netmiko enable() should be configurable

Hi,

I’ve run in to an issue where my routers cannot be configured with netmiko due to the enable() function run in networking.netmiko_send_config

In my particular case, I’m configuring Alcatel SROS devices that do not have a dedicated enable (admin) password configured, thus failing because of this with the following:

ValueError: Failed to enter enable mode. Please ensure you pass the 'secret' argument to ConnectHandler.

May I suggest you make this configurable some how? As a workaround I’ve made my own netmiko_send_config function with just the line referenced below commented out.

The problematic line is this: https://github.com/nornir-automation/nornir/blob/f5a51269f8faffa3f078d14cadd81695419bfa76/nornir/plugins/tasks/networking/netmiko_send_config.py#L25

Thank you!

[ktbyers]

So let’s do this–near term fix it in Nornir by adding an argument. Longer term potentially fix in Netmiko to allow some way to avoid this issue.

I will create an issue in Netmiko to track the longer term issue.

I am worried that we will just run into this problem elsewhere where Netmiko + other tool is being used (which is why the longer term fix is probably a good idea).

[hellt]

sorry @ktbyers for unnecessarily eating your time

My memory failed me and the current sros.enable() code is indeed seems to assume that enable actions happen on SR OS regardless if it is configured or not.

check_enable method only checks if the SR OS node is in admin mode, but if it is not it doesn’t mean it has enable mode configured, that leads to the issue in the super.enable() https://github.com/ktbyers/netmiko/blob/8bbe607a8fbf2a00deeefe2fa7f17c918792949d/netmiko/nokia/nokia_sros_ssh.py#L89-L99

I think the code of nokia.enable() might be enhanced to first detect if admin mode is configured on the device and only if it is, it must go through the super.enable() routine.

Now I recall why that was not an issue with bare netmiko - because in bare netmiko a user decides if he needs to call enable() and user knows if this mode is configured on the device upfront.

So I see two possible solutions:

1. make nornir-netmiko plugin less opinionated on the need of enable()
2. or enhance sros.enable() to check if the enable mode is configured on the device, if it is - perform enable. If it doesn’t - pass the function.