1. Infrastructure Configuration#

1.1 Objective#

As a network operator, you probably deal with these common challenges:

• Device configurations are stored in different places (CLI history, text files, templates), so it’s never clear what the configuration baseline is.
• Manual CLI changes creep in over time, introducing drift and making it harder to align devices back to a known state.
• Onboarding new devices or enabling new features often means starting from scratch, repeating the same manual work again.

In this activity, you will:

• Learn how to auto-generate a brand-new intent-type from the device model so you can manage all configuration attributes consistently from day one.
• See how intents, once generated, become the central source of truth — enabling audits, drift detection, and realignment with far less manual effort.
• Understand how this tool-based approach shortens onboarding and provides more flexible options than relying only on pre-defined templates.

In this activity we are use Visual Studio Code (or code-server) with the NSP Intent Manager extension to create device-specific intent-types that can be used in the context of Device Configuration.

1.2 Technology explanation#

This section describes the concepts used in this activity.

1.2.1 Visual Studio Code#

Visual Studio Code (Visual Studio Code) is a free, lightweight, and cross-platform source-code editor developed by Microsoft, with its core available under MIT License. While the official Microsoft distribution includes telemetry and branding, the underlying open-source project is actively developed by thousands of contributors worldwide. Backed by Microsoft and deeply integrated with GitHub, Visual Studio Code offers rich extensibility through the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, enabling developers to tailor their development environments with themes, debuggers, linters, and language support.

Visual Studio Code runs seamlessly on Windows, MacOS X, and Linux, and powers browser-based development via code-server and GitHub Codespaces. Features like built-in Git support, Remote SSH, IntelliSense, and live share collaboration making it a top choice for developers. The well-documented extension API, comprehensive examples, and clean UX Guidelines encourage a thriving eco-system and consistent user experience.

You can download Visual Studio Code here and start exploring the modern, extensible, and developer-friendly environment shaping how code is written today.

Nokia is actively contributing Visual Studio Code extensions to improve Developer eXperience around our networking products and technologies being used. In this hackathon, you have the opportunity to use the following extensions contributed by Nokia in action:

• NSP Intent Manager extension
• NSP Workflow Manager extension
• NSP Artifact Manager extension
• NSP connect extension
• EDA extension
• Containerlab extension
• NETCONF extension

1.2.2 Intent Manager#

Intent Manager is a module within the Nokia Network Services Platform (NSP) that enables intent-based networking (IBN) by translating higher-level objectives into automated network actions. It has the ability to abstract the complexity of network configuration by allowing operators to express what they want, rather than how to do it.

By separating declarative intent configuration (including validation) from intent operations like audits and synchronization, Intent Manager enables CRUD operations with operational lifecycle and control. The sync operation is used for deploying changes into the network but also to reconcile network object configuration in cases of misalignment, while audits are used to identify misalignments including network configuration drift.

The library of intent-types can be updated at runtime, while intent-types are developed in JavaScript using YANG-defined intent models. Using JavaScript enables full flexibility beyond pure configuration management. Intent Manager natively supports heterogeneous networks (multi-vendor, multi-domain).

1.2.3 NSP Device Configuration#

Device Management Configuration is an intent-based app for infrastructure configuration management (ICM). It uses Intent Manager as the engine underneath and comes with an optimized user-interface tailored for the needs of device-centric configuration. ICM adds advanced operational procedures for brownfield configuration discovery and cloning of intent instances.

There is the concept of device-specific intent-types in ICM, where a defined subtree of the device is exposed as intent-model. The main rational to use device models is to provide control over 100% of the device-level attributes, while device experts are not confused by any sort of normalization as the intent model is identical to what operators already know. Another advantage of this is that intent-types can be auto-generated. Keep in mind that going device-specific is a compromise, as intent-types become specific to given device vendors, families and releases, adding operational and integration complexity. While there is no abstraction using this approach, all configuration details are accessible via rich configuration forms, and it is possible to adjust those forms to show the relevant configuration attributes only.

1.3 Tasks#

You should read these tasks from top-to-bottom before beginning the activity.

It is tempting to skip ahead but tasks may require you to have completed previous tasks before tackling them.

1.3.1 Install / Setup Visual Studio Code and the required extensions#

Prepare your environment for creating ICM intents by installing and setting up Visual Studio Code on your computer.

These are the steps you must perform. Below you can also find a short video demonstrating the process.

• Install Visual Studio Code
• Open Visual Studio Code and go to the Extensions sidebar
• Search for "NOKIA Intent Manager" and click "Install" to add the extension to your workspace
• Setup your NSP Connection (Option A, preferred)
  • If you use the NSP connect extension, you can configure/connect to your NSP straight from the sidebar
  • Add a new connection targeting your NSP system: nsp.srexperts.net with the username/password provided and connect
• Traditional Setup of your NSP Connection (Option B)
  • Open the Settings for the Intent Manager Extension
  • Adjust the connection details for your NSP system: nsp.srexperts.net with the username/password provided
  • Change should take effect immediately. In case it does not, please reload Visual Studio Code
• Once done, a new folder named Intent Manager appears in your Visual Studio Code workspace
• This folder contains subfolders for intent-types (definitions) and intents (instances). The content you see is polled from the live system.

1.3.2 Create a new Intent-type and a new Intent Instance#

Create and import intent-types:

In a directory inside your workspace, create a file named demo-icm-sros-ip-filter-group01.igen with the desired NE configuration context, like this:

{
    "description": "L3 ACL for Nokia SR OS devices (MD MODE)",
    "category": "policies",
    "role": "logical",
    "device": "fd00:fde8::1:21",
    "context": "/nokia-conf:configure/filter/ip-filter"
}

• The filename will become the name of the new intent-type, so it must be in kebap-case.
• The device value in your *.igen file must point to the ne-id of device with the correct vendor, family, and software release. In case of SR OS routers this is the IPv6 address of the system interface. For this hackathon, you may just select the system IP-address of PE1. The example above is for group 1. Adjust the filename and device to match your group!
• Right-click on the *.igen file and select Generate intent-type from the context menu.
• The generation might take some time. You can monitor the progress in the Visual Studio Code OUTPUT panel.
• Once creation finished, verify the contents of the generated intent-type.
• Right-click on the intent-type folder and select Upload intent-type from the context menu.
• The intent-type should appear on the NSP WebUI in Released state

To get a more detailed understanding about *.igen files, please check in the reference section below.

Import intent-types and creating templates in ICM:

• Navigate to Device Management > Configuration Intent Types.
• Import the newly created intent-type.
• Navigate to Configuration Templates.
• Create a new template using your intent-type.

Create an intent:

Now you can move further to Configuration Deployments.

• Create a new deployment using the previous template.

We've just learned step-by-step on how to quickly create brand new intent-types from small *.igen files. Now, turn is on you to create all required intent-types required for base router connectivity: Port Configuration, Interface Configuration and IS-IS Interface Configuration.

1.3.3 Port Config#

Let's start with port configuration.

{ 
    "description": "Port configuration on Nokia SR OS devices (MD MODE)",
    "category": "port",
    "role": "physical",
    "device": "fd00:fde8::1:21",
    "context": "nokia-conf:/configure/port",
    "icmstyle": true,
    "maxdepth": 2,
    "exclude": ["sonet-sdh","tdm","otu","network","gnss","dwdm","access","scheduler","transceiver","dist-cpu-protection","ethernet","hybrid-buffer-allocation","modify-buffer-allocation"]
}

[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# edit-config private 
INFO: CLI #2070: Entering private configuration mode
INFO: CLI #2061: Uncommitted changes are discarded on configuration mode exit

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# info configure port  1/1/c1
    admin-state enable
    connector {
        breakout c1-100g
    }

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# info configure port 1/1/c1/1
    admin-state enable
    description "link to P1"
    ethernet {
        mode network
    }

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# configure port 1/1/c1

(pr)[/configure port 1/1/c1]
A:admin@g1-pe1# pwc model-path 
Present Working Context:
/nokia-conf:configure/port=1%2F1%2Fc1

Now, import the intent-type into ICM, create a template and deployments.

1.3.4 Interface Config#

We continue with the IP interface configuration associated with the Base router instance.

{ 
    "description": "Interfaces creation on Nokia SR OS devices (MD MODE)",
    "category": "interface",
    "role": "logical",
    "device": "fd00:fde8::1:21",
    "context": "nokia-conf:/configure/router=Base/interface",
    "icmstyle": true,
    "exclude": ["egress","ingress","ldp-sync-timer","load-balancing","lag","ptp-hw-assist","autoconfigure","ipsec","cflowd-parameters","hold-time","eth-cfm","ipv6","qos","if-attribute","untrusted","network-domains","external-reference","ipv4/icmp","ipv4/unnumbered","ipv4/urpf-check","ipv4/dhcp","ipv4/bfd","ipv4/secondary","ipv4/neighbor-discovery","ipv4/vrrp"]
}

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# info configure router interface p1
    port 1/1/c1/1
    ipv4 {
        primary {
            address 10.64.11.1
            prefix-length 31
        }
    }
    ipv6 {
        forward-ipv4-packets true
        address fd00:fde8:0:1:1:11:21:1 {
            prefix-length 127
        }
    }

As already done previously, import the intent-type into ICM, create a template and deployments.

1.3.5 IS-IS Interface Config#

As a final step, create an intent-type that will allow operators to associate router network interface with the IS-IS protocol in model-driven SR OS using the NSP WebUI.

{
    "description": "ISIS Interfaces on Nokia SR OS devices (MD MODE)",
    "category": "interface",
    "role": "logical",
    "device": "fd00:fde8::1:21",
    "context": "nokia-conf:/configure/router=Base/isis=0/interface",
    "icmstyle": true
}

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# info configure router isis 0 interface p1
    interface-type point-to-point

Finally, import the intent-type into ICM, create a template and deployments.

(pr)[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# quit-config 
INFO: CLI #2074: Exiting private configuration mode

[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# show router isis interface 

===============================================================================
Rtr Base ISIS Instance 0 Interfaces 
===============================================================================
Interface                        Level CircID  Oper      L1/L2 Metric     Type
                                               State                      
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
system                           L2    1       Up        -/0              p2p
p1                               L1L2  3       Up        10/10            p2p
p2                               L1L2  4       Up        10/10            p2p
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interfaces : 3
===============================================================================

[/]
A:admin@g1-pe1# show  router isis adjacency 

===============================================================================
Rtr Base ISIS Instance 0 Adjacency 
===============================================================================
System ID                Usage State Hold Interface                     MT-ID
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
g1-p1                    L2    Up    23   p1                            0
g1-p2                    L2    Up    22   p2                            0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adjacencies : 2
===============================================================================

1.4 Summary#

Well done — you’ve successfully completed this activity! By working with community-driven *.igen files, you’ve seen how intent-type development can be greatly simplified. This approach lets you focus on the network and management aspects without needing to be an expert in JavaScript or YANG.

But this is just the beginning. You might explore discovering a brownfield configuration from PE1, experiment by changing device settings directly through the CLI and then running audits and alignment, or dive deeper into schema-form customization with the graphical view-config editor.

The possibilities are wide open — how far you go is up to your curiosity and creativity.

1.5 Reference: Intent-type Generator Files#

The starting point for device-specific auto-generation is always an *.igen file, provided in JSON format. Since Visual Studio Code is a text editor, creating these files is straightforward. Below is the list of supported *.igen file attributes:

{
    "category": "policies",
    "role": "logical",
    "description": "SAP ingress QoS policy on Nokia SR OS devices (MD MODE)",

    "context": "nokia-conf:/configure/qos/sap-ingress",
    "device": "fd00:fde8::1:21",

    "intent_type": "icm-sros-sap-ingress-policy",
    "author": "hackthon25",
    "exclude": [],
    "maxdepth": -1,
    "labels": ["GraalJS", "ApprovedMisalignments"],
    "date": "2025-02-28",

    "withdefaults": true,
    "applygroups": true,
    "constraints": true,
    "icmstyle": true
}