Ansible Collection - wwt.ansible_dnac

Ansible Modules for DNA Center

These modules provide declarative and idempotent access to configure the design elements of Cisco's DNA Center.

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Content

The webinar below was hosted by Redhat and delivered by Jeff Andiorio of World Wide Technology on 8/7/2018.

WWT / Redhat Ansible Webinar
AnsibleFest 2019 Presentation

DO I CHOOSE ANSIBLE, DNA CENTER OR BOTH?
Additional slides providing an overview of the modules can be found here:

Ansible DNA Center Modules Overview

Included Modules

The documentation can be viewed using ansible-doc and will provide all of the details including examples of usage.

dnac_syslog
dnac_snmpv2_credential
dnac_snmp
dnac_ntp
dnac_ippool
dnac_group
dnac_dns
dnac_discovery
dnac_dhcp
dnac_device_role
dnac_device_assign_site
dnac_cli_credential
dnac_activate_credential
dnac_banner
dnac_archive_config
dnac_del_archived_config
dnac_netflow
dnac_timezone
dnac_wireless_ssid
dnac_wireless_provision
dnac_wireless_profile

Inventory Plugin

This collection also includes an inventory plugin enabling the use of DNA Center as the source of truth for inventory.

Install the collection

ansible-galaxy collection install wwt.ansible_dnac

Configure the plugin by creating a file named dna_center.yml. This is the plugin configuration file and I usually save it in a directory named inventory.

plugin: dna_center
host: <your_dna_center>
validate_certs: <true or false>
use_dnac_mgmt_int: <true or false>
username: <username>
password: <vaulted password>

Enable the plugin by editing ansible.cfg

[inventory]
enable_plugins =  wwt.ansible_dnac.dna_center

Validate it works

ansible-inventory -i <path_to_dna_center.yaml> --graph --ask-vault-pass

Example output:

 @all:
   |--@barcelona:
   |--@demo_environment:
   |  |--@data_center_1:
   |  |  |--DC1-Border-INET.campus.local
   |  |  |--DC1-Border-MPLS.campus.local
   |  |  |--csr-atc-integration.campus.local
   |  |  |--dc1-nexus-7702.campus.local
   |  |--@data_center_2:
   |--@fira:
   |--@tech_campus:
   |  |--@bldg_56:
   |  |  |--@dnac:
   |  |  |  |--dc1-9300-a.campus.local
   |  |  |  |--dc1-9300-b.campus.local
   |  |  |  |--dc1-9500-a.campus.local
   |  |  |  |--prod-9800wlc-01.campus.local
   |--@the_cloud:
   |  |--@aws:
   |  |  |--FNH-HOSP-0BMT-WLC1A.us-east-2.compute.internal
   |--@ungrouped:
 /development/wwt/ansible_dnac #

Geo Lookup Plugin

This collection includes a lookup plugin which performs a resolution of the location provided to return the latitude and longitude. When adding buildings in DNAC, an address is required as well as the lat/long of that address. In the UI this resolution is performed for you. This plugin provides that functionality in this collection.

Below is an example task using the geo plugin.

# DNA Center Create Buildings
- name: create buildings
  dnac_site:
    host: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"
    port: '443'
    username: "{{ username }}"
    password: "{{ password }}"
    state: "{{ desired_state }}"
    name: "{{ item.name }}"
    site_type: "{{ item.site_type }}"
    parent_name: "{{ item.parent_name }}"
    address: "{{ item.building_address }}"
    latitude: "{{ lookup('wwt.ansible_dnac.geo',item.building_address).latitude }}"
    longitude: "{{ lookup('wwt.ansible_dnac.geo',item.building_address).longitude }}"
  loop: "{{ sites }}"
  when:  item.site_type == 'building'

NOTE: The geo lookup plugin is completely optional. Alternatively, you could manually resolve the lat/long and include them in the task. See the dnac_site module documentation for more information.

Requirements

Ansible version 2.9 or later is required for installation using Ansible Collections.

This solution requires the installation of the following python modules:

geopy to resolve building addresses and populate lat/long
pip install geopy
requests for http requests
pip install requests
timezonefinder for resolving the timezone based on physical address
pip install timezonefinder==3.4.2

Installation

These Ansible modules have now been packaged into an Ansible Collection.

STEP 1. Install the ansible_dnac collection

ansible-galaxy collection install wwt.ansible_dnac

STEP 2. Validation that the modules have been installed properly can be performed by executing:

ansible-doc wwt.ansible_dnac.dnac_dhcp

If the results show the module documentation your installation was successful.

vagrant@ubuntu-xenial:~/ansible-dnac-modules$ ansible-doc dnac_dhcp
> DNAC_DHCP    (/home/vagrant/ansible-dnac-modules/dnac_dhcp.py)

        Add or delete DHCP Server(s) in the Cisco DNA Center Design Workflow.  The DHCP Severs can be different values \ at different
        levels in the group hierarchy.

OPTIONS (= is mandatory):

= dhcp_servers
        IP address of the DHCP Server to manipulate.

        type: list

Examples

The examples below set the common-settings in the DNA Center Design workflow. Additional examples are included in the module documentation. ansible-doc *module_name*

name: test my new module
connection: local
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
no_log: true

collections:
  - wwt.ansible_dnac

tasks:

- name: set the banner
  dnac_banner:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    banner_message: "created by a new ansible module for banners"
- name: set the ntp server
  dnac_ntp:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    ntp_server: 192.168.200.1
- name: set the dhcp server
  dnac_dhcp:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    dhcp_server: 192.168.200.1
- name: set the dns server and domain name
  dnac_dns:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    primary_dns_server: 192.168.200.1
    secondary_dns_server: 192.168.200.2
    domain_name: wwtatc.local
- name: set the syslog server
  dnac_syslog:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    syslog_server: 172.31.3.237
- name: set the snmp server
  dnac_snmp:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password:  *****
    snmp_server: 172.31.3.237
- name: set the netflow
  dnac_netflow:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    netflow_collector: 172.31.3.237
    netflow_port: 6007
- name: set the timezone
  dnac_timezone:
    host: 10.253.176.237
    port: 443
    username: admin
    password: *****
    timezone: America/Chicago

Author

Jeff Andiorio - World Wide Technology