Using neutron CLI

The neutron shell utility interacts with OpenStack Networking API from the command-line. It supports the entire features of OpenStack Networking API.

Warning

neutron CLI is now deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use openstack CLI instead. See openstack CLI command list and its extensions for advanced networking services. The command mapping from neutron CLI to openstack CLI is available here.

Basic Usage

In order to use the CLI, you must provide your OpenStack username, password, project, domain information for both user and project, and auth endpoint. Use the corresponding configuration options (--os-username, --os-password, --os-project-name, --os-user-domain-id, os-project-domain-id, and --os-auth-url), but it is easier to set them in environment variables.

export OS_USERNAME=user
export OS_PASSWORD=pass
export OS_PROJECT_NAME=project
export OS_USER_DOMAIN_ID=default
export OS_PROJECT_DOMAIN_ID=default
export OS_AUTH_URL=http://auth.example.com:5000/v3

If you are using Identity v2.0 API (DEPRECATED), you don’t need to pass domain information.

export OS_USERNAME=user
export OS_PASSWORD=pass
export OS_TENANT_NAME=tenant
export OS_AUTH_URL=http://auth.example.com:5000/v2.0

Once you’ve configured your authentication parameters, you can run neutron commands. All commands take the form of:

neutron <command> [arguments...]

Run neutron help to get a full list of all possible commands, and run neutron help <command> to get detailed help for that command.

Using with os-client-config

os-client-config provides more convenient way to manage a collection of client configurations and you can easily switch multiple OpenStack-based configurations.

To use os-client-config, you first need to prepare ~/.config/openstack/clouds.yaml like the following.

clouds:
  devstack:
    auth:
      auth_url: http://auth.example.com:5000
      password: your-secret
      project_domain_id: default
      project_name: demo
      user_domain_id: default
      username: demo
    identity_api_version: '3'
    region_name: RegionOne
  devstack-admin:
    auth:
      auth_url: http://auth.example.com:35357
      password: another-secret
      project_domain_id: default
      project_name: admin
      user_domain_id: default
      username: admin
    identity_api_version: '3'
    region_name: RegionOne

Then, you need to specify a configuration name defined in the above clouds.yaml.

export OS_CLOUD=devstack

For more detail information, see the os-client-config documentation.

Using with keystone token

The command-line tool will attempt to re-authenticate using your provided credentials for every request. You can override this behavior by manually supplying an auth token using --os-url and --os-auth-token. You can alternatively set these environment variables.

export OS_URL=http://neutron.example.org:9696/
export OS_TOKEN=3bcc3d3a03f44e3d8377f9247b0ad155

Using noauth mode

If neutron server does not require authentication, besides these two arguments or environment variables (We can use any value as token.), we need manually supply --os-auth-strategy or set the environment variable.

export OS_AUTH_STRATEGY=noauth

Display options

Filtering

Neutron API supports filtering in the listing operation. neutron CLI supports this feature too.

To specify a filter in *-list command, you need to pass a pair of an attribute name and an expected value with the format of --<attribute> <value>. The example below retrieves ports owned by compute instances.

$ neutron port-list --device_owner network:dhcp
+--------------------------------------+------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| id                                   | name | mac_address       | fixed_ips                                                                                                   |
+--------------------------------------+------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 8953d683-29ad-4be3-b73f-060727c7849b |      | fa:16:3e:4b:9e:0a | {"subnet_id": "6b832dfe-f271-443c-abad-629961414a73", "ip_address": "10.0.0.2"}                             |
|                                      |      |                   | {"subnet_id": "cdcc616b-0cff-482f-96f5-06fc63d21247", "ip_address": "fd12:877c:1d66:0:f816:3eff:fe4b:9e0a"} |
+--------------------------------------+------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

You can also specify multiple filters. The example below retrieves security group rules applied to IPv4 traffic which belongs to a security group bfa493f9-2b03-46d2-8399-b9b038a53bc1.

$ neutron security-group-rule-list --security-group-id bfa493f9-2b03-46d2-8399-b9b038a53bc1 --ethertype IPv4
+--------------------------------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+---------------+-----------------+
| id                                   | security_group | direction | ethertype | protocol/port | remote          |
+--------------------------------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+---------------+-----------------+
| 65489805-0400-4bce-9bd9-16a81952263c | default        | egress    | IPv4      | any           | any             |
| 9429f336-4947-4643-bbd9-24528cc65648 | default        | ingress   | IPv4      | any           | default (group) |
+--------------------------------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+---------------+-----------------+

Note

Looking up UUID from name is not supported when specifying a filter. You need to use UUID to specify a specific resource.

Note

Filtering for dictionary or list attributes is not supported.

Changing displayed columns

If you want displayed columns in a list operation, -c option can be used. -c can be specified multiple times and the column order will be same as the order of -c options.

$ neutron port-list -c id -c device_owner -c fixed_ips
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| id                                   | device_owner             | fixed_ips                                                                                                   |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 41ca1b9b-4bbd-4aa8-bcaa-31d3d5704205 | network:router_interface | {"subnet_id": "6b832dfe-f271-443c-abad-629961414a73", "ip_address": "10.0.0.1"}                             |
| 8953d683-29ad-4be3-b73f-060727c7849b | network:dhcp             | {"subnet_id": "6b832dfe-f271-443c-abad-629961414a73", "ip_address": "10.0.0.2"}                             |
|                                      |                          | {"subnet_id": "cdcc616b-0cff-482f-96f5-06fc63d21247", "ip_address": "fd12:877c:1d66:0:f816:3eff:fe4b:9e0a"} |
| a9da29f8-4504-4526-a5ce-cd3624fbd173 | neutron:LOADBALANCER     | {"subnet_id": "6b832dfe-f271-443c-abad-629961414a73", "ip_address": "10.0.0.3"}                             |
|                                      |                          | {"subnet_id": "cdcc616b-0cff-482f-96f5-06fc63d21247", "ip_address": "fd12:877c:1d66:0:f816:3eff:feb1:ab71"} |
| d6a1ff96-0a99-416f-a4d6-65d9614cf64e | compute:nova             | {"subnet_id": "6b832dfe-f271-443c-abad-629961414a73", "ip_address": "10.0.0.4"}                             |
|                                      |                          | {"subnet_id": "cdcc616b-0cff-482f-96f5-06fc63d21247", "ip_address": "fd12:877c:1d66:0:f816:3eff:fe2c:348e"} |
| f4789225-26d0-409f-8047-82d2c7a87a95 | network:router_interface | {"subnet_id": "cdcc616b-0cff-482f-96f5-06fc63d21247", "ip_address": "fd12:877c:1d66::1"}                    |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Extra arguments for create/update operation

neutron CLI has a mechanism called the extra arguments for *-create and *-update commands. It allows users to specify a set of unknown options which are not defined as options and not shown in the help text. Unknown options MUST be placed at the end of the command line. unknown options will be directly passed to the API layer. By this mechanism, you can pass an attribute which is not defined in the upstream neutron CLI. For example, when you are developing a new feature which add a new attribute to an existing resource, it is useful because we can test your feature without changing the existing neutron CLI.

For example, if you run the following command:

neutron resource-update <ID> --key1 value1 --key2 value2

where resource is some resource name and --key1 and --key2 are unknown options, then the following JSON will be sent to the neutron API:

PUT /v2.0/resources/<ID>

{
    "resource": {
        "key2": "value2",
        "key1": "value1"
    }
}

Key interpretation

This means an option name (--key1 in this case) must be one of valid resources of a corresponding resource. An option name --foo_bar is recognized as an attribute name foo_bar. --foo-bar is also interpreted as an attribute name foo_bar.

Value interpretation

By default, if the number of values is 1, the option value is interpreted as a string and is passed to the API layer as specified in a command-line.

If the number of values is greater than 1, the option value is interpreted as a list and the result in the API layer will be same as when specifying a list as described below.

neutron resource-update <ID> –key1 val1 val2 val3 –key2 val4

In the above example, a value of key1 is interpreted as ["val1", "val2", "val3"] and a value of key2 is interpreted as val4.

The extra argument mechanism supports more complex value like a list or a dict.

Specify a list value

A command-line:

neutron resource-update <ID> --key list=true val1 val2 val3

will send the following in the API layer:

{
    "key": [
        "val1",
        "val2",
        "val3"
    ]
}

Note

If you want to specify a list value, it is recommended to specify list=true. When list=true is specified, specified values are interpreted as a list even regardless of the number of values.

If list=true is not specified, specified values are interpreted depends on the number of values how. If the number of values is more than 2, the specified values are interpreted as a list. If 1, the value is interpreted as a string.

Specify a dict value

A command-line:

neutron resource-update <ID> --key type=dict key1=val1,key2=val2,key3=val3

will send the following in the API layer:

{
    "key": {
        "key1": "val1",
        "key2": "val2",
        "key3": "val3"
    }
}

Note

type=bool True/False and type=int 10 are also supported.

Specify a list of dicts

A command-line:

neutron resource-update <ID> --key type=dict list=true key1=val1 key2=val2 key3=val3

will send the following in the API layer:

{
    "key": [
        {"key1": "val1"},
        {"key2": "val2"},
        {"key3": "val3"}
    ]
}

Passing None as a value

There is a case where we would like to pass None (null in JSON) in the API layer. To do this:

neutron resource-update <ID> --key action=clear

The following body will be in the API layer:

{"key": null}

Note

If action=clear is specified, list=true or type=dict is ignored. It means when action=clear is specified None is always sent.

Debugging

Display API-level communication

-v (or --verbose, --debug) option displays a detail interaction with your neutron server. It is useful to debug what happens in the API level.

Here is an sample output of net-show command.

The first line show what parameters are recognized by neutronclient. It is sometimes useful to check if command-line parameters you specify are recognized properly.

$ neutron -v net-show mynetwork
DEBUG: neutronclient.neutron.v2_0.network.ShowNetwork get_data(Namespace(columns=[], fields=[], formatter='table', id=u'mynetwork', max_width=0, noindent=False, prefix='', request_format='json', show_details=False, variables=[]))

Next, neutronclient sends an authentication request to keystone to get a token which is used in further operations.

DEBUG: keystoneauth.session REQ: curl -g -i -X GET http://172.16.18.47:5000 -H "Accept: application/json" -H "User-Agent: keystoneauth1"
DEBUG: keystoneauth.session RESP: [300] Content-Length: 593 Vary: X-Auth-Token Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100 Server: Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Connection: Keep-Alive Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 20:10:54 GMT Content-Type: application/json
RESP BODY: {"versions": {"values": [{"status": "stable", "updated": "2015-03-30T00:00:00Z", "media-types": [{"base": "application/json", "type": "application/vnd.openstack.identity-v3+json"}], "id": "v3.4", "links": [{"href": "http://172.16.18.47:5000/v3/", "rel": "self"}]}, {"status": "stable", "updated": "2014-04-17T00:00:00Z", "media-types": [{"base": "application/json", "type": "application/vnd.openstack.identity-v2.0+json"}], "id": "v2.0", "links": [{"href": "http://172.16.18.47:5000/v2.0/", "rel": "self"}, {"href": "http://docs.openstack.org/", "type": "text/html", "rel": "describedby"}]}]}}

DEBUG: keystoneauth.identity.v3.base Making authentication request to http://172.16.18.47:5000/v3/auth/tokens

Neutronclient looks up a network ID corresponding to a given network name.

DEBUG: keystoneauth.session REQ: curl -g -i -X GET http://172.16.18.47:9696/v2.0/networks.json?fields=id&name=mynetwork -H "User-Agent: python-neutronclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA1}39300e7398d53a02afd183f13cb6afaef95ec4e5"
DEBUG: keystoneauth.session RESP: [200] Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 20:10:55 GMT Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8 Content-Length: 62 X-Openstack-Request-Id: req-ccebf6e4-4f52-4874-a1ab-5499abcba378
RESP BODY: {"networks": [{"id": "3698d3c7-d581-443e-bf86-53c4e3a738f7"}]}

Finally, neutronclient retrieves a detail of a given network using the resolved ID.

DEBUG: keystoneauth.session REQ: curl -g -i -X GET http://172.16.18.47:9696/v2.0/networks/3698d3c7-d581-443e-bf86-53c4e3a738f7.json -H "User-Agent: python-neutronclient" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA1}39300e7398d53a02afd183f13cb6afaef95ec4e5"
DEBUG: keystoneauth.session RESP: [200] Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 20:10:55 GMT Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8 Content-Length: 272 X-Openstack-Request-Id: req-261add00-d6d3-4ea7-becc-105b60ac7369
RESP BODY: {"network": {"status": "ACTIVE", "subnets": [], "name": "mynetwork", "admin_state_up": true, "tenant_id": "8f0ebf767043483a987736c8c684178d", "mtu": 0, "router:external": false, "shared": false, "port_security_enabled": true, "id": "3698d3c7-d581-443e-bf86-53c4e3a738f7"}}

+-----------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field                 | Value                                |
+-----------------------+--------------------------------------+
| admin_state_up        | True                                 |
| id                    | 3698d3c7-d581-443e-bf86-53c4e3a738f7 |
| mtu                   | 0                                    |
| name                  | mynetwork                            |
| port_security_enabled | True                                 |
| router:external       | False                                |
| shared                | False                                |
| status                | ACTIVE                               |
| subnets               |                                      |
| tenant_id             | 8f0ebf767043483a987736c8c684178d     |
+-----------------------+--------------------------------------+