redfish: support boolean BIOS attributes

[jyundt]

Currently the redfish_config module will convert boolean bios_attribute_value
settings to strings (type str). This will cause BMCs expecting booleans to
error out.

This PR will change the default type of bios_attribute_value to 'raw' in order
to support strings and booleans. Additionally, it makes a minor tweak to
set_bios_attributes() in redfish_utils.py to correctly serialize the python dict
to JSON.

Fixes #68251

SUMMARY

This fixes the behavior in Ansible 2.9 (also present in Ansible 2.8) that converts boolean based BIOS values to strings.

Note that I based this PR on stable-2.9 and not devel. I think the changes introduced in #62764 will require slightly different change.

Please let me know if I should rebase this PR on devel and create different PRs for backport requests for 2.8 and 2.9.

Fixes #68251

Backport of #68382

ISSUE TYPE

• Bugfix Pull Request

COMPONENT NAME

redfish_config
redfish_utils.py

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Using the same ansible snippet from 68251, the playbook now works as expected:

(68251) [jyundt@aurora ansible]$ cat tests/supermicro_redfish.yml 
---
- hosts: all
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    bmc_username: admin
    bmc_password: hunter2
    bmc_address: 192.168.100.100
  tasks:
  - name: Configure boolean BIOS Settings
    redfish_config:
      category: Systems
      command: SetBiosAttributes
      bios_attribute_name: "ConsoleRedirection"
      bios_attribute_value: True
      baseuri: "{{ bmc_address }}"
      username: "{{ bmc_username }}"
      password: "{{ bmc_password }}"

  - name: Configure string BIOS Settings
    redfish_config:
      category: Systems
      command: SetBiosAttributes
      bios_attribute_name: "IPv4HTTPSupport"
      bios_attribute_value: "Disabled"
      baseuri: "{{ bmc_address }}"
      username: "{{ bmc_username }}"
      password: "{{ bmc_password }}"
(68251) [jyundt@aurora ansible]$ time ansible-playbook -i 10.39.67.209, tests/supermicro_redfish.yml

PLAY [all] *********************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Configure boolean BIOS Settings] *****************************************************************************************************
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: Distribution Ubuntu 18.04 on host 10.39.67.209 should use /usr/bin/python3, but is using /usr/bin/python for 
backward compatibility with prior Ansible releases. A future Ansible release will default to using the discovered platform python for this 
host. See https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.9/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for more information. This feature will be 
removed in version 2.12. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
changed: [10.39.67.209]

TASK [Configure string BIOS Settings] ******************************************************************************************************
ok: [10.39.67.209]

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************************************************************************
10.39.67.209               : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   


real	0m7.701s
user	0m2.157s
sys	0m0.270s
(68251) [jyundt@aurora ansible]$ 

cc @nlopez

(edit: fix formatting for ansible output.)

[ansibot]

cc @billdodd @jose-delarosa @mraineri @tomasg2012
click here for bot help

[billdodd]

Thanks for opening the issue and providing the PR! LGTM

shipit

[mraineri]

shipit

[jyundt]

@billdodd / @mraineri A few logistical questions: I created this PR for stable-2.9 and was planning on opening a separate backport request for stable-2.8. Should I have instead opened this against devel and modified the stable-2.9 and stable-2.8 backport requests accordingly in order to accommodate the changes in devel / #62764?

Also, I forgot to include a changelog fragment, just added with 9f00f2f.

[billdodd]

Good question. I just took a peek at the docs. It does look like the flow should start with devel and backport to previous releases:

All Ansible PRs must be merged to the devel branch first. After a pull request has been accepted and merged to the devel branch, the following instructions will help you create a pull request to backport the change to a previous stable branch.

See:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/community/development_process.html#backporting-merged-prs

But note that devel is frozen right now while they do some migration activity. And once it is unfrozen, the PR will need to be made in the new Ansible Collections repo. More info on that:

https://github.com/ansible-collections/overview/blob/master/README.rst

[ansibot]

The test ansible-test sanity --test changelog [explain] failed with 1 error:

changelogs/fragments/68251-redfish_config-add-boolean-bios-attr-support.yaml:0:0: section "bugfixes" list items must be type str not dict

click here for bot help

[billdodd]

BTW - I think the change needed for devel is even simpler than the one for 2.9. It should just be to change the type for bios_attribute_value to raw. Should be no changes needed in redfish_utils.py and the new bios_attributes option already supports attribute values that are, for example, boolean or int.

[jyundt]

Hmm, I didn't know about this "freeze". Lemme at least get a new PR rolling for devel and I can work with that for 2.10 or Collections or whatever.

[jyundt]

New PR for devel: #68382

[mattclay]

@jyundt Since this module has been migrated to the community.general collection, please open a PR for it there: https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/commits/master/plugins/modules/remote_management/redfish/redfish_config.py

Once that PR has been merged open a backport PR and reference the merged PR in community.general.