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Ansible for Network Automation

Ansible Network modules extend the benefits of simple, powerful, agentless automation to network administrators and teams. Ansible Network modules can configure your network stack, test and validate existing network state, and discover and correct network configuration drift.

If you’re new to Ansible, or new to using Ansible for network management, start with Network Getting Started. If you are already familiar with network automation with Ansible, see Network Advanced Topics.

For documentation on using a particular network module, consult the list of all network modules. Network modules for various hardware are supported by different teams including the hardware vendors themselves, volunteers from the Ansible community, and the Ansible Network Team.

• Network Getting Started
  • Basic Concepts
    • Control node
    • Managed nodes
    • Inventory
    • Playbooks
    • Modules
    • Plugins
    • Collections
    • AAP
  • How Network Automation is Different
    • Execution on the control node
    • Multiple communication protocols
    • Collections organized by network platform
    • Privilege Escalation: enable mode, become, and authorize
  • Run Your First Command and Playbook
    • Prerequisites
    • Install Ansible
    • Establish a manual connection to a managed node
    • Run your first network Ansible command
    • Create and run your first network Ansible Playbook
    • Gathering facts from network devices
  • Build Your Inventory
    • Basic inventory
    • Add variables to the inventory
    • Group variables within inventory
    • Variable syntax
    • Group inventory by platform
    • Verifying the inventory
    • Protecting sensitive variables with ansible-vault
  • Use Ansible network roles
    • Understanding roles
  • Beyond the basics
    • A typical Ansible filetree
    • Tracking changes to inventory and playbooks: source control with git
  • Working with network connection options
    • Setting timeout options
  • Resources and next steps
    • Documents
    • Events (on video and in person)
    • GitHub repos
    • Chat channels
• Network Advanced Topics
  • Network Resource Modules
    • Network resource module states
    • Using network resource modules
    • Example: Verifying the network device configuration has not changed
    • Example: Acquiring and updating VLANs on a network device
  • Ansible Network Examples
    • Prerequisites
    • Groups and variables in an inventory file
    • Example 1: collecting facts and creating backup files with a playbook
    • Example 2: simplifying playbooks with platform-independent modules
    • Implementation Notes
    • Troubleshooting
  • Parsing semi-structured text with Ansible
    • Understanding the CLI parser
    • Parsing the CLI
    • Advanced use cases
  • Validate data against set criteria with Ansible
    • Understanding the validate plugin
    • Structuring the data
    • Defining the criteria to validate against
    • Validating the data
  • Network Debug and Troubleshooting Guide
    • How to troubleshoot
    • Troubleshooting socket path issues
    • Category “Unable to open shell”
    • Timeout issues
    • Playbook issues
    • Proxy Issues
    • Miscellaneous Issues
  • Working with command output and prompts in network modules
    • Conditionals in networking modules
    • Handling prompts in network modules
  • Ansible Network FAQ
    • How can I improve performance for network playbooks?
    • Why is my output sometimes replaced with ********?
    • Why do the *_config modules always return changed=true with abbreviated commands?
  • Platform Options
    • CloudEngine OS Platform Options
    • CNOS Platform Options
    • Dell OS6 Platform Options
    • Dell OS9 Platform Options
    • Dell OS10 Platform Options
    • ENOS Platform Options
    • EOS Platform Options
    • ERIC_ECCLI Platform Options
    • EXOS Platform Options
    • FRR Platform Options
    • ICX Platform Options
    • IOS Platform Options
    • IOS-XR Platform Options
    • IronWare Platform Options
    • Junos OS Platform Options
    • Meraki Platform Options
    • Pluribus NETVISOR Platform Options
    • NOS Platform Options
    • NXOS Platform Options
    • RouterOS Platform Options
    • SLX-OS Platform Options
    • VOSS Platform Options
    • VyOS Platform Options
    • WeOS 4 Platform Options
    • Netconf enabled Platform Options
    • Settings by Platform
• Network Developer Guide
  • Developing network resource modules
    • Understanding network and security resource modules
    • Developing network and security resource modules
    • Examples
    • Resource module structure and workflow
    • Running ansible-test sanity and tox on resource modules
    • Testing resource modules
    • Example: Unit testing Ansible network resource modules
  • Developing network plugins
    • Network connection plugins
    • Developing httpapi plugins
    • Developing NETCONF plugins
    • Developing network_cli plugins
    • Developing cli_parser plugins in a collection
  • Documenting new network platforms
    • Modifying the platform options table
    • Adding a platform-specific options section
    • Adding your new file to the table of contents