Ansible NETCONF/YANG Example

This collection demonstrates two different ways of using NETCONF/YANG with Ansible. One way using "templated XML" and the other using generated Python classes that are built from YANG models.

Included is a very simple YAML inventory that we'll map onto the openconfig-interfaces model and then serialised to XML, which is finally transferred to the device using NETCONF.

To transform our simple YAML inventory in this example to OpenConfig we're using a custom filter located in filter_plugins/.

Tested with Ansible

This collection has been tested against following Ansible version: 2.10.2.

External requirements

It's possible to run the included playbooks without any network devices and you'll see the generated config that would be deployed.

In order to generate the Python classes in filter_plugins/oc_output you'll need pyang and a recent version pyangbind. Included in this repository are classes generated from OpenConfig dated 2021-05-14. You will need to have the same or compatible models on the Cisco IOS XR device you're running this playbook against.

https://github.com/robshakir/pyangbind > 0.8.1

Requires the following collections if you intend to run against devices:

• community.yang is required for the pb-netconf_info playbook.
• junipernetworks.junos is required for the pb-juniper playbook.

Included content

Filter plugins

filter_plugins/oc_intf.py transforms our YAML inventory to OpenConfig.

Using the playbooks

If you're only interested to see the techniques or you don't have any network devices. You can still run these as-is and see the generated XML that would be deployed using NETCONF.

If you are going to run these against actual devices you'll have to modify the following:

• If you're going to run these playbooks you'll need one Juniper router and one Cisco IOS XR router, called juniper-r1 and cisco-r1 in the inventory.
• Modify the inventory in environments/dev/hosts.yml with their credentials.
• Modify environments/dev/host_vars/*.yml
• Look at ansible.cfg and make any additional changes as per required for your environment.

In order for Ansible to find the oc_output Python module we need to add the filter_plugins/ folder to the search path.

$ export PYTHONPATH=`pwd`/filter_plugins

Display NETCONF schemas and download models from hosts

$ ansible-playbook pb-netconf_info.yml

Deploy config to IOS XR using OpenConfig

$ ansible-playbook pb-cisco.yml

Deploy config as templated XML over NETCONF

$ ansible-playbook pb-juniper.yml

Roadmap

This is provided as an example and is not intended to be maintained or developed further.

I might add an example using gNMI, only time will tell.

Licensing

Copyright (c) 2021 Andreas Lundin, lunde@dreamhosted.se

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.