Ansible Playbooks for Dell VRTX Chassis setup

The following playbooks can be used to set up the CMC, Internal Switch and base config on the iDRAC cards in a Dell VRTX Chassis. The tasks make extensive use of the "raw" ansible module, but still attempts to only make "changes" when they are needed.

Setup

You MUST use the included ansible.cfg file. There is a bug in the VRTX CMC that does not play well with the default Ansible options of ControlPersist. In order to completely disable it, we need to pass in a blank ssh_args to ansible. The easiest way to do this is to set the ANSIBLE_CONFIG environment variable to point to the config file BEFORE running the playbooks

$ ANSIBLE_CONFIG=<path to cfg file>
$ export ANSIBLE_CONFIG

or run the included setup script

$ source setup.sh

Host file configuration

Use the included "inventory/hosts" file as an example for what needs to be defined. At a minimum the following information is required:

One or more VRTX chassis deployments in the form of

[<vrtx group name>]
<chassis host name> ansible_host=<ip address of vrtx cmc> mgmt_netmask=<netmask for mgmt network> mgmt_gw=<gateway for mgmt network> chassis_name=<chassis name> chassis_location=<chassis location>

The following variables can be defined/used either in the all:vars section or over-ridden in the <vrtx group name>:vars section if you wish to override the all setting for a given group

ansible variable	required	description
ansible_ssh_pass	X	password to connect to the vrtx cmc with
ansible_ssh_user	X	username to connect to the vrtx cmc with
dhcp_enable	X	enable [1] or disable [0] DHCP for CMC
ipv6_enable	X	enable [1] or disable [0] IPv6 for CMC
ntp_enable		enable [1] or disable [0] ntp for the chassis
ntp_server1		if NTP enabled the first ntp server to connect to
dns_from_dhcp_config	X	use DNS records from DHCP [1] or ignore dns records from DHCP [0]
dns_server_1		if DNS from DHCP is disabled, DNS server 1 to use
dns_server_2		if DNS from DHCP is disabled, DNS server 2 to use
dns_domain_name		DNS domain name
alerting_enable	X	enable [1] or disable [0] alerting for the chassis
smtp_server		SMTP server to use for e-mail alerts
source_email_name		email address alerts should come from
alert_email_target_1		destination email address for alerts
alert_email_target_1_enable		enable [1] or disable [0] email alerts to email_target_1
snmp_enable		enable [1] or disable [0] snmp
snmp_community		community string for the snmp agent
snmp_protocol		configure default SNMP version ALL [0], or SNMPv3 [1]
snmp_trap_format		configure SNMP trap version SNMPv1 [0], SNMPv2 [1], or SNMPv3 [2]
snmp_trap_enable_1		enable [1] or disable [0] sending of snmp traps 1
snmp_trap_destination_1		IP address of trap destination 1
snmp_trap_community_1		Community string for trap 1 destination
snmp_trap_enable_2		enable [1] or disable [0] sending of snmp traps 2
snmp_trap_destination_2		IP address of trap destination 2
switch1_ip		disabled DHCP for built in switch and assigns static IP to internal switch
lcd_locale		set the locale for the chassis display. valid options are en, es, fr
lcd_orientation		vertical [0] horizontal [1]
lcd_buttons_enable		enable [1] or disable [0] ldc buttons on chassis
slot_name_config		manually set slot name [0], display host name from os [1], display iDRAC DNS name [2]
server1_name		server name for slot 1, is slot_name_config is set to 0
server2_name		server name for slot 2, is slot_name_config is set to 0
server3_name		server name for slot 3, is slot_name_config is set to 0
server4_name		server name for slot 4, is slot_name_config is set to 0
server1_idrac_ip		IP address for slot1 iDRAC. DHCP enabled if not defined
server2_idrac_ip		IP address for slot2 iDRAC. DHCP enabled if not defined
server3_idrac_ip		IP address for slot3 iDRAC. DHCP enabled if not defined
server4_idrac_ip		IP address for slot4 iDRAC. DHCP enabled if not defined
encryption_enable		enable [1] or disable [0] encryption of SED drives
raid_1_config		See RAID section below for more details
encryption_key_name		name for your encryption key. this can be anything
encryption_key_password		password for encryption. this must contain UPPER, lower, numeric and special characters

Running the playbooks

Initial chassis setup can be done by editing the hosts file and then running

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts playbooks/deploy_vrtx_chassis.yml

Initial RAID setup can be done by running the following playbook. See RAID section below before using this

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts playbooks/configure_vrtx_raid.yml

R1_2104 Switch Configuration

Coming soon.

RAID Configuration

The RAID configuration playbooks are DANGEROUS. Be sure you know what you are doing when you run them. Every attempt has been made to ensure we dont over-write an existing RAID configuration. If the playbook detects an existing RAID configuration it will fail.

RAID configuration takes a Dell racadm RAID config command. see the References section below for the exact command options.

Example

raid_1_config="createvd:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1 -rl r6 -pdkey:Disk.Bay.0:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1,Disk.Bay.1:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1,Disk.Bay.2:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1,Disk.Bay.3:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1,Disk.Bay.4:Enclosure.Internal.0-0:RAID.ChassisIntegrated.1-1"

will create a 5 disk RAID 6 virtual disk, using the first 5 disks in the system.

If you have self encrypting drives (SED) you can optionally enable the encryption feature of the RAID controller. You need to specify a encryption key name, an actual encryption key, and you must set encryption_enable=1 for the systems you wish to enable encryption.

To run the raid setup playbook:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts playbooks/configure_vrtx_raid.yml

References

Dell CMC VRTX RACADM Guide

Copyright

Copyright 2018 Paychex Inc. All rights reserved. Use of this source code is governed by the Apache 2.0 license that can be found in the LICENSE file.

Author

This exporter was originally written by Mark DeNeve