A Method to Automatically Extract a Network Device Configuration Model by Parsing Network Device Configurations

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automated method to extract network device configuration models by parsing device outputs, enhancing verification options without needing actual hardware, and demonstrating high accuracy in model extraction and command generation.

Contribution

It presents a novel automated approach for deriving network configuration models from device outputs, reducing manual effort and improving verification processes.

Findings

High accuracy in model extraction and command generation

Effective round-trip engineering between configurations and models

Enhanced verification options without physical devices

Abstract

When network engineers design a network, they need to verify the validity of their design in a test environment. Since testing on actual equipment is expensive and burdensome for engineers, we have proposed automatic verification methods using simulators and consistency verification methods for a network configuration model. Combining these methods with conventional verification methods for network device configurations will increase the number of verification options that do not require actual devices. However, the burden of writing existing networks into models has been a problem in our model-based verification. In this paper, we propose a method for automatically extracting a network device configuration model by parsing the contents obtained from network devices via show running-config commands and the like. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method in realizing round-trip engineering between network device configurations and the network device configuration model, we extracted a model from existing network device configurations and generated device configuration commands. As a result, we obtained model and commands with high accuracy, indicating that the proposed method is effective.