Red Hat Ansible for Network Automation
- SectionPreparing to Install Ansible
- Orientation to Lab Activities
- Objectives
- About the Story
- Introducing example.com
- Designing Infrastructure Traffic
- Implementing a Management Network
- Accommodating Servers
- Management Machines
- Visualizing
example.comNetworks - Identify Network Architecture
- Redesigning the Network
- Inspecting the Apparatus
- Adapting to Changing Requirements
- Operating Power Tools Safely
- Completing the Hands-on Activities
- Installing Ansible
- Guided Exercise: Installing Ansible on the Control Node
- Guided Exercise: Identifying Resources for Installed Plug-ins
- Defining Ansible's Scope
- Creating Ansible Inventories
- Guided Exercise: Creating Host Inventories
- Configuring Ansible
- Objectives
- The Ansible Configuration
- Recommended Practice
- Which Configuration File?
- Managing Settings
- Key Configuration Information
- The Configuration File and Effective Settings
- Commonly Modified Settings
- Sample Custom Configuration Files
- Configuring Authentication Details
- Escalating Privilege Levels
- Connection Settings: Smart or Not?
- Using the Local Connection Method
- Connecting to Network Devices
- Using Netconf or Network_Cli
- Connection Method and Play Performance
- More Play Performance Optimization
- Serializing How Hosts are Mapped to Plays
- Forking Tasks for Hosts
- Combining Serial and Forks
- Guided Exercise: Configuring Ansible
- Lab: Deploying Ansible
Abstract
| Goal | Install and configure Ansible. |
| Objectives |
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| Sections |
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| Lab |
Deploying Ansible |
After completing this section, you should be able to:
Define key technical terms: network automation, control node, managed nodes, and so on.
Explain what Ansible and Red Hat Ansible Tower are and what their role is in network automation.
- Automation
A process or procedure performed with minimal or reduced human intervention.
- Network
A group or system of interconnected people or things.
- Network Automation
Configuration, management, and operation of a group or system of interconnected people or things performed with minimal or reduced human intervention.
An open source automation platform:
Ansible (or Ansible Core) is the community-managed upstream project for the execution engine
Red Hat Ansible Engine is Red Hat's commercially supported offering for Ansible https://access.redhat.com/ansible-top-support-policies
Centralized management, logging, and control of Ansible at scale:
Red Hat Ansible Tower is Red Hat's commercially supported management platform, which helps larger teams and deployments manage Ansible
Browser-based visual dashboard and API
Role-based access control and secure protection of credentials and other secrets
Central logging of jobs run and their results
Support for standard job templates and scheduled job execution
Many other features
AWX is the community-based project on which Ansible Tower is based
A support offering that includes Ansible Engine, Ansible Tower, and network module support.
Ansible Network Modules
Developed, maintained, supported, and tested by Red Hat.
140+ supported modules and growing. *
Red Hat supports and fixes problems.
The networking modules are included with Red Hat Ansible Engine, but this provides full support from Red Hat.
* - Take note of supported platforms
Currently Included Systems
Arista EOS
Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS XR
Cisco NX-OS
Juniper Junos
Open vSwitch
VyOS
A very popular open source automation platform.
When the goal is to make the network more secure, and at the same time more agile and adaptable, the result is Ansible: a Python-based, command-line engine that interprets and executes human readable, text-based playbooks in YAML format. Playbooks contain one or more plays that perform tasks in sequence.
Ansible supports two different types of nodes.
- Control Node
Where Ansible ad hoc commands and plays run from.
- Managed Nodes (Hosts)
Nodes that can be managed by Ansible. This includes the control node (as
localhost).
