It has been a while since the last post about Ansible network automation, and today let's change that. In this post, we are going to look at how to verify if a Cisco IOS-based device has a login banner and the correct one is set. Originally, I did not want to cover Ansible playbooks that a Network Configuration Management (NCM) software can perform. However, since there are a lot of organizations that do not have NCM, I figured I should include it anyway in case folks are interested in …
Automation
Ansible: Perform network availability check
In my previous post, we explored validating IP addresses and conducting network availability checks on a firewall. While these checks are valid, they don't provide a comprehensive view of the network’s overall status, especially in bigger networks. In this post, we'll explore a playbook that can be incorporated to perform network availability checks. However, this may not be valid in some environments where ICMP is not allowed. The Ansible playbook This Ansible playbook complements the …
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Ansible: Accepting user input variables
In my previous Ansible-related posts, both playbooks showed that the user would have to provide variable names and their respective values using the -e or -extra-vars command option. While that works, the user would have to memorize the variable names. If the playbook requires calling multiple roles with variable names, then memorizing all those variable names can be a nightmare. To make it easier for the users, we can leverage vars_prompt. Today, we are exploring how to accept user input in …
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Palo Alto Ansible Network Automation: Automating IP address validation
In my previous post, I shared a tutorial on writing an Ansible playbook to check for available and unavailable VSYS names on a Palo Alto Networks firewall. Today, we'll explore an Ansible playbook designed to verify the availability of user-defined IP address with prefix length on a Palo Alto Networks firewall. The Ansible playbook The playbook checks if the user-inputted IP address with prefix length is valid and within the range of RFC 1918. Moreover, it checks if the IP address …
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Palo Alto Ansible Network Automation: Automating VSYS name management
My Ansible network automation journey began two years ago, but it's been an off-and-on process due to changing priorities at work. Initially, I created a proof-of-concept Ansible playbook to configure a site-to-site VPN on a Cisco router using a network configuration template. In this blog post, I will share my experience of converting a Palo Alto network configuration template into an Ansible playbook. Managing expectations Although I am not an expert in Ansible or network automation, I …
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