Using the AOS-CX Ansible Collection

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There are two approaches to using the AOS-CX modules: role and collection. A guide for the latter is detailed here. For the alternative method, see the instructions for using the AOS-CX Ansible Role.

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In order to use the AOS-CX Ansible collection to configure AOS-CX hosts, REST API access must be enabled on each host. Please follow the steps outlined here: Enabling the AOS-CX API.

What is an Ansible collection?

In Ansible, a collection is used to bundle up and distribute Ansible content, including items such as playbooks, roles, modules, and plugins.

Installing the Collection

Our AOS-CX Ansible modules are packaged in the AOS-CX collection. They are also packaged in the AOS-CX role. For instructions on installing and using the modules with the alternative role approach, please see this page.

To install the collection, issue the "ansible-galaxy" command:
ansible-galaxy collection install arubanetworks.aoscx

If you plan on using the AOS-CX collection in an Ansible Tower environment, make sure to provide the full path to a location in which Ansible Tower looks for installed collections. Ansible Tower looks in multiple places for installed collections. For example, one such path is /usr/share/ansible/collections:
ansible-galaxy collection install arubanetworks.aoscx -p /usr/share/ansible/collections

To upgrade your existing installation of the collection to the latest updated collection, simply re-run the appropriate "ansible-galaxy" command listed above with the -f option. Ansible will check to see if the existing collection is out of date and if so, install the latest version.

In version 3.0.0+ of the AOS-CX collection, we've redesigned the role to make use of our Python SDK for AOS-CX Pyaoscx v2 to handle all REST-API based calls and modules. This requires Python3 to be installed as well as the pyaoscx>=2.0.0 package.
pip3 install pyaoscx>=2.0.0.

For a detailed description of requirements and installation steps refer to the documentation of the AOS-CX collection.

AOS-CX Module Support and Compatibility

All of Aruba's Ansible modules can be run with both Ansible Engine and the Ansible GUIs (Ansible Tower and AWX). The sole requirement is Ansible version 2.9.0 or later and the pyaoscx v2 Python package.

SSH/CLI Modules

All of our modules in the AOS-CX collection are written to use REST API for connection and configuration with a few exceptions, save for a couple of exceptions. The modules aoscx_config and aoscx_command use SSH to connect to the AOS-CX switch to execute CLI commands. These modules can be used in addition to or instead of the REST API modules provided in the role.

• To use the SSH/CLI modules aoscx_config and aoscx_command, SSH access must be enabled on your AOS-CX device. It is enabled by default.
  • If necessary, re-enable SSH access on the device with the following command:
    switch(config)# ssh server vrf mgmt
• The control machine's known_hosts file must contain the target device's public key.
  • Alternatively, host key checking by the control machine may be disabled, although this is not recommended. To disable host key checking, modify the ansible.cfg file (located by default at /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg) to include:
    host_key_checking = false

Limitations and Notes

• The default command timeout is 30 seconds. If a command takes more than 30
  seconds to execute, the task will time out.
  • If you regularly encounter the command timeout triggered, timeout value is 30 secs error, consider setting the environment variable
    ANSIBLE_PERSISTENT_COMMAND_TIMEOUT to a greater value. See Ansible documentation here.

Inventory Setup

In addition to installing the AOS-CX collection, you must also add any AOS-CX hosts to the Ansible inventory. For each AOS-CX switch, the following inventory variables must be defined:

• ansible_host: IP address of the switch in A.B.C.D format; for IPv6 hosts use a string and enclose the IP address in square brackets (e.g. '[2001::1]')
• ansible_user: Username for the switch in plaintext
• ansible_password: Password for the switch in plaintext
• ansible_network_os: Must always be set to arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx
• ansible_connection: Set to arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx to use REST API modules, network_cli to use SSH/CLI modules, and httpapi for legacy REST API method.
  • See below for info on using both REST API modules and SSH/CLI modules on a host
• ansible_aoscx_validate_certs: Set to True or False depending if Ansible should bypass validating certificates to connect to AOS-CX. Only required when ansible_connection is set to arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx
• ansible_aoscx_use_proxy: Set to True or False depending if Ansible should bypass environment proxies to connect to AOS-CX. Only required when ansible_connection is set to arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx.
• ansible_httpapi_use_ssl: Must always be True as AOS-CX uses port 443 for REST. Only required when ansible_connection is set to httpapi.
• ansible_httpapi_validate_certs: May be set to either True or False depending on whether Ansible should attempt to validate SSL certificates on the device. Only required when ansible_connection is set to httpapi.
• ansible_acx_no_proxy: May be set to either True or False depending on whether Ansible should bypass environment proxies when connecting to the switch. Only required when ansible_connection is set to httpapi.

Example inventories for REST API (each with one host)

INI

aoscx_1 ansible_host=10.0.0.1 ansible_user=admin ansible_password=password ansible_network_os=arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx ansible_connection=arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx ansible_aoscx_validate_certs=False ansible_aoscx_use_proxy=False

YAML

all:
  hosts:
    aoscx_1:
      ansible_host: 10.0.0.1
      ansible_user: admin
      ansible_password: password
      ansible_network_os: arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx
      ansible_connection: arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx  # REST API via pyaoscx connection method
      ansible_aoscx_validate_certs: False
      ansible_aoscx_use_proxy: False

Example inventories for SSH/CLI (each with one host)

INI

aoscx_1 ansible_host=10.0.0.1 ansible_user=admin ansible_password=password ansible_connection=network_cli ansible_network_os=arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx

YAML

all:
  hosts:
    aoscx_1:
      ansible_host: 10.0.0.1
      ansible_user: admin
      ansible_password: password
      ansible_connection: network_cli  # SSH connection method
      ansible_network_os: arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx

Example Playbook

Note the inclusion of the collection with collections: and - ...:

---
-  hosts: all
   collections:
     - arubanetworks.aoscx
   tasks:
     - name: Create L3 Interface 1/1/3
       aoscx_l3_interface:
        interface: 1/1/3
        description: Uplink_Interface
        ipv4: ['10.20.1.3/24']
        ipv6: ['2001:db8::1234/64']

Using Both REST API and SSH/CLI Modules on a Host

To use both REST API and SSH/CLI modules on the same host, you must create separate plays such that each play uses either only REST API modules or only SSH/CLI modules. A play cannot mix and match REST API and SSH/CLI module calls.

In each play, ansible_connection must possess the appropriate value according to the modules used. If the play uses REST API modules, that value should be arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx. If the play uses SSH/CLI modules, that value should be network_cli.

A recommended approach to successfully using both types of modules for a host is as follows:

1. Set the host variables such that Ansible will connect to the host using REST API, like seen above.
2. In the playbook, in each play wherein the SSH/CLI modules are used, set the ansible_connection to network_cli.

The inventory should look something like this:

all:
  hosts:
    aoscx_1:
      ansible_host: 10.0.0.1
      ansible_user: admin
      ansible_password: password
      ansible_network_os: arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx
      ansible_connection: arubanetworks.aoscx.aoscx  # REST API via pyaoscx connection method
      ansible_aoscx_validate_certs: False
      ansible_aoscx_use_proxy: False

and the playbook like this (note how the second play, which uses the SSH/CLI module aoscx_command, sets the ansible_connection value accordingly):

- hosts: all
  collections:
    - arubanetworks.aoscx
  tasks:
    - name: Adding or Updating Banner
      aoscx_banner:
        banner_type: banner
        banner: "Hi!"

- hosts: all
  collections:
    - arubanetworks.aoscx
  vars:
    ansible_connection: network_cli
  tasks:
    - name: Execute show run on the switch
      aoscx_command:
        commands: ['show run']