In late 2023, I started playing with the idea of having automated validation in netlab. The early implementation was used in BGP labs, and a user liked it so much that he opened an issue saying:

I would suggest providing netlab validate for each lab.

Numerous rounds of yak-shaving later, I merged a humongous commit that adds automated validation to these lab exercises:

• Redistribute IGP Information Into BGP
• Select Preferred EBGP Peer with Weights
• Filter Transit Routes
• Filter Advertised Prefixes
• Minimize the Size of Your BGP Table
• Select Preferred Uplink with BGP Local Preference
• Use MED to Influence Incoming Traffic Flow
• Use AS-Path Prepending to Influence Incoming Traffic Flow
• Attach BGP Communities to Outgoing BGP Updates
• Use BGP Communities in Routing Policies
• BGP Route Server in an Internet Exchange Point
• Dynamic BGP Peers

The automated validation can be used on Arista EOS, Cumulus Linux, and FRR¹ and requires validation plugins included in netlab release 1.8.3.

Some other lab exercises already supported automated validation:

• Configure a Single EBGP Session
• Configure Multiple EBGP Sessions
• Advertise IPv4 Prefixes to BGP Neighbors
• Configure BGP for IPv6
• Advertise Default Route in BGP
• EBGP Sessions over IPv6 LLA Interfaces
• Reuse a BGP AS Number Across Multiple Sites
• Fix AS-Path in Environments Reusing BGP AS Numbers
• Use Multiple AS Numbers on the Same Router
• BGP Session Templates