here I ran the Python command, and it took me to the interpreter which is identified by the 3 greater than signs in the prompt.   So, what code can I run here? This is where API docs come in handy.   Navigate to https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/   Under API reference let’s navigate to API->Platform->configure->organizations->Get Organizations.         You should be here:       Select Template on the right:       Here you can see that you either copy the Meraki Python Library Code or the Python-Requests Library code.   Let us start with the Meraki Python Library Code.       Now paste it into the terminal with the Python interpreter running.       In the first box, you can see that immediately after dashboard = meraki.DashboardAPI(API_KEY), an API session is being established. We can see the base_url and the version of the Meraki Library being used.   In the second box, you can see two GET requests and then a 200 OK. If you have read Part 1, you would be familiar with why there are 2 GET requests and also the 200 response.    You might notice that now the prompt is waiting for you at print(response).   If you hit Enter, you will see a huge text output (we will cover this later).       If you have managed to get to this point, congratulations! 🎉You have just made your first API request to Meraki Dashboard!   So now you may be wondering, what is it that I have accomplished here? It’s simple, you have just fetched a list of organizations from a Meraki Dashboard.   Let’s break it down!   This is the code.           As you may have noticed, we do not recommend storing the API key in this manner. We are simply doing this here to make it easy to understand what is going on.   Why is this not recommended? Because if you share the code (which most of the time one does), then you have just shared your API key as well.    What, then, is the recommended way, you ask? Well, there are many ways to secure the key. I will share the method I have used: OS env variables.   If I do directory listing and also include hidden files on my working directory:       I can see there is a .env file. What is this file? Let's read it using cat.       Ok, so I have stored the API key using a variable called API_KEY in a file called .env (the dot makes it a hidden file). By storing the API Key here, I don't have to put it in my code. Now when I do share it, I don’t have to worry about my API key being exposed.   Cool, so now how do I call on my API key within my script then?   Let’s see.       Adding these few lines will allow my Python code to get the API key from the .env file.    Let’s break this down!     If you see the previous get org’s code, we used a variable API_KEY to set the key. It is the same, but now we read it from our .env file.   Now try the code again yourself, but this time use the API key from your environment variable.   Alright! We will sign off here now, but look out for Part 3 in this series to continue the journey further! Please leave your comments/questions/feedback below to help us continue this further. Also don’t forget to subscribe to Getting Started to get notified on the next post! ... View more

Getting started with Meraki API using Python: Part 1   Hi Everyone! This post is in response to a large demand from the Meraki community to have something for people to get started on the Meraki API using Python. Here we have Part 1 of a series of Community posts focused on helping you navigate the basics of leveraging the Meraki API using Python. We'll share a new post every month. You can subscribe to the label "Getting Started" to receive an email notification for the next part in this series.   Now before we get started with Python, let's cover a few basics, namely what is an API.   Application Programming Interface   An API is basically a way for two pieces of software to talk to each other.      REST API   There are many different types of APIs and one of them is the REST API. REST stands for Representational State Transfer. What it means is that it involves transferring the representation of the state of information between applications. It is not a protocol like TCP or UDP, it is an architecture, hence as with any architecture it is defined by a set of constraints. A few of those relevant for us here are listed below: It is Server-Client architecture It is Stateless Cacheable Uniform Interface Layered   We won't go through all the constraints in detail as we want to keep this simple for now, maybe for another post!    REST uses HTTP as the transaction method and JSON format for data. This makes life easy as we don't have to learn a whole new protocol for APIs. It uses the same HTTP that is used on the Internet.        Therefore interacting with an API server such as the Meraki Dashboard would involve just using HTTP verbs such as : GET PUT POST DELETE   Of course, there are more actions available, but we are just focusing on the most common ones for now.       As you noticed PUT and POST are both used for writing to the Dashboard, to put it simply you would use POST to create data and PUT to update or edit existing data. For example we use a POST to create a Routed Interface on the switch and a PUT to update an existing one.     Java Script Object Notation or JSON, is the format in which data is sent between your machine and the Dashboard.   What does JSON data look like? Let’s take a look at an example. Here we can see a dashboard organization retrieved from a dashboard using a GET.   The attributes of an organization are described through the use of key-value pairs. In this example we can see the organization’s id, name, url etc.   Using cURL to understand the Meraki Dashboard API   Ok! Now that we know what REST APIs are all about, let's get hands on and try a few requests to the Dashboard!   For this one tool that can be used in cURL, another Postman but let's use cURL for now.   curl -L --request GET \ --url https://api.meraki.com/api/v1/organizations \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Accept: application/json' \ --header 'X-Cisco-Meraki-API-Key: *****' As you can see, we issued a GET request using cURL using the above command. We will learn about processing the output later but for now let’s break the cURL request down!     For the headers we set to accept and send JSON data and we also send an API key (we will get to this in a bit) for authentication. The url points to api.meraki.com which is where you would send your requests to. Note the v1 in the URL, Meraki APIs are currently on v1 and v0 is deprecated.      Now let’s use the -v, which is for verbose with the same cURL command and check the output.   First we see the connection to api.meraki.com (yes our Dashboard supports IPv6!):       Next, we see a 302!!       So what is a 302? It is a redirect! Why do we get a redirect? That is because we are being redirected to our Dashboard instance based on the API key we used. api.meraki.com is an API server url we use so we don’t have to remember our individual dashboard instance url. If you notice, on the 5th line from the bottom you can see the redirect location to the specific dashboard url.   So here are some common responses you will see.       If the response is in the 2xx range such as 201 or 200 then the request was successful. We will get to the specifics on the differences between 201 and 200 later on, but as always let’s keep it simple for now! If the response is in the 3xx range as we saw in our example it is a redirect. If the response is in the 4xx range then the error is on the client side, we would need to check our request, for example an incorrect API key.   If the response is in the 5xx range then the issue is on the server side, in our case the dashboard side.   Alright, I think we now have some understanding of the API interaction happening with the Meraki Dashboard. We will sign off for now but stay tuned for Part 2 where we shall continue our API journey further! In the meantime, please don't forget to subscribe to "Getting Started" to receive a notification when Part 2 goes live and also please leave your thoughts/feedback/comments below so that we can improve the posts to focus on the needs of the community. ... View more