bigip_data_group – Manage data groups on a BIG-IP

New in version 1.0.0.

Synopsis

  • Allows for managing data groups on a BIG-IP. Data groups provide a way to store collections of values on a BIG-IP for later use in things such as LTM rules, iRules, and ASM policies.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Configuration Comments
delete_data_group_file
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
When true, ensures the remote data group file is deleted.
This parameter is only relevant when state is absent and internal is false.
description
string
The description of the data group.
external_file_name
string
When creating a new data group, this specifies the file name you want to give an external data group file on the BIG-IP.
This parameter is ignored when internal is true.
This parameter can be used to select an existing data group file to use with an existing external data group.
If this value is not provided, it will be given the value specified in name and, therefore, match the name of the data group.
This value may only contain letters, numbers, underscores, dashes, or a period.
internal
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
The type of this data group.
You should only consider setting this value in cases where you know exactly what you are doing, or, you are working with a pre-existing internal data group.
Be aware that if you deliberately force this parameter to true, and you have a either a large number of records or a large total records size, this large amount of data will be reflected in your BIG-IP configuration. This can lead to long system configuration load times due to parsing and verifying the large configuration.
When this parameter is true, there is a limit for uploads of either 4 megabytes or 65,000 records, whichever is more restrictive.
This value cannot be changed once the data group is created.
name
string / required
Specifies the name of the data group.
partition
string
Default:
"Common"
Device partition to manage resources on.
provider
dictionary
added in 1.0.0
A dict object containing connection details.
auth_provider
string
Configures the auth provider for to obtain authentication tokens from the remote device.
This option is really used when working with BIG-IQ devices.
no_f5_teem
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If yes, TEEM telemetry data is not sent to F5.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_TELEMETRY_OFF.
Previously used variable F5_TEEM is deprecated as its name was confusing.
password
string / required
The password for the user account used to connect to the BIG-IP or the BIG-IQ.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_PASSWORD.

aliases: pass, pwd
server
string / required
The BIG-IP host or the BIG-IQ host.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER.
server_port
integer
Default:
443
The BIG-IP server port.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER_PORT.
timeout
integer
Specifies the timeout in seconds for communicating with the network device for either connecting or sending commands. If the timeout is exceeded before the operation is completed, the module will error.
transport
string
    Choices:
  • rest ←
Configures the transport connection to use when connecting to the remote device.
user
string / required
The username to connect to the BIG-IP or the BIG-IQ. This user must have administrative privileges on the device.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_USER.
validate_certs
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
If no, SSL certificates are not validated. Use this only on personally controlled sites using self-signed certificates.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_VALIDATE_CERTS.
records
list / elements=raw
Specifies the records you want to add to a data group.
If you have a large number of records, we recommend you use records_src instead of typing all those records here.
The technical limit of either the number of records, or the total size of all records. Varies with the size of the total resources on your system; in particular, RAM.
When internal is false, at least one record must be specified in either records or records_src.
When type is: ip, address, addr if the addresses use a non-default route domain, they must be explicit about it, meaning they must contain a route domain notation % e.g. 10.10.1.1%11. This is true regardless if the data group resides in a partition or not.
key
string / required
The key describing the record in the data group.
The key will be used for validation of the type parameter to this module.
value
raw
The value of the key describing the record in the data group.
records_src
path
Path to a file with records in it.
The file should be well-formed. This means it includes records, one per line, that resemble the following format "key separator value". For example, foo := bar.
BIG-IP is strict about this format, but this module is a bit more lax. It will allow you to include arbitrary amounts (including none) of empty space on either side of the separator. For an illustration of this, see the Examples section.
Record keys are limited in length to no more than 65520 characters.
Values of record keys are limited in length to no more than 65520 characters.
The total number of records you can have in your BIG-IP is limited by the memory of the BIG-IP itself.
The format of this content is slightly different depending on whether you specify a type of address, integer, or string. See the examples section for examples of the different types of payload formats that are expected in your data group file.
When internal is false, at least one record must be specified in either records or records_src.
separator
string
Default:
":="
When specifying records_src, this is the string of characters that will be used to break apart entries in the records_src into key/value pairs.
By default, the value of this parameter is :=.
This value cannot be changed once it is set.
This parameter is only relevant when internal is false. It will be ignored otherwise.
state
string
    Choices:
  • present ←
  • absent
When state is present, ensures the data group exists.
When state is absent, ensures the data group is removed.
The use of state in this module refers to the entire data group, not its members.
type
string
    Choices:
  • address
  • addr
  • ip
  • string ←
  • integer
  • int
The type of records in this data group.
This parameter is important because it causes the BIG-IP to store your data in different ways to optimize access to it. For example, it would be wrong to specify a list of records containing IP addresses, but label them as a string type.
This value cannot be changed once the data group is created.

Notes

Note

  • This module does NOT support atomic updates of data group members in a type internal data group.
  • Addition/Deletion of data group members in a type external data group should be done through Ansible modules only, if changes are made manually, the Ansible module will not detect those changes.
  • For more information on using Ansible to manage F5 Networks devices see https://www.ansible.com/integrations/networks/f5.
  • Requires BIG-IP software version >= 12.
  • The F5 modules only manipulate the running configuration of the F5 product. To ensure that BIG-IP specific configuration persists to disk, be sure to include at least one task that uses the f5networks.f5_modules.bigip_config module to save the running configuration. Refer to the module’s documentation for the correct usage of the module to save your running configuration.

Examples

- name: Create a data group of addresses
  bigip_data_group:
    name: foo
    internal: true
    records:
      - key: 0.0.0.0/32
        value: External_NAT
      - key: 10.10.10.10
        value: No_NAT
    type: address
    provider:
      password: secret
      server: lb.mydomain.com
      user: admin
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Create a data group of strings
  bigip_data_group:
    name: foo
    internal: true
    records:
      - key: caddy
        value: ""
      - key: cafeteria
        value: ""
      - key: cactus
        value: ""
    type: string
    provider:
      password: secret
      server: lb.mydomain.com
      user: admin
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Create a data group of IP addresses from a file
  bigip_data_group:
    name: foo
    records_src: /path/to/dg-file
    type: address
    provider:
      password: secret
      server: lb.mydomain.com
      user: admin
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Update an existing internal data group of strings
  bigip_data_group:
    name: foo
    internal: true
    records:
      - key: caddy
        value: ""
      - key: cafeteria
        value: ""
      - key: cactus
        value: ""
    provider:
      password: secret
      server: lb.mydomain.com
      user: admin
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Show the data format expected for records_content - address 1
  copy:
    dest: /path/to/addresses.txt
    content: |
      network 10.0.0.0 prefixlen 8 := "Network1",
      network 172.16.0.0 prefixlen 12 := "Network2",
      network 192.168.0.0 prefixlen 16 := "Network3",
      network 2402:9400:1000:0:: prefixlen 64 := "Network4",
      host 192.168.20.1 := "Host1",
      host 172.16.1.1 := "Host2",
      host 172.16.1.1 := "Host3",
      host 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 := "Host4",
      host 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 := "Host5"

- name: Show the data format expected for records_content - address 2
  copy:
    dest: /path/to/addresses.txt
    content: |
      10.0.0.0/8 := "Network1",
      172.16.0.0/12 := "Network2",
      192.168.0.0/16 := "Network3",
      2402:9400:1000:0::/64 := "Network4",
      192.168.20.1 := "Host1",
      172.16.1.1 := "Host2",
      172.16.1.1/32 := "Host3",
      2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 := "Host4",
      2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334/128 := "Host5"

- name: Show the data format expected for records_content - string
  copy:
    dest: /path/to/strings.txt
    content: |
      a := alpha,
      b := bravo,
      c := charlie,
      x := x-ray,
      y := yankee,
      z := zulu,

- name: Show the data format expected for records_content - integer
  copy:
    dest: /path/to/integers.txt
    content: |
      1 := bar,
      2 := baz,
      3,
      4,

Status

Authors

  • Tim Rupp (@caphrim007)
  • Wojciech Wypior (@wojtek0806)
  • Greg Crosby (@crosbygw)