350-601 Automation Practice Question
An engineer needs to automate configuration backups on NX-OS switches using Python. Which Python library is specifically designed for this purpose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between generic libraries (like `requests` or `paramiko`) and platform-specific libraries (like `nxapi`), trapping candidates who overlook that `nxapi` provides built-in NX-OS command formatting and authentication, whereas `requests` would require manual construction of NX-API payloads.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
nxapi
The `nxapi` library is specifically designed for automating configuration backups and other management tasks on Cisco NX-OS switches. It provides a Pythonic interface to the NX-API, which uses HTTP/HTTPS-based REST or XML/JSON-RPC calls to execute CLI commands and retrieve structured output, making it the correct choice for this purpose.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
requests
Why it's wrong here
Requests is a generic HTTP library, not specifically for NX-OS automation.
- ✗
paramiko
Why it's wrong here
Paramiko is for SSH, not optimized for NX-OS NX-API.
- ✗
cli
Why it's wrong here
'cli' is not a Python library; it's a command-line interface.
- ✓
nxapi
Why this is correct
nxapi is the official Python library for NX-OS NX-API.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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