Ansible Community Documentation

FRR Platform Options

The FRR collection supports the ansible.netcommon.network_cli connection. This section provides details on how to use this connection for Free Range Routing (FRR).

Connections available 

	CLI
Protocol	SSH
Credentials	uses SSH keys / SSH-agent if present accepts `-u myuser -k` if using password
Indirect Access	by a bastion (jump host)
Connection Settings	`ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.network_cli`
Enable Mode (Privilege Escalation)	not supported
Returned Data Format	`stdout[0].`

Using CLI in Ansible 

Example CLI `group_vars/frr.yml`

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

The ansible_user should be a part of the frrvty group and should have the default shell set to /bin/vtysh.
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: Gather FRR facts
  frr.frr.frr_facts:
    gather_subset:
     - config
     - hardware

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