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Introduction

The Infoblox ibx-sdk is a library and SDK designed to assist users in developing efficient automation scripts for the Infoblox NIOS Web API (WAPI). The SDK offers a range of tools for effective API interaction, including the following:

  1. The Gift wrapper class - The Gift class is a wrapper around the Python httpx library, which in turn makes it easier to access the Infoblox Web API module.
  2. Detailed usage and example documentation
  3. Sample operations scripts

Note

What is Gift??

Gift is an object-oriented Python class which is a wrapper to the Python httpx package. It specifically builds and extends the httpx.client module. Why the name "Gift"? We named it Gift because of the fact it's a wrapper. Get it?? We'd like to think it will be the "Gift" that keeps on giving... Other names considered were:

  • Cellophane - for its transparent, light-weight wrapping prowess!
  • Bacon - because bacon wrapped anything is good!

We hope you enjoy!

The Gift() Python class is a wrapper for httpx.client, supporting the same HTTP Request methods that are supported by the NIOS WAPI. See the table below:

WAPI Method Gift Request Method Description
GET Gift.get() An HTTP GET is used to read a single object or fetch multiple objects
POST Gift.post() The POST method is used to create a new object
PUT Gift.put() The PUT method is used to update an existing object.
DELETE Gift.delete() The DELETE method is used to remove an existing object.

Note

There is also a convenience method that has been added to the Gift() class for fetcing a single object. The Gift.getone() method expects to fetch a single record and returns the record's _ref. It raises an exception if it fails to return any data or if it finds > 1 record.

Installing ibx-sdk

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pip install ibx-sdk

Initializing the WAPI class

First, you have to import it into your scripts:

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from ibx_sdk.nios.gift import Gift

Once imported you can instantiate the class as follows:

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from ibx_sdk.nios.gift import Gift

wapi = Gift()

Tip

We always recommend installing the ibx-sdk into a Python Virtual Environment to avoid polluting your global Python module(s) environment.

To create a Python virtual environment, perform this sequence of steps:

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cd ~/workspace

mkdir myproject
cd myproject
python3 -m venv .venv
source .vent/bin/activate
pip install -U pip setuptools

The above code was performed on a Mac, it leverages a workspace folder that would have all our project(s) and code. We create a new project called myproject and "install" a virtual environment in that folder with python3. We sourced the environment on line #6. Last we update the pip and setuptools modules.

Warning

Always source your Python virutal environment of your project or you may end up polluting your own module space.

Remember to always source your environment prior to working on your next project:

source .venv/bin/activate

You can deactivate when you are done using/modifying the project code:

deactivate