Red Hat Ansible for Network Automation

Change to the ~/proj/ directory created in Lab 1.

Create a file called multi-vendor-backup.yml with the following contents:

---
- name: back up config from a VyOS device
  hosts: spine01
  vars:
    ansible_password: "{{ vyos_pass }}"

  tasks:

  - name: back up config
    vyos_config:
      backup: yes

- name: back up config from an IOS device
  hosts: cs01
  vars:
    ansible_password: "{{ ios_pass }}"

  tasks:

  - name: back up config
    ios_config:
      backup: yes

Different Ansible modules are used to back up network devices that run different operating systems. The ios_backup module backs up the running configuration for devices that run IOS and the vyos_backup module backs up the configuration for devices that run VyOS. How do you make sure that one way of doing a task applies to one set of hosts and a different way is used when dealing with different hosts? One way is to use different plays.

This playbook illustrates the fact that a single playbook can hold multiple plays, each of which maps a particular set of tasks to a set of hosts.

Check the syntax of the playbook you created:

[student@workstation proj]$ ansible-playbook --syntax-check multi-vendor-backup.yml

Playbook: multi-vendor-backup.yml

Use the ansible-playbook command to perform the plays in the multi-vendor-backup.yml playbook. Circumvent the restriction of using one group at a time by using the --extra-vars option to pass in the SSH passwords needed. You can provide any password at the SSH prompt; it is not used.

[student@workstation proj]$ ansible-playbook \
> -e 'vyos_pass=vyos ios_pass=student' multi-vendor-backup.yml
SSH password: anything

PLAY [back up config from a VyOS device] ***************************************

TASK [back up config] **********************************************************
ok: [spine01]

PLAY [back up config from an IOS device] ***************************************

TASK [back up config] **********************************************************
ok: [cs01]

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
cs01                      : ok=1   changed=0   unreachable=0   failed=0
spine01                   : ok=1   changed=0   unreachable=0   failed=0