cisco.nxos.nxos_command module – Run arbitrary command on Cisco NXOS devices

Note

This module is part of the cisco.nxos collection (version 8.1.0).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install cisco.nxos.

To use it in a playbook, specify: cisco.nxos.nxos_command.

New in cisco.nxos 1.0.0

Synopsis

  • Sends an arbitrary command to an NXOS node and returns the results read from the device. This module includes an argument that will cause the module to wait for a specific condition before returning or timing out if the condition is not met.

Aliases: command

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

commands

list / elements=any / required

The commands to send to the remote NXOS device. The resulting output from the command is returned. If the wait_for argument is provided, the module is not returned until the condition is satisfied or the number of retires as expired.

The commands argument also accepts an alternative form that allows for complex values that specify the command to run and the output format to return. This can be done on a command by command basis. The complex argument supports the keywords command and output where command is the command to run and output is one of ‘text’ or ‘json’.

If a command sent to the device requires answering a prompt, it is possible to pass a dict containing command, answer and prompt. Common answers are ‘y’ or “\r” (carriage return, must be double quotes). See examples.

interval

integer

Configures the interval in seconds to wait between retries of the command. If the command does not pass the specified conditional, the interval indicates how to long to wait before trying the command again.

Default: 1

match

string

The match argument is used in conjunction with the wait_for argument to specify the match policy. Valid values are all or any. If the value is set to all then all conditionals in the wait_for must be satisfied. If the value is set to any then only one of the values must be satisfied.

Choices:

  • "any"

  • "all" ← (default)

retries

integer

Specifies the number of retries a command should by tried before it is considered failed. The command is run on the target device every retry and evaluated against the wait_for conditionals.

The commands are run once when retries is set to 0.

Default: 9

wait_for

aliases: waitfor

list / elements=string

Specifies what to evaluate from the output of the command and what conditionals to apply. This argument will cause the task to wait for a particular conditional to be true before moving forward. If the conditional is not true by the configured retries, the task fails. See examples.

Notes

Note

  • Limited Support for Cisco MDS

  • For information on using CLI and NX-API see the :ref:`NXOS Platform Options guide <nxos_platform_options>`

  • For more information on using Ansible to manage network devices see the :ref:`Ansible Network Guide <network_guide>`

  • For more information on using Ansible to manage Cisco devices see the `Cisco integration page <https://www.ansible.com/integrations/networks/cisco>`_.

Examples

- name: run show version on remote devices
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands: show version

- name: run show version and check to see if output contains Cisco
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands: show version
    wait_for: result[0] contains Cisco

- name: run multiple commands on remote nodes
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands:
      - show version
      - show interfaces

- name: run multiple commands and evaluate the output
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands:
      - show version
      - show interfaces
    wait_for:
      - result[0] contains Cisco
      - result[1] contains loopback0

- name: run commands and specify the output format
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands:
      - command: show version
        output: json

- name: run commands that require answering a prompt
  cisco.nxos.nxos_command:
    commands:
      - configure terminal
      - command: no feature npv
        prompt: Do you want to continue
        answer: y

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

failed_conditions

list / elements=string

The list of conditionals that have failed

Returned: failed

Sample: ["...", "..."]

stdout

list / elements=string

The set of responses from the commands

Returned: always apart from low level errors (such as action plugin)

Sample: ["...", "..."]

stdout_lines

list / elements=string

The value of stdout split into a list

Returned: always apart from low level errors (such as action plugin)

Sample: [["...", "..."], ["..."], ["..."]]

Authors

  • Peter Sprygada (@privateip)