⌁ RouteSwitchU
Free course Lab-first

Python Foundations for Network Engineers

The free on-ramp: core Python taught entirely through network data — show output, configs, inventories. No lab devices needed.

📄 10 lessons ✅ 50 graded exercises ❓ 30 self-check questions ⏱ ~12h 🗓 Updated Jun 2026

Built and graded by a practicing CCIE who runs real migrations with these exact tools. Free — unlocks with your email, and that's the whole transaction.

Learning objectives
Read any show output

Pull serials, IPs, MACs, and interface facts out of raw CLI text with string methods and regex that you understand line by line.

Audit configs at fleet scale

Loop a directory of saved configs, flag what is missing or rogue, and render findings with line numbers — the for-loop-with-an-if that replaces an audit tool.

Build tools, not scripts

Functions with contracts, classes for devices, modules organized by responsibility — finishing with netaudit, a package you built and can extend.

Prove it with graders

Fifty pytest-graded exercises across ten labs. Nothing here is watch-and-nod; every claim about your skills is one the test suite verified.

Learning roadmap

10 lessons · 10 graded labs (get the labs)
1. Core Language for Network Data

The Python core, taught entirely on network text: parse show output with strings and regex, do subnet math, read configs off disk, and model inventories with dicts and sets. Every lesson ends in a graded lab.

  1. Why Python, the REPL, and Strings
  2. Numbers, Files, and Lists
  3. Conditionals and Loops
  4. Dictionaries, Sets, and Exceptions
  5. Regular Expressions for Show Output
2. From Scripts to Tools

Turn working code into tooling you keep: functions with real contracts, device classes with inheritance, the library ecosystem done properly — then the capstone assembles it all into netaudit, a working audit package with a CLI.

  1. Functions: Refactoring Your Parsers
  2. Classes and Objects, Part 1
  3. Classes and Objects, Part 2
  4. Libraries, pip, and Virtual Environments
  5. Modules, Packages, and the Capstone