Network Automation Experts - Need some advice on using a script to generate configurations.

Hey guys, I'm working on spinning up a freakishly large GNS3 lab and wondering if incorporating some scripting might be the best way to go about handling this.

Essentially I'm going to be deploying a series of service provider networks each with several POPs and several router types. I pretty much have the base configuration for every type of router (they don't vary between providers) but manually putting in IP addressing is such a pain.

What I'd like to do is create a script with fields for "Service Provider Name", "POP Number", "POP Name", and "Router Type" and "Router Number". Router Type would be used to find the base configuration, and the other fields would be used to generate IP addressing and descriptions.

To give one specific example, let's say I have a network with the following parameters and configuration lines:

• Service Provider Name: ATT
• POP Name: CHI
• POP Number: 2
• Router Type: Core
• Router Number: 1

I would input this all into some pop-up box. Then the script would select the base configuration of "Core Router 1"; it would use "CHI" as the site code in all of the descriptions on the router, and it would use the IP addressing scheme of ATT POP 2.

Here is a specific example of the IP addressing:

interface loop0

ip address 100.<service_provider_network>.<loopback_pop_network>.1 255.255.255.255

interface eth0/0

ip address 100.64.<service_provider_network>.0 255.255.255.254

• <loopback_pop_network> = pop number - 1.
• <p2p_pop_network> = pop number + 15.
• <service_provider_network> = 64 (which is ATT's number in my topology)