About this project
About Ansible
About Ansible modules for Junos automation
Requirements for Junos automation with Ansible
Requirements to use this repository
Repository structure
This project has many ready-to-use Ansible playbooks to interact with Junos devices.
This repository has been tested using:
- Ubuntu 16.04
- Ansible 2.4.2.0
- the version 1.4.3 of the Juniper.junos role available on Galaxy.
Ansible is an open-source IT automation tool.
Here's an ansible presentation
Ansible vs Saltstack vs Stackstorm
There are two modules libraries to interact with Junos:
- An Ansible library for Junos built by Juniper
- These modules are available on Ansible Galaxy website
- An Ansible library for Junos built by Ansible
- Since Ansible version >= 2.1, Ansible natively includes core modules for Junos.
- These modules are shipped with Ansible
- The Junos modules included in Ansible core have names which begin with the prefix junos_.
These two sets of modules for Junos automation can coexist on the same Ansible control machine.
Both of them are used in this repository.
- They are hosted on the Ansible Galaxy website:
- The role is Juniper.junos
- Here's the source code
- Until the version 1.4.3 of the modules included in the Juniper.junos role:
- Their names begin with the prefix junos_.
- Here's the doc for the version 1.4.3
- To download and install them to the Ansible server, execute the command
sudo ansible-galaxy install Juniper.junos,1.4.3
- From version 2 of the modules included in the Juniper.junos role:
- To avoid conflict with the names used by ansible native modules for Junos, since the version 2 of the modules included in the Juniper.junos role on Galaxy, their names begin with the prefix juniper_junos_.
- Here's the doc for the last version
- To download and install them to the Ansible server, execute the command
sudo ansible-galaxy install Juniper.junos
- Here's the documentation
- The Junos modules included in Ansible core have names which begin with the prefix junos_.
- Here's the source code
- Installation: They are shipped with ansible itself (from Ansible 2.1). Ansible 2.1 or above is required.
Most of these Ansbile modules require installing the python library py-junos-eznc on the Ansible server.
Some options also require installing the python library jxmlease on the Ansible server.
Some options (like the console option in the junos_install_config module) also require the python library junos-netconify on the Ansible server.
Except for the module junos_netconf, all the Ansible modules for Junos require the NETCONF to be configured on the Junos devices.
Note: It is not required to use Junos CLI to configure Netconf on Junos devices. This can be done with the Ansible module junos_netconf.
sudo -s
git clone https://github.com/ksator/junos-automation-with-ansible.git
ls junos-automation-with-ansible
cd junos-automation-with-ansible
sudo -s
This repository has been tested using Ansible 2.4.2.0
Run these commands on Ubuntu 16.04 to install these tools:
sudo -s
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install -y python-dev libxml2-dev python-pip libxslt1-dev build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev git
pip install junos-eznc jxmlease wget jsnapy ansible==2.4.2.0 requests ipaddress cryptography
ansible-galaxy install Juniper.junos,1.4.3
Check the Ansible version:
ansible --version
Verify you have the Juniper.junos role:
ls /etc/ansible/roles/
This repository has been tested using the version 1.4.3 of the Juniper.junos role available on Galaxy.
Use this command to see the name and version of each role installed:
ansible-galaxy list
set system services netconf ssh
commit
The default hosts file lives in /etc/ansible/hosts.
The inventory file we are using in this repository is hosts.
- It is at the root of the repository, so it is not at the default place.
- It defines the inventory (hosts and groups).
- It also defines the ip address of each device with the variable junos_host. This variable is re-used in the playbooks.
There is an ansible.cfg file at the root of the repository.
It refers to our inventory file: So even if the inventory file is not in /etc/ansible/hosts, there is no need to add -i hosts to your ansible-playbook commands.
group_vars and host_vars directories at the root of this repository define variables for hosts and for groups.
The inventory file hosts at the root of the repository also defines some variables.
The playbooks in this directory use all of them.
Some playbooks also use other variables.
In order to see all variables for a hostname, you can run this command:
ansible -m debug -a "var=hostvars['hostname']" localhost
All playbooks in this repository are named pb*.yml These playbooks use the two sets of modules for Junos automation. They also use other Ansible modules (template, assemble, uri, wait_for, debug, ...).
This repository uses several directories.
I am re-using the Ansible module names for the directories names.
Each directory has:
- Playbooks
- a readme file
The lab topology is described in the file lab topology.pdf
You can very easily re-use this automation content with your own Junos devices: you just need to build a similar topology and then adapt this content with your IP addresses, username and password.
You need to run the playbooks from the root of the project tree.
Use the ansible-playbook commands to execute the playbooks:
cd junos-automation-with-ansible
ls
ls -l
ls xxx/
more xxx/readme.md
ansible-playbook xxx/pb*.yml