Forum Discussion

Eljay's avatar
Eljay
Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
Mar 07, 2023

Python code using Parallel-SSH library to connect to F5 BigIP

Hi, I'm trying to use Parallel-SSH (Python library) to connect to F5 BigIP. s = SSHClient(<host>,user=<username>, password=<password>, timeout=5, num_retries=1) res = s.run_command("uname") ...
devops
JRahm's avatar
JRahm
Icon for Admin rankAdmin
Mar 08, 2023

For anyone else trying to get this to work on Mac...first:

  1. brew install cmake
  2. (In a venv) pip install ssh2-python
  3. (In a venv) pip install parallel-ssh

Will post back on details if I can get it talking to BIG-IP. Just took a minute to get through the pip errors for this module.

UPDATE: Got it working. Works with password or key file if you copied your ssh keys to BIG-IP.

from pssh.clients import ParallelSSHClient

hosts = ['ltm1.test.local', 'ltm2.test.local']
#client = ParallelSSHClient(hosts, user='root', password='default')
client = ParallelSSHClient(hosts, user='root', pkey='/Users/justme/.ssh/id_rsa')
cmd = 'tmsh list ltm pool'

output = client.run_command(cmd)
for host_out in output:
    for line in host_out.stdout:
        print(line)

### One output for brevity ###
/Users/justme/PycharmProjects/playground/venv/bin/python /Users/justme/PycharmProjects/playground/sshtest.py 
ltm pool nginx-pool {
    members {
        172.16.102.5:http {
            address 172.16.102.5
            session monitor-enabled
            state up
        }
    }
    monitor http
}

Process finished with exit code 0

 

  • Eljay's avatar
    Eljay
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Mar 09, 2023

    Thanks, JRahm. Now I see that I wasn't crystal clear, I was using the single host client in Parallel-SSH. See examples for both single and multi host here: https://pypi.org/project/parallel-ssh/ 

    I can adapt my code to this solution as well. But I still wonder if it's a problem with the single host client in the Parallel-SSH library.

    Here's an example that works in Paramiko:

    from  paramiko.client import SSHClient

p = SSHClient()
p.load_system_host_keys()
p.connect('<IP>', username=<username>, password=<password>)
stdin, stdout, stderr = p.exec_command('uname')
print(stdout.read().decode())

    And here's the code using single host client in Parallel-SSH that fails:

    import pssh.exceptions
from pssh.clients import SSHClient

s = SSHClient('<IP>',user=<username>, password=<password>, timeout=5, num_retries=1)
res = s.run_command("uname")
print(res)
for line in res.stdout:
    print(line)

     

    • JRahm's avatar
      JRahm
      Icon for Admin rankAdmin
      Mar 09, 2023

      Hi Eljay ... This also works just fine for me (both with key or password):

      from pssh.clients import SSHClient

host = 'ltm15.test.local'
s = SSHClient(host, user='root', password='default')
# s = SSHClient(host, user='root', pkey='/Users/justme/.ssh/id_rsa')
cmd = 'tmsh list ltm pool'

res = s.run_command(cmd)
print(res)
for line in res.stdout:
    print(line)

      Output:

      /Users/justme/PycharmProjects/playground/venv/bin/python /Users/justme/PycharmProjects/playground/sshtest.py 
	host=ltm15.test.local
	alias=None
	exit_code=None
	channel=<ssh2.channel.Channel object at 0x107c46ef0>
	exception=None
	encoding=utf-8
	read_timeout=None
ltm pool nginx-pool {
    members {
        172.16.102.5:http {
            address 172.16.102.5
            session monitor-enabled
            state up
        }
    }
    monitor http
}

Process finished with exit code 0

      My versions:

      • python: 3.11.2
      • ssh-python: 1.0.0
      • ssh2-python: 1.0.0
      • parallel-ssh: 2.12.0
      • BIG-IP: 15.1.8.1

       

      • Eljay's avatar
        Eljay
        Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
        Mar 13, 2023

        Thanks, JRahm. There's hardly any difference between your and my code.
        My Python version is 3.9, the libraries are the same as yours and I have tested toward BigIP v151.5.1, v15.1.6 (Eng hotfix) and v16.1.x. Still the same problem. I'll try to upgrade Python and reinstall the libraries.