On previous post, I have this function:
def find_internet_gateway_id(client, vpc_id):
igw_id = ""
igw_responses = client.describe_internet_gateways(Filters=filter)
for i in igw_responses['InternetGateways']:
for j in i['Attachments']:
if vpc_id in j['VpcId']:
igw_id = i['InternetGatewayId']
return igw_id
This function looks for the internet gateway id associated with your vpc id.
Json response from describe_internet_gateways
The below response is from the describe_internet_gateways method in boto3, here’s the code snippet:
igw_responses = ec2_client.describe_internet_gateways(Filters=filter) pprint(igw_responses)
The below is a dictionary of two main keys – InternetGateways and ResponseMetadata.
{'InternetGateways': [{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available',
'VpcId': 'vpc-0d5a397499f3bc8b8'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-028b0d9cc6fda54fa',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_2'}]},
{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available',
'VpcId': 'vpc-00b16be35cdd83960'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-0d05c62094670bdb4',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_3'}]},
{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available',
'VpcId': 'vpc-072f78e3f64873a46'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-0fd6b4aea334c6555',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_1'}]}],
'ResponseMetadata': {'HTTPHeaders': {'content-length': '1863',
'content-type': 'text/xml;charset=UTF-8',
'date': 'Mon, 06 May 2019 10:17:59 GMT',
'server': 'AmazonEC2'},
'HTTPStatusCode': 200,
'RequestId': '394e330b-0c24-4d8f-bcb5-d46d121d9578',
'RetryAttempts': 0}}
Now I am only interested in the InternetGateways key, hence by using pprint(igw_responses['InternetGateways'])
I got this:
[{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available', 'VpcId': 'vpc-0d5a397499f3bc8b8'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-028b0d9cc6fda54fa',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_2'}]},
{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available', 'VpcId': 'vpc-00b16be35cdd83960'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-0d05c62094670bdb4',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_3'}]},
{'Attachments': [{'State': 'available', 'VpcId': 'vpc-072f78e3f64873a46'}],
'InternetGatewayId': 'igw-0fd6b4aea334c6555',
'OwnerId': '203367053771',
'Tags': [{'Key': 'Name', 'Value': 'cyruslab_igw_1'}]}]
The value is a list of three dictionaries, each dictionaries has these keys:
- Attachments – a list of one dictionary.
- InternetGatewayId – has a value of IGW ID, which is what i need.
- OwnerId
- Tags – a list of one dictionary. To modify the tag, you need create_tags method in boto3.
How do I retrieve the vpc_id?
To access the values of key Attachments, supposed I need to get the vpc_id of cyruslab_igw_2 which is the first item in the list, I need to do this.
igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]['Attachments'][0]['VpcId']
- The Top of the entire json structure has two keys: ‘InternetGateways’ and ‘ResponseMetadata’, hence to access the values of ‘InternetGateways’ I use
igw_responses['InternetGateways']. - The value of the key ‘InternetGateways’ is a list of three dictionaries, ‘cyruslab_igw_2’ is the first item in the list. Hence to access this first item in the list I use
igw_responses['InternetGateways][0] - In order to get the value of vpc_id, I need to access through the key ‘Attachments’, hence i use
igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]['Attachments'].- The value of key 'Attachments' only has ONE dictionary, hence the first item always starts from 0 in a list. I use
igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]['Attachments'][0].- Now only the key value pair of 'VpcId', I only want the value hence I access it through the key, I use
igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]['Attachments'][0]['VpcId'].- I need to match the value against the supplied value.
- The value of key 'Attachments' only has ONE dictionary, hence the first item always starts from 0 in a list. I use
These explains the logic of this for...in... loop.
for i in igw_responses['InternetGateways']:
for j in i['Attachments']:
if vpc_id in j['VpcId']:
The VpcId is like a locator to locate which dictionary matches my supplied VpcId, in this example is igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]. This dictionary has a key 'InternetGatewayId', I only want the value of the key, hence I use igw_responses['InternetGateways'][0]['InternetGatewayId']. This explains the following return value of the function.
igw_id = i['InternetGatewayId']
return igw_id
afterword
I have been doing network and network security for a decade, I have evolved from a cli fan boy to a scripting enthusiast, my first api experience was with xml data structure, json structure used to intimidate me, however after a few practise I realise working with json structure is easier than xml structure. Manipulating the xml tree with beautifulsoup4 is easier than xml module, however there are at times i need xml module, working with xml structure in python is really hard.... Henceforth if the rest api provides both json and xml, i will prefer to work with json to xml.
cyruslab 