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Create custom devices through the REST API

You can create custom devices through the REST API that track network traffic across multiple IP addresses and ports. For example, you might want to add a custom device for each branch office. If you create the devices through a script, you can read the list of devices from a CSV file. In this topic, we will demonstrate methods for both the REST API and the ExtraHop REST API Explorer.

Before you begin

  • You must log in to the sensor with an account that has system and access administration privileges to generate an API key.
  • You must have a valid API key to make changes through the REST API and complete the procedures below. (See Generate an API key.)
  • Familiarize yourself with the ExtraHop REST API Guide to learn how to navigate the ExtraHop REST API Explorer.

Create a custom device through the REST API Explorer

You can create a custom device and associate the custom device with a list of IP addresses or CIDR blocks through the POST /customdevices operation.

  1. In a browser, navigate to the REST API Explorer.
    The URL is the hostname or IP address of your sensor, followed by /api/v1/explore/. For example, if your hostname is seattle-eda, the URL is https://seattle-eda/api/v1/explore/.
  2. Click Custom Device, and then click POST /customdevices.
  3. In the body field, specify properties for the custom device that you want to create.
    For example, the following body matches the custom device to the CIDR blocks 192.168.0.0/26, 192.168.0.64/27, 192.168.0.96/30, and 192.168.0.100/32:
    {
  "description": "The location of our office in Washington",
  "name": "Seattle",
  "criteria": [
    {
      "ipaddr": "192.168.0.0/26"
    },
    {
      "ipaddr": "192.168.0.64/27"
    },
    {
      "ipaddr": "192.168.0.96/30"
    },
    {
      "ipaddr": "192.168.0.100/32"
    }
  ]
}

Retrieve and run the example Python script

The ExtraHop GitHub repository contains an example Python script that creates custom devices by reading criteria from a CSV file.

  1. Go to the ExtraHop code-examples GitHub repository and download the create_custom_devices/create_custom_devices.py file to your local machine.
  2. Create a CSV file with rows that contain the following columns in the specified order:
    Name ID Description IP address or CIDR block
    Tip:The create_custom_devices directory contains an example CSV file named device_list.csv.

    The script does not accept a header row in the CSV file. There is no limit to the number of columns in the table; each column after the first four specifies an additional IP address for the device. The first four columns are required for each row.

  3. In a text editor, open the create_custom_devices.py file and replace the following configuration variables with information from your environment:

    HOST: The IP address or hostname of the sensor.

    APIKEY: The API key.

    CSV_FILE: The path of the CSV file relative to the location of the script file.

  4. Run the following command: 
    python3 create_custom_devices.py
    Note:If the script returns an error message that the SSL certificate verification failed, make sure that a trusted certificate has been added to your sensor or console. Alternatively, you can add the verify=False option to bypass certificate verification. However, this method is not secure and not recommended. The following code sends an HTTP GET request without certificate verification:
    requests.get(url, headers=headers, verify=False)
Last modified 2024-02-23