Confirmed commit fails with TypeError in IOS XR netconf plugin (for 2.9.9)

[kmtenhouse]

SUMMARY

Hitting a TypeError when attempting to use the confirmed commit capability with the IOX XR netconf plugin (Ansible 2.9.9). (Ansible module seems to want type=int for the timeout operation; underlying ncclient seems to need bytes or unicode.)

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

Netconf plugin for IOS XR:
plugins/netconf/iosxr.py

Note: I did see that this code is part of the main Ansible stable-2.9 branch. However, it was recommended that I instead open the issue here, as this will be the ongoing place for this plugin.

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.9.9
python version = 2.7.5 

CONFIGURATION

(no output was shown)

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Cisco IOS XR

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

Attempt to perform a task with a confirmed commit, ex:

- name: use lookup filter to provide xml configuration to be applied via netconf
connection: netconf
netconf_config:
target: "{{ netconf_target | default('candidate') }}"
error_option: "{{ netconf_error_option | default('rollback-on-error') }}"
commit: yes
confirm: 10
default_operation: "merge"
content: |
<nc:config xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" xmlns:nc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
<cdp xmlns="http://cisco.com/ns/yang/Cisco-IOS-XR-cdp-cfg">
<enable>true</enable>
</cdp>
</nc:config>
register: result
vars:
ansible_persistent_log_messages: True

EXPECTED RESULTS

Expected not to receive a type error.

ACTUAL RESULTS

TypeError is received when trying to perform the confirmed commit.

Additionally, setting confirm='10' does not help, although a team mate was able to do the following with Python:
m.commit(confirmed=True, timeout='40', persist='100') succeeds.
m.commit(confirmed=True, timeout=40, persist='100') fails with the same TypeError.

Example error message is below:

  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/utils/jsonrpc.py", line 45, in handle_request
    result = rpc_method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/plugins/netconf/iosxr.py", line 185, in commit
    resp = self.m.commit(confirmed=confirmed, timeout=timeout, persist=persist)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ncclient/manager.py", line 231, in execute
    huge_tree=self._huge_tree).request(*args, **kwds)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ncclient/operations/edit.py", line 158, in request
    sub_ele(node, "confirm-timeout").text = timeout
  File "src/lxml/etree.pyx", line 1024, in lxml.etree._Element.text.__set__
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 747, in lxml.etree._setNodeText
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 735, in lxml.etree._createTextNode
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 1538, in lxml.etree._utf8
TypeError: Argument must be bytes or unicode, got 'int'

[ikhan2010]

Thanks for raising the issue. cc @trishnaguha @ganeshrn
We will backport this bugfix to 2.9 stable branch.

[ganeshrn]

@kmtenhouse Please check if PR ansible/ansible#71291 (on stable-2.9) fixes the issue.

Also raised PR on 2.10 and individual collections
stable-2.10: ansible/ansible#71292
cisco.iosxr: #76
ansible.netcommon: ansible-collections/ansible.netcommon#124 (testcase only)

[kmtenhouse]

Wow, thank you so much for your prompt response! We will check and let you know.