A CCNA-level engineer checks four devices by opening four consoles. An automation-minded one runs one script. This lab takes the single-router Netmiko connection you built in Lab auto-01 and scales it to the whole topology: R1, R2, R3, and SW1, interrogated in one pass, from one Python file. It is part of the PingLabz CCNA Automation Labs, runs entirely in Cisco Modeling Labs Free, and every output below is captured from the real lab on Cisco IOS XE 17.18.
Read-only collection is where every real automation journey starts, for a reason: a script that only runs show commands cannot break the network. You get all of the learning with none of the blast radius. Config push comes next lab, once the loop pattern is second nature.
What you will learn
- How to enable SSH across the remaining lab devices (R2, R3, SW1) with modern 3072-bit keys.
- The dictionary-driven device loop, the single most reused pattern in network automation.
- How to collect the same command from routers and a switch in one run, and what changes when the platform differs.
- Why read-only scripts are the right place to build confidence before you ever push config.
