Supercharge Your pyATS Testing with IxNetwork Traffic Validation

Hey Fellow Network Automators / Developers / Solution Engineers,

You’ve mastered pyATS for automated network validation — parsing outputs, validating state, building robust test pipelines. But when it comes to validating real traffic behavior between your devices and an IxNetwork traffic generator, things can feel less straightforward.

What if you could seamlessly integrate IxNetwork (Ixia TGEN) into your pyATS workflow and execute end-to-end traffic tests directly from the same framework you already trust?

Let’s bridge that gap — and turn functional validation into full traffic-driven verification. 🚀

pyATS lib for IxNetwork RestPy: https://developer.cisco.com/docs/genie-trafficgen/

Here is a quick rundown for it.

> Assumption: Ixia Chassis and Cisco XR devices are connected.

> What we doing in script: Connecting to alredy created session and running some IxNetwork commands.

Create a sample “testbed.yaml “ with cisco device and Ixia API Server = Ixia Test Manager testing sessions.

testbed:
  name: SandboxXR
  credentials:
    default:
      username: admin
      password: password123

devices:
  xr1:
    type: router
    platform: iosxr
    alias: SandboxXR
    os: iosxr
    credentials:
      default:
        username: ashwinjosh
        password: XXXXXXXXXX
    connections:
      cli:
        protocol: ssh
        ip: sandbox-iosxr-1.cisco.com
        port: 22

  ixnetwork-01:
    type: tgen
    os: ixiarestpy                # Genie TrafficGen IxNetwork REST API
    connections:
      tgn:
        class: genie.trafficgen.TrafficGen
        ip: 10.36.236.121         # IxNetwork API Server
        port: 443
        session_id: 1. # Remove config this if you want to create a new sessions
        clear_config: false # Set true/false based on what you want. This is similar to args you pass in SessionAssistant
    credentials:
      default:
        username: admin
        password: XXXXXX!

Now, that you have the testebed file, lets see how to interact with the tgen using “ixnetwork_interaction.py” pyATS library

import sys
from pathlib import Path

from pyats.topology import loader

testbed = loader.load("testbed_sandbox_xr.yaml")
tgn = testbed.devices["ixnetwork-01"]
tgn.instantiate(via="tgn")
tgn.connect(via="tgn")

# The following objects are available to interact with:

print(tgn.session)  
print("--------------------------------")# Created via SessionAssistant
print(tgn.ixnetwork.Traffic.TrafficItem.find()[0])  
print("--------------------------------")#

#tgn.disconnect() <== Uncomment this when you want to delete the session once done with the testing

"""
pyats_env) ubuntusand@ubuntusand:~/100DaysOfPyATS$ python3 Day009_Run_ixnetwork_pyats/ixnetwork_interaction.py
ixnetwork_version not defined for device Device ixnetwork-01, type tgen via tgn
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] using python version 3.10.12 (main, Jan 26 2026, 14:55:28) [GCC 11.4.0]
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] using ixnetwork-restpy version 1.9.0
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [WARNING] Verification of certificates is disabled
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] Determining the platform and rest_port using the 10.36.236.121 address...
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [WARNING] Unable to connect to http://10.36.236.121:443.
2026-02-13 21:27:51 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] Connection established to `https://10.36.236.121:443 on linux`
2026-02-13 21:27:52 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] Using IxNetwork api server version 11.00.2504.10
2026-02-13 21:27:52 [ixnetwork_restpy.connection tid:137571318435840] [INFO] User info IxNetwork/ixnetworkweb/admin-1-19727
<ixnetwork_restpy.assistants.sessions.sessionassistant.SessionAssistant object at 0x7d1ecc7df910>
--------------------------------
TrafficItem[0]: /api/v1/sessions/1/ixnetwork/traffic/trafficItem/1
        AllowSelfDestined: False
        BgpEpeOrdinalValue: 0
        BgpEpeSidType: nodeSID
        BiDirectional: False
        EgressEnabled: False
        EnableDynamicMplsLabelValues: False
        EnableMacsecEgressOnlyAutoConfig: True
        EnableMacsecSwChecksumCalc: False
        Enabled: True
        Errors: []
        EvpnNextHopOrdinalValue: 0
        FlowGroupCount: 1
        FrerDuplicateElimination: False
        HasOpenFlow: False
        HostsPerNetwork: 1
        InterAsBgpPreference: one
        InterAsLdpPreference: two
        LabelPreferences: []
        MaxNumberOfVpnLabelStack: 2
        MergeDestinations: True
        MulticastForwardingMode: replication
        Name: Traffic Item 1
        NumVlansForMulticastReplication: 1
        OrdinalNo: 0
        OriginatorType: endUser
        RawTrafficRxPortsBehavior: replicated
        RegenerateCount: 0
        RoundRobinPacketOrdering: False
        RouteMesh: oneToOne
        SrcDestMesh: oneToOne
        State: stopped
        Suspend: False
        TrafficItemType: l2L3
        TrafficType: ipv4
        TransmitMode: interleaved
        TransportLdpPreference: two
        TransportRsvpTePreference: one
        UseControlPlaneFrameSize: True
        UseControlPlaneRate: True
        Warnings: []
--------------------------------

"""

python3 ixnetwork_interaction.py

I hope this was helpful. I will update you as and how I do more experiments on it.