CCNP Practice Question: A Python script using Netmiko is written to send…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  The script will fail because 'device_type' should be 'cisco_ios_telnet' for telnet connections.

  Why it's wrong here

  The claim that 'device_type' should be 'cisco_ios_telnet' is incorrect because Netmiko's 'cisco_ios' driver is designed to handle SSH connections, while 'cisco_ios_telnet' is a separate driver specifically for telnet sessions. The script's connection method is SSH, as indicated by the use of standard SSH authentication parameters, so 'cisco_ios' is the appropriate device type. Changing it to 'cisco_ios_telnet' would force a telnet connection and likely fail if the device does not have telnet enabled.

• ✗

  The script will work correctly without any issues.

  Why it's wrong here

  The script will not necessarily work 'without any issues' because it lacks exception handling for authentication failures, connection timeouts, and other network errors. While it might succeed on a perfectly stable network with valid credentials, any temporary disruption or misconfiguration would cause an uncaught exception to propagate and the script to crash abruptly. The absence of try/except blocks or custom error handling makes the script fragile and unsuitable for production automation.

• ✗

  The script will fail because 'secret' is misspelled; it should be 'enable_secret'.

  Why it's wrong here

  The parameter name 'secret' is actually the correct Netmiko keyword argument for specifying the enable password used to enter privileged EXEC mode. Netmiko does not use 'enable_secret'—that is not a recognized argument and would raise a TypeError if passed. Therefore, 'secret' is not misspelled; it is the expected key, and the script's failure is entirely unrelated to this parameter.

• ✓

  The script lacks exception handling for authentication or connection failures, which can cause the script to crash.

  Why this is correct

  The script lacks exception handling for authentication or connection failures, which means any Netmiko exception such as AuthenticationException, NetmikoTimeoutException, or ssh_exception.NetmikoTimeoutException will propagate up and crash the script. In real-world environments, network devices may reject credentials, have SSH disabled, or become temporarily unreachable, and without try/except blocks the automation halts immediately. Properly designed scripts should catch these specific exceptions, log meaningful error messages, and optionally implement retry logic to ensure resilience.