Dispatcher

Nornir Nautobot provides a series of tasks via a dispatcher. This provides sane defaults for how to use Nornir. Providing tasks like get_config, check_connectivity, and compliance_config for a variety of vendors. That being said, there are many reasons in which the default may not be beneficial to you.

• The default dispatcher does not support your vendor
• The default dispatcher uses a connectivity model (e.g. 443) that is not compatible with your environment
• The default dispatcher does not work for your older hardware
• The default dispatcher leverages a slug name you do not use

Configuring the Dispatcher

The dispatcher_mapping configuration option can be set to extend or map the platform slug to a proper nornir class.

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
  "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
    "dispatcher_mapping": {
      "newos": "dispatcher.newos",
      "ios": "nornir_nautobot.plugins.tasks.dispatcher.cisco_ios.NautobotNornirDriver",
      "ios_xe": "nornir_nautobot.plugins.tasks.dispatcher.cisco_ios.NautobotNornirDriver",
      "fortinet": "nornir_nautobot.plugins.tasks.dispatcher.default.NetmikoNautobotNornirDriver",
    }
  }
}

The above example demonstrates the following use cases.

• Creating a custom only local dispatcher ("newos")
• Mapping a user defined and preferred platform slug name to expected driver (e.g. ios -> cisco_ios)
• Overloading platform slug keys, by mapping ios and ios_xe to the same class ("ios_xe":)
• Leveraging the existing "default" Netmiko driver ("fortinet")

Plugin developers that leverage the plugin, are recommended to use the get_dispatcher function in nautobot_plugin_nornir.utils file to provide the ability to allow users to define their own mappings as described above.