Automation

A network engineer needs to automate the backup of running configurations from multiple Cisco IOS XE devices to a central TFTP server. Which tool is best suited for this task in a Python-based automation framework?

Question 3mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is creating a Python script using the Cisco IOS XE RESTCONF API to configure a loopback interface. The script sends a PUT request to the URI /restconf/data/Cisco-IOS-XE-native:native/interface/Loopback=100 with a JSON body that includes the IP address. The API returns a 201 Created status, but the loopback interface does not appear in the running configuration. What is the most likely issue?

Question 4mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is troubleshooting an Ansible playbook that uses the ios_config module to apply ACLs. The playbook runs without errors, but the ACLs are not applied to the device. The engineer verifies that the device is reachable and the credentials are correct. What is the most likely cause?

Question 5hardmulti select

Which THREE are valid methods for automating network device configuration using Cisco IOS XE? (Choose three.)

Question 6mediummultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A network engineer wants to use Ansible to change the IP address of Loopback100 from 10.1.100.1/24 to 10.1.200.1/24. The playbook uses the ios_config module. The playbook runs successfully, but the IP address remains unchanged. What is the most likely reason?

Exhibit

R1#show ip interface brief | include Loopback
Loopback0        10.1.1.1       YES manual up                    up
Loopback100      10.1.100.1     YES manual up                    up

R1#show run interface Loopback100
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 67 bytes
!
interface Loopback100
 ip address 10.1.100.1 255.255.255.0
end

R1#show run | include snmp-server
snmp-server community public RO
snmp-server community private RW

Question 7hardmultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A Python script sends the JSON payload shown via a POST request to the RESTCONF URI /restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces on a Cisco IOS XE device. The API returns 201 Created, but the interface GigabitEthernet1 is not configured. What is the most likely cause?

Exhibit

{
  "ietf-interfaces:interface": {
    "name": "GigabitEthernet1",
    "type": "iana-if-type:ethernetCsmacd",
    "enabled": true,
    "ietf-ip:ipv4": {
      "address": [
        {
          "ip": "192.168.1.1",
          "netmask": "255.255.255.0"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Question 8hardmultiple choice

A service provider uses Cisco IOS XE routers with NETCONF/YANG for configuration management. They have a centralized automation system that pushes configuration changes via NETCONF. Recently, after a maintenance window, several routers lost connectivity to the NETCONF server. The automation system can still SSH to the routers and execute CLI commands. The engineer suspects that the NETCONF server's SSH key changed, causing the routers to reject the connection. However, checking the routers' configuration, the engineer finds that the 'netconf ssh' command is present and the SSH server is enabled. The engineer also notices that the routers have an 'ip ssh server algorithm publickey' configuration specifying a list of allowed public keys. What is the most likely cause of the NETCONF connectivity loss?

Question 9mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is automating configuration backups using Ansible. The playbook uses the ios_config module to retrieve running configurations from Cisco IOS XE devices. However, the playbook fails with a timeout error on a specific device. Other devices respond correctly. What is the most likely cause of the failure?

Question 10easymultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A network engineer sends a RESTCONF PATCH request with the above JSON payload to the URL https://192.168.1.100/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interface=GigabitEthernet0/0/0. What is the expected outcome?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.
{
  "ietf-interfaces:interface": {
    "name": "GigabitEthernet0/0/0",
    "description": "Link to Core",
    "enabled": true,
    "ietf-ip:ipv4": {
      "address": [
        {
          "ip": "192.168.1.1",
          "netmask": "255.255.255.0"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Question 11mediumdrag order

Drag and drop the steps for the three-way TCP handshake into the correct order.

Drag or tap steps into the slots.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 12mediumdrag order

Which of the following represents the correct order of steps to configure an extended access control list (ACL) on a Cisco router?

Drag or tap steps into the slots.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 13mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Python ncclient library to retrieve the running configuration from a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The script connects successfully, but the <get-config> RPC returns an empty <data> element even though the requested configuration clearly exists on the device. The engineer confirms the correct datastore is targeted. Which action should the engineer take to resolve this?

Question 14hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script that uses the requests library to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device via RESTCONF. The script authenticates with basic authentication and sends a GET request to retrieve interface statistics. The device returns a 401 Unauthorized error even though the username and password are correct and have privilege level 15. Which configuration is most likely missing on the device?

Question 15mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is building a Python script to retrieve interface statistics from a Cisco IOS XE device using the RESTCONF API. The device is configured with the 'restconf' and 'netconf-yang' commands. The engineer sends a GET request to https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state/interface=GigabitEthernet1 and receives a 404 Not Found error. The interface GigabitEthernet1 exists and is up. What is the most likely cause of the error?

Question 16hardmultiple choice

A network automation team is using a Python script with the ncclient library to configure a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The script sends an <edit-config> RPC with a candidate datastore and then commits the configuration. After running the script, the team notices that the configuration changes are not present in the running configuration. The script completes without errors. Which is the most likely cause?

Question 17mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Python ncclient library to retrieve interface statistics from a Cisco IOS XE device. The script connects successfully but the returned data is a large XML document that is difficult to parse. The engineer wants to work with data in a structured, vendor-neutral format that can be validated against a model. Which action should be taken to achieve this?

Question 18mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Cisco SD-WAN vManage REST API to retrieve a list of devices. The API requires authentication via a session token. The engineer successfully obtains a token using the /j_security_check endpoint but then receives a 403 Forbidden error when calling /dataservice/device. What is the most likely cause?

Question 19mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Cisco SD-WAN vManage REST API to retrieve a list of all devices managed by the controller. The engineer sends a GET request to https://vmanage.example.com:8443/dataservice/device with the header 'Accept: application/json' and receives an HTTP 200 OK response containing a JSON payload. The engineer now needs to extract only the device IDs of the devices that are in a 'reachable' state. Which Python code snippet correctly parses the response and filters the devices?

Question 20mediummulti select

A network engineer is designing a Python script to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device using RESTCONF. The engineer wants to ensure the script can perform both read and write operations on the device's configuration. Which two actions must be taken to enable RESTCONF and allow the script to authenticate? (Choose two.)

Question 21hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is using Ansible to configure a Cisco IOS XE device. The playbook uses the 'ios_config' module to apply an ACL. The playbook runs successfully, but the ACL is not present on the device. The engineer verifies that the device is reachable and credentials are correct. Which action should the engineer take to troubleshoot the issue?

Question 22mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is comparing YANG models available on a Cisco IOS XE device. The engineer needs a model that is vendor-neutral and can be used across multiple vendors' devices. Which type of YANG model should the engineer choose?

Question 23hardmultiple choice

A network automation engineer is using the Cisco DNA Center Intent API to provision a new network device. The engineer needs to ensure that the device is successfully added to the inventory and assigned to a site before configuring it. Which API endpoint should the engineer use to add the device to the DNA Center inventory?

Question 24hardmultiple choice

An engineer writes a Python script that sends a RESTCONF GET request to a Cisco IOS XE device at https://10.1.1.5/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces. The device returns HTTP 401 Unauthorized even though the same credentials work for SSH. The device is configured with 'restconf' and a local user with privilege 15. What is the most likely cause?

Question 25hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is using the ncclient Python library to configure a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The engineer wants to change the description of a loopback interface. The script establishes a NETCONF session, but the configuration change fails with an error indicating that the data is not writable. The engineer verifies that the NETCONF session is active and that the user has privilege level 15. What is the most likely cause of the failure?

Question 26mediummultiple choice

A network engineer has a Python script that retrieves the operational state of all interfaces from a Cisco IOS XE router using RESTCONF. The script currently sends a GET request to the base URI https://router/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces. The engineer needs to modify the script to retrieve only the statistics for GigabitEthernet1, specifically the in-octets counter. Which RESTCONF request should the engineer use?

Question 27mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script to retrieve the current interface configuration from a Cisco IOS XE device using RESTCONF. The script sends a GET request to the URI https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces but receives an HTTP 406 Not Acceptable response. The engineer confirms that the device supports RESTCONF and that the credentials are correct. What is the most likely cause of the error?

Question 28mediummulti select

A network team is implementing a Python script to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device using the RESTCONF API. The script must authenticate using HTTP Basic Authentication and send a GET request to retrieve interface details. Which two actions must the script perform to correctly authenticate and retrieve data? (Choose two.)

Question 29mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script using the requests library to retrieve the operational state of all GigabitEthernet interfaces from a Cisco IOS XE device via RESTCONF. The script uses the URL https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state and includes the header 'Accept: application/yang-data+json'. The script fails with HTTP 406 Not Acceptable. Which action resolves the issue?

Question 30hardmultiple choice

A network automation engineer is using NETCONF to retrieve configuration data from a Cisco IOS XE device. The engineer wants to ensure that the RPC request is secure and authenticated. Which protocol should be used as the transport for NETCONF in this scenario?

Question 31mediummultiple choice

Full Practice Test →All Objectives

A network automation engineer is comparing configuration management approaches for a fleet of Cisco IOS XE devices. The team wants the automation tool to compute the difference between the device's running configuration and the desired intent, apply only the missing lines, and leave unrelated configuration untouched. Which tool and mode should be selected?

More Automation questions available in the full practice test.

Continue Practising →

All 350-401 Objectives

Objective 600.015% of exam

Automation

350-401 Practice Questions

What this objective tests

350-401 Automation — Key Topics

Ansible agentless playbooks over SSH versus Puppet, Chef, and SaltStack agent-based models
NETCONF and RESTCONF APIs using YANG models on Cisco IOS XE devices
Data serialization formats JSON, XML, and YAML and their syntax rules
Python scripting with Cisco SDKs, NETCONF libraries, and REST API calls

Common exam traps

Where candidates lose marks on Automation

⚠Assuming Ansible needs an agent on managed devices; it is agentless and relies on SSH or API transport.
⚠Confusing NETCONF, which uses SSH and XML, with RESTCONF, which uses HTTP methods and JSON or XML.
⚠Treating YANG as a data format rather than a modeling language that defines the structure exposed by NETCONF and RESTCONF.

350-401 Automation — Practice Questions

30 questions from this objective · 15% of your 350-401 exam

Question 2easymultiple choice

A network engineer needs to automate the backup of running configurations from multiple Cisco IOS XE devices to a central TFTP server. Which tool is best suited for this task in a Python-based automation framework?

Question 3mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is creating a Python script using the Cisco IOS XE RESTCONF API to configure a loopback interface. The script sends a PUT request to the URI /restconf/data/Cisco-IOS-XE-native:native/interface/Loopback=100 with a JSON body that includes the IP address. The API returns a 201 Created status, but the loopback interface does not appear in the running configuration. What is the most likely issue?

Question 4mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is troubleshooting an Ansible playbook that uses the ios_config module to apply ACLs. The playbook runs without errors, but the ACLs are not applied to the device. The engineer verifies that the device is reachable and the credentials are correct. What is the most likely cause?

Question 5hardmulti select

Which THREE are valid methods for automating network device configuration using Cisco IOS XE? (Choose three.)

Question 6mediummultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A network engineer wants to use Ansible to change the IP address of Loopback100 from 10.1.100.1/24 to 10.1.200.1/24. The playbook uses the ios_config module. The playbook runs successfully, but the IP address remains unchanged. What is the most likely reason?

Exhibit

R1#show ip interface brief | include Loopback
Loopback0        10.1.1.1       YES manual up                    up
Loopback100      10.1.100.1     YES manual up                    up

R1#show run interface Loopback100
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 67 bytes
!
interface Loopback100
 ip address 10.1.100.1 255.255.255.0
end

R1#show run | include snmp-server
snmp-server community public RO
snmp-server community private RW

Question 7hardmultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A Python script sends the JSON payload shown via a POST request to the RESTCONF URI /restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces on a Cisco IOS XE device. The API returns 201 Created, but the interface GigabitEthernet1 is not configured. What is the most likely cause?

Exhibit

{
  "ietf-interfaces:interface": {
    "name": "GigabitEthernet1",
    "type": "iana-if-type:ethernetCsmacd",
    "enabled": true,
    "ietf-ip:ipv4": {
      "address": [
        {
          "ip": "192.168.1.1",
          "netmask": "255.255.255.0"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Question 8hardmultiple choice

A service provider uses Cisco IOS XE routers with NETCONF/YANG for configuration management. They have a centralized automation system that pushes configuration changes via NETCONF. Recently, after a maintenance window, several routers lost connectivity to the NETCONF server. The automation system can still SSH to the routers and execute CLI commands. The engineer suspects that the NETCONF server's SSH key changed, causing the routers to reject the connection. However, checking the routers' configuration, the engineer finds that the 'netconf ssh' command is present and the SSH server is enabled. The engineer also notices that the routers have an 'ip ssh server algorithm publickey' configuration specifying a list of allowed public keys. What is the most likely cause of the NETCONF connectivity loss?

Question 9mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is automating configuration backups using Ansible. The playbook uses the ios_config module to retrieve running configurations from Cisco IOS XE devices. However, the playbook fails with a timeout error on a specific device. Other devices respond correctly. What is the most likely cause of the failure?

Question 10easymultiple choice

Refer to the exhibit. A network engineer sends a RESTCONF PATCH request with the above JSON payload to the URL https://192.168.1.100/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interface=GigabitEthernet0/0/0. What is the expected outcome?

Exhibit

Refer to the exhibit.
{
  "ietf-interfaces:interface": {
    "name": "GigabitEthernet0/0/0",
    "description": "Link to Core",
    "enabled": true,
    "ietf-ip:ipv4": {
      "address": [
        {
          "ip": "192.168.1.1",
          "netmask": "255.255.255.0"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Question 11mediumdrag order

Drag and drop the steps for the three-way TCP handshake into the correct order.

Drag or tap steps into the slots.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 12mediumdrag order

Which of the following represents the correct order of steps to configure an extended access control list (ACL) on a Cisco router?

Drag or tap steps into the slots.

Steps

Order

1Step 1

2Step 2

3Step 3

4Step 4

5Step 5

Question 13mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Python ncclient library to retrieve the running configuration from a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The script connects successfully, but the <get-config> RPC returns an empty <data> element even though the requested configuration clearly exists on the device. The engineer confirms the correct datastore is targeted. Which action should the engineer take to resolve this?

Question 14hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script that uses the requests library to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device via RESTCONF. The script authenticates with basic authentication and sends a GET request to retrieve interface statistics. The device returns a 401 Unauthorized error even though the username and password are correct and have privilege level 15. Which configuration is most likely missing on the device?

Question 15mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is building a Python script to retrieve interface statistics from a Cisco IOS XE device using the RESTCONF API. The device is configured with the 'restconf' and 'netconf-yang' commands. The engineer sends a GET request to https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state/interface=GigabitEthernet1 and receives a 404 Not Found error. The interface GigabitEthernet1 exists and is up. What is the most likely cause of the error?

Question 16hardmultiple choice

A network automation team is using a Python script with the ncclient library to configure a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The script sends an <edit-config> RPC with a candidate datastore and then commits the configuration. After running the script, the team notices that the configuration changes are not present in the running configuration. The script completes without errors. Which is the most likely cause?

Question 17mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Python ncclient library to retrieve interface statistics from a Cisco IOS XE device. The script connects successfully but the returned data is a large XML document that is difficult to parse. The engineer wants to work with data in a structured, vendor-neutral format that can be validated against a model. Which action should be taken to achieve this?

Question 18mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Cisco SD-WAN vManage REST API to retrieve a list of devices. The API requires authentication via a session token. The engineer successfully obtains a token using the /j_security_check endpoint but then receives a 403 Forbidden error when calling /dataservice/device. What is the most likely cause?

Question 19mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is using the Cisco SD-WAN vManage REST API to retrieve a list of all devices managed by the controller. The engineer sends a GET request to https://vmanage.example.com:8443/dataservice/device with the header 'Accept: application/json' and receives an HTTP 200 OK response containing a JSON payload. The engineer now needs to extract only the device IDs of the devices that are in a 'reachable' state. Which Python code snippet correctly parses the response and filters the devices?

Question 20mediummulti select

A network engineer is designing a Python script to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device using RESTCONF. The engineer wants to ensure the script can perform both read and write operations on the device's configuration. Which two actions must be taken to enable RESTCONF and allow the script to authenticate? (Choose two.)

Question 21hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is using Ansible to configure a Cisco IOS XE device. The playbook uses the 'ios_config' module to apply an ACL. The playbook runs successfully, but the ACL is not present on the device. The engineer verifies that the device is reachable and credentials are correct. Which action should the engineer take to troubleshoot the issue?

Question 22mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is comparing YANG models available on a Cisco IOS XE device. The engineer needs a model that is vendor-neutral and can be used across multiple vendors' devices. Which type of YANG model should the engineer choose?

Question 23hardmultiple choice

A network automation engineer is using the Cisco DNA Center Intent API to provision a new network device. The engineer needs to ensure that the device is successfully added to the inventory and assigned to a site before configuring it. Which API endpoint should the engineer use to add the device to the DNA Center inventory?

Question 24hardmultiple choice

An engineer writes a Python script that sends a RESTCONF GET request to a Cisco IOS XE device at https://10.1.1.5/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces. The device returns HTTP 401 Unauthorized even though the same credentials work for SSH. The device is configured with 'restconf' and a local user with privilege 15. What is the most likely cause?

Question 25hardmultiple choice

A network engineer is using the ncclient Python library to configure a Cisco IOS XE device via NETCONF. The engineer wants to change the description of a loopback interface. The script establishes a NETCONF session, but the configuration change fails with an error indicating that the data is not writable. The engineer verifies that the NETCONF session is active and that the user has privilege level 15. What is the most likely cause of the failure?

Question 26mediummultiple choice

A network engineer has a Python script that retrieves the operational state of all interfaces from a Cisco IOS XE router using RESTCONF. The script currently sends a GET request to the base URI https://router/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces. The engineer needs to modify the script to retrieve only the statistics for GigabitEthernet1, specifically the in-octets counter. Which RESTCONF request should the engineer use?

Question 27mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script to retrieve the current interface configuration from a Cisco IOS XE device using RESTCONF. The script sends a GET request to the URI https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces but receives an HTTP 406 Not Acceptable response. The engineer confirms that the device supports RESTCONF and that the credentials are correct. What is the most likely cause of the error?

Question 28mediummulti select

A network team is implementing a Python script to interact with a Cisco IOS XE device using the RESTCONF API. The script must authenticate using HTTP Basic Authentication and send a GET request to retrieve interface details. Which two actions must the script perform to correctly authenticate and retrieve data? (Choose two.)

Question 29mediummultiple choice

A network engineer is writing a Python script using the requests library to retrieve the operational state of all GigabitEthernet interfaces from a Cisco IOS XE device via RESTCONF. The script uses the URL https://10.1.1.1/restconf/data/ietf-interfaces:interfaces-state and includes the header 'Accept: application/yang-data+json'. The script fails with HTTP 406 Not Acceptable. Which action resolves the issue?

Question 30hardmultiple choice

A network automation engineer is using NETCONF to retrieve configuration data from a Cisco IOS XE device. The engineer wants to ensure that the RPC request is secure and authenticated. Which protocol should be used as the transport for NETCONF in this scenario?

Question 31mediummultiple choice