Exercise 1.7: Using the bigip_config module

Objective

Demonstrate use of the BIG-IP config module to save the running configuration to disk

Guide

Step 1:

Use VS Code Explorer to create a new file called bigip-config.yml.

The Ansible node is equipped with Visual Studio Code and can be accessed via UDF ACCESS Methods.

Step 2:

Ansible playbooks are YAML files. YAML is a structured encoding format that is also extremely human readable (unlike it’s subset - the JSON format).

Enter the following play definition into bigip-virtual-server.yml:

---
- name: BIG-IP SETUP
  hosts: lb
  connection: local
  gather_facts: false

• The --- at the top of the file indicates that this is a YAML file.
• The hosts: f5, indicates the play is run only on the F5 BIG-IP device
• connection: local tells the Playbook to run locally (rather than SSHing to itself)
• gather_facts: no disables facts gathering. We are not using any fact variables for this playbook.

Do not exit the editor yet.

Step 3

Next, add the task. This task will use the bigip-config to save the running configuration to disk

tasks:

- name: SAVE RUNNING CONFIG ON BIG-IP
  bigip_config:
    provider:
      server: "{{private_ip}}"
      user: "{{ansible_user}}"
      password: "{{ansible_ssh_pass}}"
      server_port: 8443
      validate_certs: no
    save: yes

A play is a list of tasks. Tasks and modules have a 1:1 correlation. Ansible modules are reusable, standalone scripts that can be used by the Ansible API, or by the ansible or ansible-playbook programs. They return information to ansible by printing a JSON string to stdout before exiting.

• name: SAVE RUNNING CONFIG ON BIG-IP is a user defined description that will display in the terminal output.
• bigip_config: tells the task which module to use.
• The server: "{{private_ip}}" parameter tells the module to connect to the F5 BIG-IP IP address, which is stored as a variable private_ip in inventory
• The provider: parameter is a group of connection details for the BIG-IP.
• The user: "{{ansible_user}}" parameter tells the module the username to login to the F5 BIG-IP device with
• The password: "{{ansible_ssh_pass}}" parameter tells the module the password to login to the F5 BIG-IP device with
• The server_port: 8443 parameter tells the module the port to connect to the F5 BIG-IP device with
• The save: "yes"" parameter tells the module to save the running-config to startup-config. This operation is performed after any changes are made to the current running config. If no changes are made, the configuration is still saved to the startup config. This option will always cause the module to return changed
• The validate_certs: "no" parameter tells the module to not validate SSL certificates. This is just used for demonstration purposes since this is a lab.

Save File and exit out of editor.

Step 4

Run the playbook - exit back into the command line of the control host and execute the following:

[centos@ansible ~]$ ansible-playbook bigip-config.yml

Playbook Output

[centos@ansible]$ ansible-playbook bigip-config.yml

PLAY [BIG-IP SETUP] ************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [SAVE RUNNING CONFIG ON BIG-IP] ************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [f5]

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************
f5                         : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0

Solution

The finished Ansible Playbook is provided here for an Answer key. Click here: bigip-config.yml.

You have finished this exercise. Click here to return to the lab guide