bigip_data_group – Manage data groups on a BIG-IP

New in version 2.6.

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.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • f5-sdk >= 3.0.16

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
delete_data_group_file
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
When yes, will ensure that the remote data group file is deleted.
This parameter is only relevant when state is absent and internal is no.
external_file_name
-
When creating a new data group, this specifies the file name that you want to give an external data group file on the BIG-IP.
This parameter is ignored when internal is yes.
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're doing, or, you are working with a pre-existing internal data group.
Be aware that if you deliberately force this parameter to yes, 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 needing to parse and verify the large configuration.
There is a limit of either 4 megabytes or 65,000 records (whichever is more restrictive) for uploads when this parameter is yes.
This value cannot be changed once the data group is created.
name
- / required
Specifies the name of the data group.
partition
-
Default:
"Common"
Device partition to manage resources on.
password
- / required
The password for the user account used to connect to the BIG-IP.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_PASSWORD.

aliases: pass, pwd
provider
-
added in 2.5
Default:
null
A dict object containing connection details.
password
- / required
The password for the user account used to connect to the BIG-IP.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_PASSWORD.

aliases: pass, pwd
server
- / required
The BIG-IP host.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER.
server_port
-
Default:
443
The BIG-IP server port.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER_PORT.
ssh_keyfile
-
Specifies the SSH keyfile to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This argument is only used for cli transports.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_SSH_KEYFILE.
timeout
-
Default:
10
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
- / required
    Choices:
  • rest
  • cli ←
Configures the transport connection to use when connecting to the remote device.
user
- / required
The username to connect to the BIG-IP with. 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
-
Specifies the records that you want to add to a data group.
If you have a large number of records, it is recommended that you use records_content instead of typing all those records here.
The technical limit of either 1. the number of records, or 2. the total size of all records, varies with the size of the total resources on your system; in particular, RAM.
When internal is no, at least one record must be specified in either records or records_content.
key
- / required
The key describing the record in the data group.
Your key will be used for validation of the type parameter to this module.
value
-
The value of the key describing the record in the data group.
records_src
-
Path to a file with records in it.
The file should be well-formed. This means that 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.
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 no, at least one record must be specified in either records or records_content.
separator
-
Default:
":="
When specifying records_content, this is the string of characters that will be used to break apart entries in the records_content into key/value pairs.
By default, this parameter's value is :=.
This value cannot be changed once it is set.
This parameter is only relevant when internal is no. It will be ignored otherwise.
server
- / required
The BIG-IP host.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER.
server_port
-
added in 2.2
Default:
443
The BIG-IP server port.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_SERVER_PORT.
state
-
    Choices:
  • present ←
  • absent
When state is present, ensures the data group exists.
When state is absent, ensures that the data group is removed.
type
-
    Choices:
  • address
  • addr
  • ip
  • string ←
  • str
  • integer
  • int
The type of records in this data group.
This parameter is especially important because it causes BIG-IP to store your data in different ways so-as 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.
user
- / required
The username to connect to the BIG-IP with. This user must have administrative privileges on the device.
You may omit this option by setting the environment variable F5_USER.
validate_certs
boolean
added in 2.0
    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.

Notes

Note

  • For more information on using Ansible to manage F5 Networks devices see https://www.ansible.com/integrations/networks/f5.
  • Requires the f5-sdk Python package on the host. This is as easy as pip install f5-sdk.
  • 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 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
    password: secret
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    state: present
    user: admin
    records:
      - key: 0.0.0.0/32
        value: External_NAT
      - key: 10.10.10.10
        value: No_NAT
    type: address
  delegate_to: localhost

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

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

- name: Update an existing internal data group of strings
  bigip_data_group:
    name: foo
    password: secret
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    state: present
    internal: yes
    user: admin
    records:
      - key: caddy
        value: ""
      - key: cafeteria
        value: ""
      - key: cactus
        value: ""
  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 172.16.1.1/32 := "Host3",
      host 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 := "Host4",
      host 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334/128 := "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)

Hint

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