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network — network configuration

This module provides network drivers and routing configuration. To use this module, a MicroPython variant/build with network capabilities must be installed. Network drivers for specific hardware are available within this module and are used to configure hardware network interface(s). Network services provided by configured interfaces are then available for use via the socket module.

For example:

# connect/ show IP config a specific network interface
# see below for examples of specific drivers
import network
import time
nic = network.Driver(...)
if not nic.isconnected():
    nic.connect()
    print("Waiting for connection...")
    while not nic.isconnected():
        time.sleep(1)
print(nic.ipconfig("addr4"))

# now use socket as usual
import socket
addr = socket.getaddrinfo('micropython.org', 80)[0][-1]
s = socket.socket()
s.connect(addr)
s.send(b'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: micropython.org\r\n\r\n')
data = s.recv(1000)
s.close()

Common network adapter interface

This section describes an (implied) abstract base class for all network interface classes implemented by MicroPython ports for different hardware. This means that MicroPython does not actually provide AbstractNIC class, but any actual NIC class, as described in the following sections, implements methods as described here.

class network.AbstractNIC(id=None, ...)

Instantiate a network interface object. Parameters are network interface dependent. If there are more than one interface of the same type, the first parameter should be id.

AbstractNIC.active([is_active])

Activate (“up”) or deactivate (“down”) the network interface, if a boolean argument is passed. Otherwise, query current state if no argument is provided. Most other methods require an active interface (behaviour of calling them on inactive interface is undefined).

AbstractNIC.connect([service_id, key=None, *, ...])

Connect the interface to a network. This method is optional, and available only for interfaces which are not “always connected”. If no parameters are given, connect to the default (or the only) service. If a single parameter is given, it is the primary identifier of a service to connect to. It may be accompanied by a key (password) required to access said service. There can be further arbitrary keyword-only parameters, depending on the networking medium type and/or particular device. Parameters can be used to: a) specify alternative service identifier types; b) provide additional connection parameters. For various medium types, there are different sets of predefined/recommended parameters, among them:

  • WiFi: bssid keyword to connect to a specific BSSID (MAC address)

AbstractNIC.disconnect()

Disconnect from network.

AbstractNIC.isconnected()

Returns True if connected to network, otherwise returns False.

AbstractNIC.scan(*, ...)

Scan for the available network services/connections. Returns a list of tuples with discovered service parameters. For various network media, there are different variants of predefined/ recommended tuple formats, among them:

  • WiFi: (ssid, bssid, channel, RSSI, security, hidden). There may be further fields, specific to a particular device.

The function may accept additional keyword arguments to filter scan results (e.g. scan for a particular service, on a particular channel, for services of a particular set, etc.), and to affect scan duration and other parameters. Where possible, parameter names should match those in connect().

AbstractNIC.status([param])

Query dynamic status information of the interface. When called with no argument the return value describes the network link status. Otherwise param should be a string naming the particular status parameter to retrieve.

The return types and values are dependent on the network medium/technology. Some of the parameters that may be supported are:

  • WiFi STA: use 'rssi' to retrieve the RSSI of the AP signal

  • WiFi AP: use 'stations' to retrieve a list of all the STAs connected to the AP. The list contains tuples of the form (MAC, RSSI).

AbstractNIC.ipconfig('param')
AbstractNIC.ipconfig(param=value, ...)

Get or set interface-specific IP-configuration interface parameters. Supported parameters are the following (availability of a particular parameter depends on the port and the specific network interface):

  • dhcp4 (True/False) obtain an IPv4 address, gateway and dns server via DHCP. This method does not block and wait for an address to be obtained. To check if an address was obtained, use the read-only property has_dhcp4.

  • gw4 Get/set the IPv4 default-gateway.

  • dhcp6 (True/False) obtain a DNS server via stateless DHCPv6. Obtaining IP Addresses via DHCPv6 is currently not implemented.

  • autoconf6 (True/False) obtain a stateless IPv6 address via the network prefix shared in router advertisements. To check if a stateless address was obtained, use the read-only property has_autoconf6.

  • addr4 (e.g. 192.168.0.4/24) obtain the current IPv4 address and network mask as (ip, subnet)-tuple, regardless of how this address was obtained. This method can be used to set a static IPv4 address either as (ip, subnet)-tuple or in CIDR-notation.

  • addr6 (e.g. fe80::1234:5678) obtain a list of current IPv6 addresses as (ip, state, preferred_lifetime, valid_lifetime)-tuple. This include link-local, slaac and static addresses. preferred_lifetime and valid_lifetime represent the remaining valid and preferred lifetime of each IPv6 address, in seconds. state indicates the current state of the address:

    • 0x08 - 0x0f indicates the address is tentative, counting the number of probes sent.

    • 0x10 The address is deprecated (but still valid)

    • 0x30 The address is preferred (and valid)

    • 0x40 The address is duplicated and can not be used.

    This method can be used to set a static IPv6 address, by setting this parameter to the address, like fe80::1234:5678.

AbstractNIC.ifconfig([(ip, subnet, gateway, dns)])

Note

This function is deprecated, use ipconfig() instead.

Get/set IP-level network interface parameters: IP address, subnet mask, gateway and DNS server. When called with no arguments, this method returns a 4-tuple with the above information. To set the above values, pass a 4-tuple with the required information. For example:

nic.ifconfig(('192.168.0.4', '255.255.255.0', '192.168.0.1', '8.8.8.8'))
AbstractNIC.config('param')
AbstractNIC.config(param=value, ...)

Get or set general network interface parameters. These methods allow to work with additional parameters beyond standard IP configuration (as dealt with by ipconfig()). These include network-specific and hardware-specific parameters. For setting parameters, the keyword argument syntax should be used, and multiple parameters can be set at once. For querying, a parameter name should be quoted as a string, and only one parameter can be queried at a time:

# Set WiFi access point name (formally known as SSID) and WiFi channel
ap.config(ssid='My AP', channel=11)
# Query params one by one
print(ap.config('ssid'))
print(ap.config('channel'))

Specific network class implementations

The following concrete classes implement the AbstractNIC interface and provide a way to control networking interfaces of various kinds.

Network functions

The following are functions available in the network module.

network.country([code])

Get or set the two-letter ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 country code to be used for radio compliance.

If the code parameter is provided, the country will be set to this value. If the function is called without parameters, it returns the current country.

The default code "XX" represents the “worldwide” region.

network.hostname([name])

Get or set the hostname that will identify this device on the network. It will be used by all interfaces.

This hostname is used for:

  • Sending to the DHCP server in the client request. (If using DHCP)

  • Broadcasting via mDNS. (If enabled)

If the name parameter is provided, the hostname will be set to this value. If the function is called without parameters, it returns the current hostname.

A change in hostname is typically only applied during connection. For DHCP this is because the hostname is part of the DHCP client request, and the implementation of mDNS in most ports only initialises the hostname once during connection. For this reason, you must set the hostname before activating/connecting your network interfaces.

The length of the hostname is limited to 32 characters. MicroPython ports may choose to set a lower limit for memory reasons. If the given name does not fit, a ValueError is raised.

The default hostname is typically the name of the board.

network.ipconfig('param')
network.ipconfig(param=value, ...)

Get or set global IP-configuration parameters. Supported parameters are the following (availability of a particular parameter depends on the port and the specific network interface):

  • dns Get/set DNS server. This method can support both, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

  • prefer (4/6) Specify which address type to return, if a domain name has both A and AAAA records. Note, that this does not clear the local DNS cache, so that any previously obtained addresses might not change.

network.phy_mode([mode])

Get or set the PHY mode.

If the mode parameter is provided, the PHY mode will be set to this value. If the function is called without parameters, it returns the current PHY mode.

The possible modes are defined as constants:

  • MODE_11B – IEEE 802.11b,

  • MODE_11G – IEEE 802.11g,

  • MODE_11N – IEEE 802.11n.

Availability: ESP8266.