Owner's Manual

Smart Scripting | 53

Smart Scripting

Smart Scripting is supported on the S4810, S4820T, S6000, Z9000 and MXL switch

platforms.

Smart Scripting allows you to add functionality to Dell Networking switches without

requiring updates to the Dell Networking OS release. Smart Scripting is available as a

separate installable package that supports SQLite DB, and NET SNMP applications

and TCL, Expect, Perl, Python, and Unix scripting languages.

The Smart Scripting package supports smart utility (SmartUtils) application

programming interfaces (APIs) providing developers with an easier way to invoke

switch operations by creating and running Tcl, Expect, Perl, Python, Unix shell

scripts and ZSH scripts on the Dell Networking OS. API library files describe the

functions supported in PERL, Python, and UNIX scripts.

A separate package has been extended with HTTP and HTTPS daemons based on

CGI scripts and a Web-based graphical user interface. For more information about

this package, see Web Server with HTTP Support. For information about the HTTP

requests supported by the REST API, see REST API Commands.

Overview

Using Smart Scripting, network administrators can create custom Expect, PERL,

Python, Tcl, UNIX and ZSH shell scripts to manage and interact with Dell

Networking switches/routers in the network. Smart Scripting provides support for:

• Modules required to run PERL scripts, such as the software development kits

(SDKs) for VMware and vCenter/vSphere.

• Modules that implement requested Python features, such as AMQP (message

queuing), XML-RPC (arbitrary data exchange), and Twisted (event-driven

networking engine).

With Smart Scripting, there is no need to learn proprietary scripting languages,

allowing for faster development and deployment of custom scripts.

Smart Scripting also offers solutions in a UNIX environment that are useful to cloud

administrators who are familiar with working in a UNIX shell. Smart Script support

in a UNIX environment allows you to invoke standard UNIX utilities such as netstat,

tcpdump, ls, chmod, chown, and so on.