Cisco Facts and Genie Parsed Commands to Business-Ready Documentation Ansible Playbooks

Written by John Capobianco

Ansible has several "Facts" modules - ios_facts and nxos_facts - that capture data and transform it into JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) which we then use Jinja2 Templates to transform again into business-ready documentation

Cisco also has release Genie parsers - combined with Ansible you can first run an IOS / NXOS show command, then with Genie, parse that command into JSON. Once you have the JSON you can transform it with Jinja2 into CSV / MD!

Prerequisites

1. Install Ansible

pip install --user ansible

2. Check version of Ansible

ansible --version

ansible 2.9.1

3. Install JMESPATH

pip install --user jmespath

4. Install Genie

pip install genie

5. Install node.js 12

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo bash -

6. Install GCC

sudo yum install -y gcc-c++ make

7. Install Node.js

sudo yum install -y nodejs

8. Install Mark Map

npm install markmap-lib -g  

9. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/automateyournetwork/Cisco_Facts

IOS and NXOS Facts

0. Update your hosts to match your CAMPUS or DC first. Make sure you have SSH connectivity from the Ansible host.

1. Run the ansible-playbook of choice

2. Supply Username

3. Supply Secret

4. Git add / commit / push created output files

5. Check output .CSV files

6. Check output .MD files

7. Check output .HTML files