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ACI - Moquery

Moquery provides an easy access to the API of Cisco ACI and allows to query for object from the CLI.

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Why Moquery?

Moquery is a CLI application which runs directly on the APICs of an ACI Fabric. The Moquery tool allows to easily run REST API like queries against the ACI Fabric. It’s more powerful for some cases than the GUI and allows for bulk actions.

Using the GUI of ACI can sometimes be a bit cumbersome, and some information is hard to find in the GUI. Maybe you are looking for all the DNs of a specific Static Port.

Cisco itself calls it the “Command line cousin to visore” :-)

How to use Moquery?

To use Moquery, you directly connect to one of the APICs, from there you can directly start using Moquery. No additional authentication is required.

Similar to the Rest API, there are two different concepts and ways to access information in ACI. These are Classes & Objects. I wrote more about this topic on the Postman Post.

The important distinction is that you can search for classes and for specific objects through Moquery.

Access a Class with Moquery

The first example is how you can access an ACI Class with Moquery. This is done with the -c flag and requires an ACI Class name.

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moquery -c fvTenant

This moquery fetches us all Tenants that exist in the Fabric and outputs the object in a Row based format.

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APIC1# moquery -c fvTenant
Total Objects shown: 10

# fv.Tenant
name         : common
annotation   :
childAction  :
descr        :
dn           : uni/tn-common
extMngdBy    :
lcOwn        : local
modTs        : 2022-07-28T09:54:39.789+01:00
monPolDn     : uni/tn-common/monepg-default
nameAlias    :
ownerKey     :
ownerTag     :
rn           : tn-common
status       :
uid          : 0
userdom      : all
.
.

In this output we can see the DN of the object, uni/tn-common. This DN can be used to directly access objects with Moquery.

Access an Object with Moquery

In the case you already know which Object you are looking for, you can leverage the -d flag.

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moquery -d uni/tn-common

This only returns the specified object, but with the help of flags you can also get children and additional information.

Output only config attributes with Moquery

Sometimes you are only looking for attributes that are configurable, to make it easier to get these attributes only, there is a configuration only flag. This config-only parameter is available in the REST API as well.

With Moquery it can be specified through the -a config flag.

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moquery -d uni/tn-common -a config

# fv.Tenant
name         : common
annotation   :
descr        :
nameAlias    :
ownerKey     :
ownerTag     :
userdom      : all

This reduces the output quite a bit and everything you see is configurable.

Different output formats for Moquery

Beside the default output format, which is called block, there are other options as well. One is table, which can be useful if you are looking at a larger amount of objects. As Example we show all the static bindings in a table format.

The output format can be changed with -o

Table output with Moquery

Specified with -o table Moquery returns a Table.

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APIC1# moquery -c fvRsPathAtt -o table
Total Objects shown: 21

Target-dn         Annotation. Suggested format orchestrator:value  descr  encap      instrImedcy  mode     primaryEncap  userdom
----------------  -----------------------------------------------  -----  ---------  -----------  -------  ------------  -------
topology/pod-1/                                                           vlan-2000  immediate    regular  unknown       :all:
paths-111/
pathep-[eth1/1]
topology/pod-1/                                                           vlan-2000  immediate    regular  unknown       :all:
paths-211/
pathep-[eth1/2]
topology/pod-1/                                                           vlan-2001  immediate    regular  unknown       :all:
paths-211/
pathep-[eth1/1]

JSON output with Moquery

Moquery can also directly return a JSON based output, which can be triggered with -o json.

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APIC1# moquery -c fvRsPathAtt -o json
{
  "totalCount": "21",
  "imdata": [
    {
      "fvRsPathAtt": {
        "attributes": {
          "annotation": "",
          "childAction": "",
          "descr": "",
          "dn": "uni/tn-DEMO-SR-MPLS-HANDOFF/ap-VRF1/epg-EP-2000/rspathAtt-[topology/pod-1/paths-111/pathep-[eth1/1]]",
          "encap": "vlan-2000",
          "extMngdBy": "",
          "forceResolve": "yes",
          "instrImedcy": "immediate",
          "lcC": "",
          "lcOwn": "local",
          "modTs": "2022-07-28T11:22:57.426+01:00",
          "mode": "regular",
          "monPolDn": "uni/tn-common/monepg-default",
          "primaryEncap": "unknown",
          "rType": "mo",
          "rn": "rspathAtt-[topology/pod-1/paths-111/pathep-[eth1/1]]",
          "state": "unformed",
          "stateQual": "none",
          "status": "",
          "tCl": "fabricPathEp",
          "tDn": "topology/pod-1/paths-111/pathep-[eth1/1]",
          "tType": "mo",
          "uid": "15374",
          "userdom": ":all:"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

XML output with Moquery

Not even sure why I even write this… But you could also get an XML output, not sure for what that would be useful ;-)

-o xml

Moquery Filters

Filters allow to filter the Moquery output, but are really basic. I recommend to use the -x options to specify filter and other helpful tools. But let’s first quickly look what can be achieved with the basic Moquery Filters.

You can filter for each attribute of an object, this allows to find all static bindings with a specific encap configured.

moquery -c fvRsPathAtt -f 'fv.RsPathAtt.encap=="vlan-1503"'

Moquery options, Advanced Filtering

With the help of options you can change the output to include children, whole subtrees, only objects that match a pattern and so on. These filters take a bit of getting used to, but are then really powerful.

These options also are identical with the ones from the REST API, so it allows for easier transition between API & Moqueries.

We could include the whole subtree for a Tenant, to get all objects that sit beneath a Tenant.

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moquery -c fvTenant -d uni/tn-Network -x rsp-subtree=full

Now you maybe ask, why do I specify both (Class & DN) in the moquery here? The answer is, that only with a DN, the rsp-subtree option doesn’t work. This is probably a bug.

Examples of Moquery - Cheat Sheet

Now after we looked at the basics of moquery, I want to give you some helpful commands, sort of a Cheat Sheet for moquery.

Audit Log

Sometimes you want to quickly lookup what happened in the past in your fabric. This is a query for which the table output is really helpful!

moquery -c aaaModLR -x 'query-target-filter=bw(aaaModLR.created,"2022-10-19","2022-10-20")' -o table

Just update the date to the one that you are looking for.

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APIC1# moquery -c aaaModLR -x 'query-target-filter=bw(aaaModLR.created,"2022-10-19","2022-10-20")' -o table
Total Objects shown: 390

id           affected                                         code      ind           txId                  user
-----------  -----------------------------------------------  --------  ------------  --------------------  ----------------
12784904681  uni/tn-Network/BD-Network                                E4211946  modification  576460752305996165    admin
12784904682  uni/tn-Network/BD-Network/                               E4212038  creation      576460752305996188    admin
             subnet-[1.1.1.1/24]
12784904683  uni/tn-Network/BD-Network/                               E4212038  creation      576460752305996197    admin
             subnet-[2.2.2.1/24]

Faults

You can get a table overview over Faults that were created between two dates. Similar to the Audit Log example.

moquery -c faultRecord -x order-by="faultRecord.created|desc" 'query-target-filter=bw(faultRecord.created,"2022-11-10","2022-11-15")' -o table

Same here, modify the date as needed.

Man Page of Moquery from an APIC

To make it better accessible, I copied the man page for moquery from one of the APICs.

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man(8)                                                                                                                   moquery                                                                                                                   man(8)

NAME
       moquery -- search for MO

SYNOPSIS
       moquery --help --host hostname --port portname --dn dn --klass classname --filter property --attrs attributes --output output --user username --options options

DESCRIPTION
       Searches for managed objects (MOs) within the management information tree (MIT).

       -h, --help
       Displays usage information.

       -i, --host
       Specifies an APIC host.

       hostname
              The hostname or IP address of an APIC.

       -p, --port
       Specifies a port for a REST interface.

       portname
              The REST interface port number.

       -d, --dn
       Specifies a distinguished name (DN) for a managed object (MO).

       dn
              The DN of an MO.

       -c, --klass
       Specifies a class name for the query.

       classname
              Specifies a class. You can enter multiple classes separated by commas.

       -f, --filter
       Specifies a property on which to filter MOs.

       property
              The property on which to filter MOs.

       -a, --attrs
       Specifies the attributes that the query displays.

       attributes
              The type of attributes to display. You can choose config or all. If config is selected, only configurable attributes are displayed. Unless the 'table' output format is specified, the default is all.

       -o, --output
       Specifies the output format of the query results.

       output
              The query output format. You can choose xml, json, block, or table.

       -u, --user
       Specifies a user name.

       username
              The user name.

       -x, --options
       Specifies query options.

       options
              The  query  options  to enable. You can specify options as supported by the REST API. You can add multiple options statements to the command, using syntax such as the following:  -x [OPTIONS [OPTIONS ...]] [-x [OPTIONS [OPTIONS ...]]].
              For example:

              moquery -c firmwareCtrlrFwStatusCont -x query-target=subtree target-subtree-class=firmwareCtrlrRunning

EXAMPLE
       The following example shows how to use the moquery command.

       admin@apic1:~> moquery --dn unallocencap-[uni/infra]
       Total Objects shown: 1
       # stp.UnAllocEncapCont
       infraPKey    : uni/infra
       allocSize    : 0
       childAction  :
       descr        :
       dn           : unallocencap-[uni/infra]
       lastAssigned : 8192
       lcOwn        : local
       modTs        : 2014-07-26T16:46:27.176+00:00
       name         :
       ownerKey     :
       ownerTag     :
       rn           : unallocencap-[uni/infra]
       size         : 0
       status       :

AUTHOR
       Cisco Systems Inc.

SEE ALSO
       moconfig, mocreate, modelete, moprint, moset, moshow

1.1                                                                                                                     2015-02-11                                                                                                                 man(8)

Error: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 1)

I got this fault when trying todo some filtering with the -x query-target-filter option. This was my request:

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APIC1# moquery -c aaaModLR -x 'query-target-filter=bw(aaaModLR.created, "2022-10-19", "2022-10-20")'
Error: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 1)

Took me a bit time to find the issue, but it was related to the spaces after the ,

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moquery -c aaaModLR -x 'query-target-filter=bw(aaaModLR.created,"2022-10-19","2022-10-20")'

This works, so make sure to have no white spaces in the query-target-filter.

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