MG-SOFT NETCONF Browser Professional Edition

The future of network management and network configuration is here!


MG-SOFT NetConf Browser Professional Edition is a powerful and user-friendly NETCONF and RESTCONF client application that lets you retrieve, modify, install and delete the configuration of any NETCONF or RESTCONF server device in the network.

The software can load any set of standard or vendor-specific YANG 1.1 (RFC 7950) and YANG 1 (RFC 6020) modules and display their contents in a visual manner, where module elements are represented in a hierarchical tree structure, containing nodes on which NETCONF or RESTCONF operations can be invoked.

NetConf Browser offers an intuitive user interface that lets you easily retrieve the device configuration and state data as well as modify the device configuration via the NETCONF v1.1 (RFC 6241) or NETCONF v1.0 (RFC 4741) protocol operations (get, get-config, lock, unlock, edit-config, copy-config, delete-config, commit, etc.).
The software supports establishing NETCONF sessions over SSHv2 (RFC 4742 and RFC 6242) and TLS v1.2 (RFC 5539 and RFC 7589) secure transport protocols. NetConf Browser also supports NETCONF Call Home (RFC 8071), where a NETCONF server is the peer that initiates a secure connection to NetConf Browser. The application has a built-in certificate manager tool lets you effortlessly generate and manage X.509 digital certificates used for NETCONF and RESTCONF communication with public key authentication.

In addition, NetConf Browser implements full support for NMDA (RFC 8342). It can automatically discover all NMDA datastores supported by a server that implements YANG Library 1.1 (RFC 8525), download the YANG modules belonging to each datastore, and visualize supported datastores in separate tabs in the YANG Tree panel. NetConf Browser supports NMDA-specific <get-data> and <edit-data> operations, as well as augments to <lock>, <unlock> and <validate> operations, as specified in (RFC 8526).

MG-SOFT NetConf Browser fully supports also the RESTCONF protocol with both, XML and JSON encoding of data (RFC 8040). NetConf Browser lets you use all standard RESTCONF HTTP methods like GET (screen shot) , POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE etc., invoke proprietary operations and actions, and allows receiving server-sent notifications via RESTCONF protocol. The software incorporates YANG-based auto-complete mechanism for composing the RESTCONF URIs, as well as fully fledged auto-completion feature when writing RESTCONF message payloads in XML and JSON format. NetConf Browser supports regular, client-initiated RESTCONF sessions, as well as RESTCONF Call Home sessions. The software supports also RESTCONF extensions for NMDA, as specified in (RFC 8527).

MG-SOFT NETCONF Browser Professional Edition - Main window (dark theme)

MG-SOFT NETCONF Browser Professional Edition - Main window (NETCONF and RESTCONF mode, dark theme)

In addition to providing a quick access to common NETCONF and RESTCONF operations, NetConf Browser also implements advanced tools, like the NETCONF Content Editor and Validator that allows you to easily compose any type of NETCONF XML or RESTCONF XML or JSON document and validate it by using information from YANG modules. You can edit a NETCONF or RESTCONF document or message either by using the full-fledged XML/JSON editor with syntax coloring and auto-complete feature (screen shot) or by using the Visual editor. The latter lets you simply right-click a node in the tree view and add/remove elements and set their values by choosing commands from the context menu (screen shot). Both editors guide you while composing the NETCONF or RESTCONF content by offering you to add only those constructs that are valid at the given location in the document. Furthermore, easy-to-understand validation messages let you quickly fix all syntax and semantic inconsistencies before sending a valid XML or JSON document to the server, e.g., to modify a configuration or perform any other NETCONF/RESTCONF operation.

Furthermore, NetConf Browser lets you easily compare configurations of two different devices or two different configuration datastores on one device. It can retrieve (parts of) configurations and displays them side-by-side in the Diff View window (screen shot). Both, graphical comparison (tree view) and textual comparison (XML view) are supported. The tool lets you quickly find the differences in compared configurations and offers options to adapt the comparison view to your preferences (e.g., show only mismatches, orphans, re-order the XML elements to find the best matches, etc.). The configuration comparison works with NETCONF and RESTCONF protocol.

Alongside the original NETCONF event reporting mechanism defined in RFC 5277, NetConf Browser supports also a modern notification subscription model defined in RFC 8639 - RFC 8641 and referred to as "YANG Push". The software lets you establish and manage multiple dynamic and configured subscriptions to either event streams or datastore push updates on a server. The subscribed information is then pushed to NetConf Browser by means of the NETCONF or RESTCONF notifications, as specified in RFC 8640 and RFC 8650, respectively. In addition to event notifications, NetConf Browser supports receiving also periodic and on-change push notifications that enable streaming of YANG-modeled data from server to client.

Besides, NetConf Browser supports automation by the embedded NETCONF scripting functionality. The built-in Scripting Console window lets you open, edit and run any number of Python scripts in order to connect to remote devices and perform arbitrary NETCONF operations (incl. NMDA) against them in an automated fashion (screen shot).

NetConf Browser also supports the YANG Library mechanism (RFC 7895 and RFC 8525) and the NETCONF <get-schema> operation (RFC 6022) that enable it to download schema definitions (e.g., YANG and YIN modules) from remote NETCONF servers automatically.

The software lets you save all device-related parameters, like the device address, NETCONF/RESTCONF connection details, supported datastores, data model (YANG modules), etc. to a device profile, so one can later quickly start managing a specific NETCONF or RESTCONF device by switching to the relevant device profile.

MG-SOFT NETCONF Browser is compliant with the following IETF's RFC documents: RFC 4741, RFC 4742, RFC 5277, RFC 5539, RFC 6020, RFC 6022, RFC 6241, RFC 6242, RFC 6243, RFC 6991, RFC 7589, RFC 7895, RFC 7950, RFC 7951, RFC 7952, RFC 8040, RFC 8071, RFC 8342, RFC 8525, RFC 8526, RFC 8527, RFC 8639, RFC 8640, RFC 8641, RFC 8650 and RFC 8791.

MG-SOFT NETCONF Browser is a Java(TM) application that can be installed and used on Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems with Java Runtime Environment version 8.0 (a.k.a. JRE 1.8) or later.

A customer testimonial
"Thank you for the prompt and detailed help.

Picture of Config-Edit to Set Attribute & Delete is excellent.
Successfully deleted VRF with both MG-SOFT & netconf-console.
For sharing, config is copied in below with red highlight.

<edit-config>
<target>
<running/>
</target>
<config>
    <native xmlns="urn:ios">
    <vrf>
      <definition nc:operation="delete" xmlns:nc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
        <name>vrf-test1</name>
        <address-family>
          <ipv4/>
          <ipv6/>
        </address-family>
      </definition>
    </vrf>
    </native>
</config>
</edit-config>

Thanks again!"


Howie Wang , Software Engineer
Cisco Systems, U.S.A.