After completing this section, you should be able to:

Ansible provides many platform-specific modules engineered to make it easier to automate the management of networking devices. The names of these modules generally follow a common pattern. These are four common families of modules:

The *os_facts, *os_commands, *os_config, and *os_l3_interface families of modules represent a small part of the very large collection of *os_* modules that make it easier to manage networking devices.

Use the ansible-doc -l command to explore what is available.

The modules in the *os_facts family are used to gather facts from networking devices:

The modules in the *os_command family are used to issue commands to networking devices:

The modules in the *os_config family are used to configure networking devices:

The modules in the *os_l3_interface family are used to configure layer 3 interfaces on networking devices:

You can use an ad hoc command to show which facts are returned by default.

Now that you are somewhat familiar with Ansible Vault, you can use encrypted files to store all sensitive data, including passwords.

The following command displays the default set of facts returned by the vyos_facts module:

[user@host ~]$ ansible -i inventory --ask-vault-pass -m vyos_facts vyos

The following command displays the facts provided by default by the ios_facts module:

[user@host ~]$ ansible -i inventory --ask-vault-pass -m ios_facts ios

How many facts can you gather using vyos_facts and ios_facts?

The following command displays all facts supported by the vyos_facts module:

$ ansible -i inventory --ask-vault-pass -m vyos_facts spine01 \
> -a 'gather_subset=all'

The following command displays all facts supported by the ios_facts module:

$ ansible -i inventory --ask-vault-pass -m ios_facts cs01 -a 'gather_subset=all'

The gather_subset=all option returns a lot of information. The following playbook displays only specific pieces of information when run. The vyos_facts module was used. Note that variables are automatically registered by the facts module.

[user@host ~]$ cat vyos-some-facts1.yml
---
- name: a play that gathers some facts and displays them
  hosts: vyos

  tasks:
    - name: invoke vyos_facts
      vyos_facts:
        gather_subset: default

- debug:
    msg:
      - "Host name: {{ ansible_net_hostname }}"
      - "    Model: {{ ansible_net_model }}"
      - "  Version: {{ ansible_net_version }}"
      - "SerialNum: {{ ansible_net_serialnum }}"

The following example runs the playbook to gather some facts.

[user@host proj]$ ansible-playbook -l leaf01 vyos-some-facts1.yml

PLAY [a play that gathers some facts and displays them] **********************

TASK [invoke vyos_facts] *****************************************************
ok: [leaf01]

TASK [debug] *****************************************************************
ok: [leaf01] => {
    "msg": [
        "Host name: vyos"
        "    Model: VMware"
        "  Version: VyOS"
        "SerialNum: VMware-56"
    ]
}

PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************
leaf01                      : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0