Interfaces Management with Ansible validated content using the network.interfaces collection

Introduction

At AnsibleFest 2022, we announced a new addition to the content ecosystem offered through Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform: Ansible validated content. Ansible validated content is use case-focused and provides an expert-guided path for performing operational tasks.

While Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collections focus on how to integrate platforms (typically in the form of modules), Ansible validated content offers expert best practices and guidance for how to perform operations or tasks (typically in the form of roles or playbooks). Some Ansible validated content may depend on certified content (modules) for integration.

Specifically in the network automation area, we have already seen the release of network.base and network.bgp validated content.

Network engineers commonly ask about automation for network interfaces, which are the fundamental connection point for endpoints as layer 2 access ports, or other networking devices that extend the network to other domains as layer 3 interfaces. However it is extremely challenging to be able to collect data at scale and at the same time standardize settings for interfaces following specific rules through automation.

For this reason, we want to introduce you to the new network.interfaces collection. In this blog, we will show how Continue reading

Getting Started with Ansible.utils Collection for Playbook Creators: Part 2

Use Case: Operational state assessment using ansible.utils collection

In ansible.utils, there are a variety of plugins which we can use for operational state assessment of network devices. I overviewed the ansible.utils collection in part one of this two part blog series. If you have not reviewed part one, I recommend you do so, since I will build on this information in this part two blog. We will see how the ansible.utils collection can be useful in operational state assessment as an example use case.

In general, state assessment workflow has following steps:

Retrieve (Source of Truth)

Collect the current operational state from the remote host.
Convert it into normalized structured data. Structured data can be in json, yaml format or any other format.
Store is an inventory variable.

Validate

Define the desired state criteria in a standard based format, for example, as defined in a json schema format.
Retrieve operational state at runtime.
Validate the current state data against the pre-defined criteria to identify if there is any deviation.

Remediate

Implement required configuration changes to correct drift.
Report on the change as an audit trail.

How can ansible.utils collection Continue reading

Getting Started with Ansible.utils Collection for Playbook Creators: Part 1

The Ansible ansible.utils collection includes a variety of plugins that aid in the management, manipulation and visibility of data for the Ansible playbook developer. The most common use case for this collection is when you want to work with the complex data structures present in an Ansible playbook, inventory, or returned from modules. See each plugin documentation page for detailed examples for how these utilities can be used in tasks. In this two-part blog we will overview this collection in part one and see an example use case of using the utils collection in detail in part two.

Plugins inside ansible.utils

Plugins are code which will augment ansible core functionality. This code executes on control node.it and gives options and extensions for the core features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This ansible.utils plugin collection includes:

Filter plugins
Lookup plugins
Test plugins
Modules

Filter plugins

Filter plugins manipulate data. With the right filter you can extract a particular value, transform data types and formats, perform mathematical calculations, split and concatenate strings, insert dates and times, and do much more. Ansible Automation Platform uses the standard filters shipped with Jinja2 and adds some specialized filter Continue reading