[FEATURE REQUEST]: NetScaler Console Inventory Plugin

[nsjoseph]

Summary

In maintaining large NetScaler deployments you may have dozens or hundreds of NetScaler systems that you are trying to manage with Ansible. Maintaining an inventory within Ansible can be a duplicative effort when a source of truth for the NetScaler estate already exists within NetScaler Console / NetScaler Console Service.

This feature request is to ask that a custom Ansible inventory plugin be developed to create a NetScaler inventory based upon NetScalers managed in a NetScaler Console / NetScaler Console Service environment.

This could return more than just the hostname/IP of the NetScaler systems as well, the plugin could allow the user to import specific properties into the Ansible inventory.

References:

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/plugins/inventory.html
• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev_guide/developing_plugins.html#developing-inventory-plugins

Issue Type

Feature Idea

Component Name

netscaler_console_inventory

Describe alternatives you've considered

We can create an external process to do the same thing using NetScaler Console APIs today, but it would be more streamlined to see it managed within the NetScaler Ansible collection.

Additional Information

Here is an example of what the plugin might look like to consume

    plugin: netscaler.adc.netscaler_console_inventory
    console_hostname: 10.65.201.128
    console_service: false
    username: administrator
    password: password
    validate_certs: false
    hostnames:
    - 'hostname'
    properties:
    - 'version'
    - 'device_family'
    - 'gateway'
    - 'vpx_on_cloud'
    - 'ha_master_state'
    - 'ha_ip_address'
    - 'hostname'
    - 'vm_state'
    - 'host_ip_address'
    with_tags: true
    keyed_groups:
    - key: ha_master_state
      prefix: "netscaler_ha_state_"
      separator: ""
    with_nested_properties: true
    filters:
    - "instance_state is 'Up'"