NFV Test API

This package offers a server that creates network namespaces and places interface into these network namespaces. Through the API it is possible to:

• create single and double tagged network interfaces
• set interface state and mtu
• configure ipv4 and ipv6 addresses on (sub)interfaces
• send a ping from a network namespace

This API can be used to automate testing of network service deployments.

The process requires iproute2 with full json support (>=4.15) and needs to run as root.

For testing purposes the service can also be started with the simulate option. The API will then use the configuration in the config file to create API responses without actually making changes to the system. In simulation mode, only a ping to 1.1.1.1 will return a result.

The test api works with python 3.9, python 3.10 is not supported.

Installation

Clone the source:

git clone https://github.com/inmanta/nfv-test-api
cd nfv-test-api

Create a new virtual env for this service and activate it:

python3 -m venv env
source ./env/bin/activate

or (if you have virtualenvwrapper)

mkvirtualenv -p 3.9 env
workon env

Install poetry

pip install poetry

Install all dependencies and the project:

poetry install

Start the server

Either start the server directly on your host

python3 -m nfv_test_api.main --config config.yaml

You can see the swagger interface at this url :

http://0.0.0.0:8080/api/v2/docs

Or start the server within container

We first need to build the docker image (make sure your current directory is the root of the repo, where the dockerfile is located):

sudo docker build -t nfv-test-api .

To run a container with the image, make sure you use the privileged flag to be able to use all the functionalities of the container:

sudo docker run -d --name client --privileged nfv-test-api

The server will automatically start with the container.

To get the ip address of the container :

docker inspect client -f "{{ .NetworkSettings.Networks.bridge.IPAddress }}"

You can also use the image with containerlab as done in the examples/containerlab folder.

Use the testing fixtures somewhere else

The package contains on the side of the server source, a few helper fixtures, in the package named pytest_nfv_test_api. To install all the dependencies required by this package, install the nfv-test-api python package with the pytest extra option:

pip install inmanta-nfv-test-api[pytest]

The fixture nfv_test_api_endpoint can then be used to spin up a container running the nfv-test-api. The fixture returns a string, which will be the base api endpoint, it has the form: http://<container-ip>:8080/api/v2/.