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

Note

This plugin is part of the cisco.nxos collection (version 2.8.2).

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 version 1.0.0: of cisco.nxos

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.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

commands

list / elements=raw / 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)

provider

dictionary

Deprecated

Starting with Ansible 2.5 we recommend using connection: network_cli.

Starting with Ansible 2.6 we recommend using connection: httpapi for NX-API.

This option will be removed in a release after 2022-06-01.

For more information please see the https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/network/user_guide/platform_nxos.html.

A dict object containing connection details.

auth_pass

string

Specifies the password to use if required to enter privileged mode on the remote device. If authorize is false, then this argument does nothing. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_AUTH_PASS will be used instead.

authorize

boolean

Instructs the module to enter privileged mode on the remote device before sending any commands. If not specified, the device will attempt to execute all commands in non-privileged mode. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_AUTHORIZE will be used instead.

Choices:

  • no ← (default)

  • yes

host

string

Specifies the DNS host name or address for connecting to the remote device over the specified transport. The value of host is used as the destination address for the transport.

password

string

Specifies the password to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This is a common argument used for either cli or nxapi transports. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_PASSWORD will be used instead.

port

integer

Specifies the port to use when building the connection to the remote device. This value applies to either cli or nxapi. The port value will default to the appropriate transport common port if none is provided in the task. (cli=22, http=80, https=443).

ssh_keyfile

string

Specifies the SSH key to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This argument is only used for the cli transport. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_SSH_KEYFILE will be used instead.

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. NX-API can be slow to return on long-running commands (sh mac, sh bgp, etc).

transport

string

Configures the transport connection to use when connecting to the remote device. The transport argument supports connectivity to the device over cli (ssh) or nxapi.

Choices:

  • cli ← (default)

  • nxapi

use_proxy

boolean

If no, the environment variables http_proxy and https_proxy will be ignored.

Choices:

  • no

  • yes ← (default)

use_ssl

boolean

Configures the transport to use SSL if set to yes only when the transport=nxapi, otherwise this value is ignored.

Choices:

  • no ← (default)

  • yes

username

string

Configures the username to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is used to authenticate either the CLI login or the nxapi authentication depending on which transport is used. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_USERNAME will be used instead.

validate_certs

boolean

If no, SSL certificates will not be validated. This should only be used on personally controlled sites using self-signed certificates. If the transport argument is not nxapi, this value is ignored.

Choices:

  • no ← (default)

  • yes

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.

Default: 10

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

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)