Batfish on Ubuntu 24.04 by cloudimg

Batfish on Ubuntu 24.04 by cloudimg

Batfish is the open source network configuration analysis engine. It builds a vendor independent model of your network from the configuration files your devices already produce, then answers questions about that model before you deploy anything: which BGP sessions will actually establish, which flows can reach which destinations, what an ACL really permits, which structures are defined but never referenced, and exactly what would change if you pushed a candidate configuration. It reads Cisco IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR and NX OS, Arista EOS, Juniper Junos, Palo Alto PAN OS, Cumulus, SONiC, F5 BIG IP, Fortinet and Check Point, so a mixed estate is modelled as one network rather than a pile of syntaxes. Batfish never touches your live devices, which makes validating a change completely safe.

This image ships the official Batfish service build 2025.07.07.2423, pinned by registry digest and tied to the exact upstream commit that produced it, running as a plain JVM service on OpenJDK 17 from the Ubuntu archive so it keeps receiving security updates. No container runtime is installed at all.

There is no web interface, and this listing does not imply one. Batfish is a service you query from a client. The official Python SDK, pybatfish, comes preinstalled and version matched to the server, and the appliance listens on port 9996, which is the port a stock pybatfish client talks to by default. Connecting is one line: `Session(host="<vm-ip>", port=9996, api_key="<your per VM key>")`.

Secure by default, no default credential. Batfish has no authentication anyone should rely on. Its API key header defaults to a published all zeros constant which, under its default authorizer, is not checked at all, so an exposed Batfish is an open relay that accepts arbitrary configuration uploads and burns your CPU on anyone's analysis. This image never exposes it. The service binds loopback only, nginx is the single ingress and is default deny at server scope, and a first boot service generates a unique per VM API key and HTTP Basic password on every VM. Before the public listener is allowed to start at all, first boot proves against a throwaway listener that an anonymous request, the published default key, and even a one character mutation of your own key are each refused. As an independent second layer, Batfish's own file authorizer is enabled against a users file holding only that VM's key.

Proves itself on first boot. The image bundles the upstream example network, 13 Cisco IOS devices and 2 hosts across three autonomous systems, and first boot analyses it end to end through the authentication gate. On a Standard_B2ms that is 15 devices parsed and 37 BGP sessions evaluated with zero parse errors, so the appliance is demonstrably working before you log in. Run `sudo batfish-demo` any time to repeat it.

Licensing is clean and auditable. Batfish is Apache 2.0. The build runs an executable dependency licence gate that examines every dependency shipped in the image, 141 Maven coordinates read from the shipped jar and upstream's own lockfile plus 19 Python distributions, and fails the build on any AGPL, SSPL, BUSL, Elastic, Commons Clause, non commercial, PolyForm, Prosperity or RSAL declaration. The full inventory ships on the image at `/usr/share/batfish/dependency-licences.txt`, alongside the upstream licence texts.

What you get:

• Batfish 2025.07.07.2423 on OpenJDK 17, JVM heap bounded automatically to the VM's real memory
• pybatfish preinstalled, version matched, plus 75 upstream question templates
• A bundled example network and a one command demo analysis
• nginx gate on port 9996 with per VM credentials, ready for TLS
• An unauthenticated health endpoint for load balancer probes that never reaches the service
• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, fully patched, unattended security updates enabled
• A paired step by step deployment guide and 24/7 cloudimg support with a 24 hour response SLA