GraphiQL doesn't give a correct list of VLANs ID

[Nealo]

Hello,

I’ve been trying to get a list of the VLANs on a VSP device. 

The device is a VSP-8404 with 6.1.6.0 firmware, and the XMC version is 8.2.4.55.

I know of two ways to get them.

The first one would be to send a CLI command with emc_cli, and get the output, then filter it to get a list. 

cli_output = emc_cli.send("show vlan basic").getOutput().encode('ascii', 'ignore')

The second one is using emc_nbi and sending a query to get the VLANs ID

var_query = '''query{network{device(ip: "DeviceIP"){deviceData{vlans{vid}}}}}'''
var_result = emc_nbi.query(var_query)
vlans_id = var_result['network']['device']['deviceData']['vlans']

But, I noticed that using NBI doesn’t give me the same result as using CLI.

With CLI, I get this list :  1, 2, 49, 170, 180, 190, 4049, 4051, 4052

With NBI, I get this list : 1, 2, 49, 170, 180, 666, 4049

The NBI is not correct, as I don’t get the 190, 4051 and 4052, and it adds the 666.

I don’t understand why this difference is present. Is there something I’m doing wrong ?

Thanks a lot for the help

[Nealo]

Thanks a lot for providing a solution BCN-rbrt !

By any chance, do you know what a mutation does ? Does it change anything on the device, or something like that ?

Because, I’d like to be sure it doesn’t affect the network before implemanting a workflow that uses a mutation.

[rbrt · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

I had the same problem with the NBI and, together with GTAC, found out that refreshing the device with a mutation and querying the right context within the NBI solves it - at least for EXOS and EOS. Try this (replace the IP with the management IP of the switch in question):

mutation {
  network {
    rediscoverDevices(input: {devices: [{ipAddress: "10.0.0.1"}]}) {
      status
      message
    }
  }
}

After firing this mutation, wait for 15 minutes (or check the Operations view) and try the following GraphiQL query (again, replace the IP).

query {
  network {
    deviceVlans(ip: "10.0.0.1") {
      name
      vid
      primaryIp
      netmask
      ipForward
    }
  }
}

See https://link.medium.com/m5yqUU15y0 for an in-depth story on that topic.

[Kurt_Semba]

I cannot help with why XMC doesn’t retrieve the full, correct list of VLANs from those devices. Maybe someone else reading this can? But yeah, the emc_cli will give you the definitive answer on which VLANs actually exist on a switch since it is executing this CLI command on that switch.

[Nealo]

Hi Kurt, 

As both queries’ sources are different, I guess we can say that as emc_cli queries the switch, it is the correct one ?

And I don’t know why XMC doesn’t have the correct list of VLANs. 

I checked with either ERS or VSP, with different firmware versions, the list I get with NBI is never correct.

Is there something I can do to help ?

[Kurt_Semba]

Hi Nealo,

those two methods retrieve data from two different sources:

• emc_cli: queries the switch
• emc_nbi: queries XMC

The question now is: why does XMC not have the correct list of VLANs for that switch?