Tutorial: Writing a module

The following tutorial explains how to create an F5 module for Ansible. This tutorial shows what is necessary to re-create the bigip_policy_rule module, which was released in Ansible 2.5. This module is a core part of LTM policy manipulation and, therefore, a crucial component of BIG-IP automation.

The module that you will re-create is considered to be an advanced module. It is, however, the one that illustrates all pieces of the current coding conventions. So it is useful to see the standards in their completeness instead of illustrating many different modules.

This tutorial is split up into a number of different sections. Feel free to jump to any section for a reference.

General module design

This document discusses module development for the F5 Modules for Ansible.

As you follow the tutorial, you can use the following image to visualize how things are connected.

../../_images/f5-ansible-module-diagram.png

This image shows a high-level view of what happens when a module executes. In general, the module is a pipeline that moves from the left side of the diagram to the right side of the diagram. You should keep this diagram nearby as the tutorial moves on to more code-heavy topics.