Red Hat Ansible for Network Automation

Create a vars file defining the variables that will be used. Download the consolidation-data.yml file into the vars/ directory. This file maps layer 3 address data to interfaces and also provides interface descriptions.

[student@workstation proj]$ cd vars
[student@workstation vars]$ wget \
> http://materials.example.com/full/vars/consolidation-data.yml
[student@workstation vars]$ cd ..
[student@workstation proj]$ 

Compose a playbook with a play that satisfies the business requirements as stated by Jasper.

Create a playbook named consolidation.yml as shown here.

Notice how much simpler this playbook is than the one that was used for the expansion phase. That is intentional. The difference between the two playbooks illustrates how effective with_dict can be.

---
- name: consolidate the layer 3 network
  hosts: network
  vars_files:
  - vars/consolidation-data.yml

  tasks:

  - name: configure interface descriptions
    vyos_interface:
      name: "{{ item.key }}"
      description: "{{ item.value.description }}"
    with_dict: "{{ interface_data[inventory_hostname] }}"
    when: ansible_network_os == 'vyos'

  - name: configure layer 3
    vyos_l3_interface:
      aggregate: "{{ layer3_data[inventory_hostname] }}"
    when: ansible_network_os == 'vyos'

  - name: configure interface descriptions
    ios_interface:
      name: "{{ item.key }}"
      description: "{{ item.value.description }}"
    with_dict: "{{ interface_data[inventory_hostname] }}"
    when: ansible_network_os == 'ios'

  - name: configure layer 3
    ios_l3_interface:
      aggregate: "{{ layer3_data[inventory_hostname] }}"
    when: ansible_network_os == 'ios'

Perform the play in the playbook to enact the desired changes.

[student@workstation proj]$ ansible-playbook consolidation.yml

Execute ad hoc commands and verify that layer 3 addresses and interface descriptions are mapped to interfaces as described in the tables found at the start of this exercise. Here the syntax of the command is shown for use with the VyOS devices:

[student@workstation proj]$ ansible -m vyos_command -a "commands='sh int'" vyos

The following ad hoc command can be used to verify that layer 3 addresses are listed correctly for the IOS networking device cs01. The following command should be entered as a single line.

[student@workstation proj]$ ansible -m ios_command -a "commands='sh ip int br'" cs01