ACI: Using Postman to quickly configure interface policies

Postman can be used to push configuration to the APIC via the Restful interface quicker than what can be accomplished if we did the same configuration via the GUI. In this article, we will provide XML-based configuration snippets which will allow you to authenticate with the APIC (via Postman), and then will allow you to quickly configure a full list of available Interface Policy Configuration options for your Fabric Access Policies.

The following XML-based configurations will be provided:

  • 10GigAuto
  • 1GigAuto
  • BPDUFILTER_ENABLE
  • BPDUGUARD_ON
  • LACP_ACTIVE
  • LACP_OFF
  • CDP_ON
  • CDP_OFF
  • LLDP_ON
  • LLDP_OFF

Prerequisites

Postman, or a similar Restful client, must be installed. To install Postman, please use the following link:

https://www.getpostman.com/docs/postman/launching_postman/installation_and_updates

Requirements

Postman or similar Restful client, which will be used to send the XML post to the APIC.

Components Used

Configurations

Authenticating via Postman

Before we are able to place configuration into ACI, we will have to authenticate. In order to do this, we will POST to the following URL (listed below) using a special request URI.

The following URL should be used (input your IP address for the APIC)

https://{{hostName}}/api/mo/aaaLogin.xml

The body of the Postman request is noted below; add your relevant username and password, where appropriate. First line below (<!–AAA LOGIN–>) is a comment and is not used for authentication. You can omit it.

<!– AAA LOGIN –>
<aaaUser name={{userName}} pwd={{passWord}}/>

 

Screen Shot 2017-10-18 at 9.14.43 AM.png
Logging into APIC with Postman

If you have entered your username and password correctly, you should receive a status of “200 OK”. Each “login” is good for 600 seconds of Posting. After 600 seconds, you will need to post another “login” before you are able to post more information to the APIC.

Posting Interface Policies via Postman

Now that we have an authenticated via XML, we can perform write actions on the APIC via restful calls.

The following URL should be used (input your IP address for the APIC)

https://{{hostName}}/api/node/mo/uni.xml

Use the following XML data to configure the Interface Polices

InterfacePolicies2017.xml

Screen Shot 2017-10-18 at 1.33.10 PM.png

Verification

As you can see, if we look under Fabric –> Fabric Access Policies –> Interface Policies –> Policies, all of the Interface-level policies are now available for selection for our Interface Policy Groups.

Screen Shot 2018-02-16 at 8.54.15 PM.png

 


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