Network Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Instructions

1. From Visual Studio Code (VS Code) on the workstation machine, open the /home/student/implement-inventory directory.

   1. Open VS Code. Click View → Explorer to open the Primary Side Bar.

   2. Click File → Open Folder.

   3. Click Home → implement-inventory and then click Open.

      Note

      If prompted, select Trust the authors of all files in the parent folder 'student', and then click Yes, I trust the authors.

2. Create a custom static inventory named inventory in the /home/student/implement-inventory directory. Use the following table to organize the Ansible inventory. Assign each managed node to multiple groups for best management, based on its operating system and the data center location.

   Managed node	Operating system	Data center
   iosxe1.lab.example.com	Cisco IOS XE	Raleigh
   iosxe2.lab.example.com	Cisco IOS XE	Johannesburg
   nxos.lab.example.com	Cisco NX-OS	Raleigh
   junos.lab.example.com	Juniper Junos	London
   arista-leaf1.lab.example.com	Arista EOS	Johannesburg
   arista-leaf2.lab.example.com	Arista EOS	Raleigh
   arista-leaf3.lab.example.com	Arista EOS	London

   1. Click File → New File.

   2. Enter inventory as the file name, and then click Create New File.

   3. Click Create File in the Files window behind VS Code. The Files window closes after the inventory file is created.

   4. Edit the Ansible inventory file so that it contains the following content, and then click File → Save:

      [ios]
      iosxe[1:2].lab.example.com
      
      [nxos]
      nxos.lab.example.com
      
      [junos]
      junos.lab.example.com
      
      [eos]
      arista-leaf[1:3].lab.example.com
      
      [raleigh]
      iosxe1.lab.example.com
      nxos.lab.example.com
      arista-leaf2.lab.example.com
      
      [johannesburg]
      iosxe2.lab.example.com
      arista-leaf1.lab.example.com
      
      [london]
      junos.lab.example.com
      arista-leaf3.lab.example.com

3. Explore the Ansible inventory by using the ansible-navigator command in stdout mode. Create an inventory graph of all the Ansible inventory.

   1. In VS Code, click Terminal → New Terminal.

   2. Run the ansible-navigator inventory -m stdout --graph command to obtain the graph of all the Ansible inventory.

      [student@workstation implement-inventory]$ ansible-navigator inventory \
       -m stdout --graph
      @all:
        |--@ungrouped:
        |--@ios:
        |  |--iosxe1.lab.example.com
        |  |--iosxe2.lab.example.com
        |--@nxos:
        |  |--nxos.lab.example.com
        |--@junos:
        |  |--junos.lab.example.com
        |--@eos:
        |  |--arista-leaf1.lab.example.com
        |  |--arista-leaf2.lab.example.com
        |  |--arista-leaf3.lab.example.com
        |--@raleigh:
        |  |--iosxe1.lab.example.com
        |  |--nxos.lab.example.com
        |  |--arista-leaf2.lab.example.com
        |--@johannesburg:
        |  |--iosxe2.lab.example.com
        |  |--arista-leaf1.lab.example.com
        |--@london:
        |  |--junos.lab.example.com
        |  |--arista-leaf3.lab.example.com

4. Use the following table to define group variables in the Ansible inventory. Create the network_devices group that includes the ios, nxos, junos, and eos groups. Use VS Code to modify the Ansible inventory.

   Managed node	Network platform	Network device
   iosxe1.lab.example.com	cisco.ios.ios	Yes
   iosxe2.lab.example.com	cisco.ios.ios	Yes
   nxos.lab.example.com	cisco.nxos.nxos	Yes
   junos.lab.example.com	junipernetworks.junos.junos	Yes
   arista-leaf1.lab.example.com	arista.eos.eos	Yes
   arista-leaf2.lab.example.com	arista.eos.eos	Yes
   arista-leaf3.lab.example.com	arista.eos.eos	Yes

   1. Edit the Ansible inventory file to append the following content to the inventory file, and then click File → Save:

      [network_devices:children]
      ios
      nxos
      junos
      eos
      
      [network_devices:vars]
      ansible_connection=ansible.netcommon.network_cli
      
      [ios:vars]
      ansible_network_os=cisco.ios.ios
      
      [nxos:vars]
      ansible_network_os=cisco.nxos.nxos
      
      [junos:vars]
      ansible_network_os=junipernetworks.junos.junos
      
      [eos:vars]
      ansible_network_os=arista.eos.eos

   2. Select File → Save.

5. Run automation content navigator in interactive mode in the VS Code terminal. Explore the managed nodes entries in the inventory file and obtain the detail for the arista-leaf3.lab.example.com node.

   1. Run the ansible-navigator inventory command in the VS Code terminal.

      Figure 2.6: Browsing the Ansible inventory

   2. Type 1 in the main Ansible inventory page to list the managed nodes.

      Figure 2.7: List of managed nodes

   3. Type 2 to obtain inventory information about the arista-leaf3.lab.example.com node.

      Figure 2.8:

      Inventory information for the arista-leaf3.lab.example.com managed node

   4. Type :q and then press Enter to exit the ansible-navigator command.

6. From VS Code, click File → Close Folder to close the /home/student/implement-inventory directory.