EXOS Platform Options

Extreme EXOS is part of the community.network collection and supports multiple connections. This page offers details on how each connection works in Ansible and how to use it.

Connections available

CLI

EXOS-API

Protocol

SSH

HTTP(S)

Credentials

uses SSH keys / SSH-agent if present

accepts -u myuser -k if using password

uses HTTPS certificates if present

Indirect Access

by a bastion (jump host)

through a web proxy

Connection Settings
ansible_connection:

ansible.netcommon.network_cli
ansible_connection:

ansible.netcommon.httpapi

Enable Mode
(Privilege Escalation)

not supported by EXOS

not supported by EXOS

Returned Data Format

stdout[0].

stdout[0].messages[0].

EXOS does not support ansible_connection: local. You must use ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.network_cli or ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.httpapi.

Using CLI in Ansible

Example CLI group_vars/exos.yml

ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.network_cli
ansible_network_os: community.network.exos
ansible_user: myuser
ansible_password: !vault...
ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q bastion01"'

  • If you are using SSH keys (including an ssh-agent) you can remove the ansible_password configuration.

  • If you are accessing your host directly (not through a bastion/jump host) you can remove the ansible_ssh_common_args configuration.

  • If you are accessing your host through a bastion/jump host, you cannot include your SSH password in the ProxyCommand directive. To prevent secrets from leaking out (for example in ps output), SSH does not support providing passwords through environment variables.

Example CLI task

- name: Retrieve EXOS OS version
  community.network.exos_command:
    commands: show version
  when: ansible_network_os == 'community.network.exos'

Using EXOS-API in Ansible

Example EXOS-API group_vars/exos.yml

ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.httpapi
ansible_network_os: community.network.exos
ansible_user: myuser
ansible_password: !vault...
proxy_env:
  http_proxy: http://proxy.example.com:8080

  • If you are accessing your host directly (not through a web proxy) you can remove the proxy_env configuration.

  • If you are accessing your host through a web proxy using https, change http_proxy to https_proxy.

Example EXOS-API task

- name: Retrieve EXOS OS version
  community.network.exos_command:
    commands: show version
  when: ansible_network_os == 'community.network.exos'

In this example the proxy_env variable defined in group_vars gets passed to the environment option of the module used in the task.

Warning

Never store passwords in plain text. We recommend using SSH keys to authenticate SSH connections. Ansible supports ssh-agent to manage your SSH keys. If you must use passwords to authenticate SSH connections, we recommend encrypting them with Ansible Vault.

See also

Setting timeout options