Netmiko Tutorial — Free 15-Video Course for Network Engineers

If you’ve been putting off network automation because you didn’t know where to start, this free Netmiko tutorial covers everything you need to go from zero to production-ready automation scripts — across four vendor platforms, in a real lab, with real devices.

Netmiko is a Python library that handles SSH connections to network devices. If you’ve ever tried doing this with raw Python you’ll know how painful it gets — handling prompts manually, dealing with paging, managing enable mode, all of it from scratch. Netmiko takes care of all of that so you can focus on what you actually want to do with your network.

This tutorial runs across fifteen free videos. By the end you’ll have working scripts that connect to Cisco, Arista and Juniper devices, pull structured data, push config changes, back up running configs, and generate a full network report — all from a CSV inventory file.

What You’ll Learn

This Netmiko tutorial is structured to build properly from the ground up. We start with installation and your first SSH connection, and by the end of the series everything comes together in two full project videos that produce scripts you can actually use at work.

Here’s exactly what’s covered across the fifteen videos:

Video 1 — What is Netmiko and Why Should You Care
Video 2 — Your First Connection — Install Netmiko and Connect to a Device
Video 3 — Sending Show Commands and Working with Output
Video 4 — Pushing Config Changes with send_config_set
Video 5 — Looping Over Multiple Devices
Video 6 — Structured Output with TextFSM
Video 7 — Netmiko and Cisco IOS-XE
Video 8 — Netmiko and Cisco IOS-XR — The Commit Model
Video 9 — Netmiko and Arista EOS
Video 10 — Netmiko and Juniper JunOS
Video 11 — Error Handling and Logging
Video 12 — CSV Device Inventories — Real World Workflows
Video 13 — Using Netmiko’s Autodetect
Video 14 — Project — Automated Config Backup
Video 15 — Capstone — Full Topology Automation

The vendor-specific videos are worth highlighting because most Netmiko tutorials you’ll find online are Cisco-only. Videos 7 through 10 each cover a dedicated platform — including the commit model on IOS-XR and JunOS which behaves completely differently to IOS and will catch you out badly if you go in without understanding it.

The Lab

Everything in this tutorial runs against a real EVE-NG lab. Six devices across four vendor platforms, all on a management network with a full data plane path running between them.

Arista vEOS — 192.168.1.101 Cisco SW1 running IOS — 192.168.1.102 Cisco CSR running IOS-XE — 192.168.1.103 Cisco SW2 running IOS — 192.168.1.104 Cisco XRv running IOS-XR — 192.168.1.105 Juniper vSRX running JunOS — 192.168.1.106

Nothing is mocked and nothing is sanitised. Every show command, every config change, every script runs against real device connections. You see real output throughout.

Who This Is For

This is aimed at working network engineers who want to start automating with Python. You don’t need a programming background — you need solid networking knowledge and a willingness to get stuck in. If you’re comfortable with SSH and you know your way around a CLI then you’re ready for this.

If you’re completely new to Python and want to get the fundamentals sorted first before jumping into automation, the Python for Network Engineers course covers everything from the ground up using networking examples throughout. Get that under your belt first and then come back here.

Completely Free

All fifteen videos are free. No sign-up, no email required, nothing held back. Watch them embedded here or over on the YouTube channel — same content either way.