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Run Arbitrary CLI Commands (racc)

This playbook runs arbitrary commands on a given node, stores the output in a flat text file, and archives the entire "run" in an archive file for easy copying to management stations via SCP. It is generally used for configuration backups, hardware inventory, and license information. The tool also supports automatic generation of file content hashes, helping to determine configuration drift across collection batches.

Contact information:
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @nickrusso42518

Supported Platforms

Any network device with a corresponding Ansible *_command module can be supported. The playbook currently provides Ansible task files for the various network operation systems shown in the list below. To add a new device type, create a new task file in the tasks/ folder along with a corresponding group_vars/ and inventory entry. These are all easy tasks given the abstract architecture of this playbook.

Testing was conducted on the following platforms and versions:

  • Cisco Catalyst 8000v, version 17.9.2, running in Cisco DevNet Sandbox
  • Cisco CSR1000v, version 17.3.3, running in AWS
  • Cisco CSR1000v, version 16.12.01a, running in AWS
  • Cisco CSR1000v, version 16.9.3, running in Cisco DevNet Sandbox
  • Cisco XRv9000, version 6.3.1, running in AWS
  • Cisco XRv9000, version 7.3.2, running in Cisco DevNet Sandbox
  • Cisco ASAv, version 9.9.1, running in AWS
  • Cisco ASAv, version 9.16.1, running in AWS
  • Cisco Nexus 3172T, version 6.0.2.U6.4a, hardware appliance
  • Cisco Nexus 9000v, version 9.3(3), running on VMware ESXi
  • Cisco Nexus 9000v, version 9.3(3), running in Cisco DevNet Sandbox
  • Cisco AireOS vWLC, version 8.3.143.0, running on VMware ESXi
  • Juniper vMX, version 18.4R1, running in AWS
  • Arista vEOS, version 4.22.1FX, running in AWS
  • Mikrotik RouterOS, version 6.44.3, running in AWS
  • F5 BIGIP, version 16.0.1.1, running in AWS
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.4 (Maipo)

$ uname -a
Linux ip-10-125-0-100.ec2.internal 3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP
  Thu Jul 6 19:56:57 EDT 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.11.12] 
  config file = /home/ec2-user/racc/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/ec2-user/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/ec2-user/environments/racc/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/ec2-user/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /home/ec2-user/environments/racc/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.7.3 (default, Aug 27 2019, 16:56:53) [GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-36)]
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True

Getting Started

Follow these instructions to quickly get started with racc. This README assumes you have Python and pip installed:

  1. Install Python packages: pip install requirements.txt
  2. Install Ansible collections: ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml
  3. Edit hosts.yml, the inventory file to suit your network
  4. Edit the relevant group_vars/ files based on your devices
  5. Run the playbook: ansible-playbook racc_playbook.yml

Variables

The group_vars/all.yml file contains connectivity parameters common to all network modules. These typically use network_cli. Note that if the legacy method provider method is used for some devices, it must first be defined. Then, individual task files for each platform must set ansible_connection: local in addition to manually specifying provider: "{{ provider }}" as a task suboption in most cases.

There are some minor variables that control the playbooks output products and formatting. These are not often modified:

  • remove_files: A boolean true/false question that governs whether items in the files/ folder are removed after a playbook run. Normally, this is set to true because the final archive is what really matter, and retaining all the uncompressed text files on the control machine is not a long-term solution. Setting this to false is useful for quick tests or troubleshooting.
  • hash_type: A string that specifies what hash algorithm to use when computing the hash of the contents of each file. These are written to a consolidated CSV file on a per-device basis. The algorithms available vary based on your installed Python hashlib version, but simple algorithms like "md5" and "sha1" are recommended. You can set this value to false to skip the procecss of generating hashes, which will cause the playbook to run a little faster.
  • newline_sequence: Determines what kind of line terminator to use for output files. See the Ansible documentation for a full list of options.
  • archive_format: Determines what kind of archive to create when the archive moduel is called. Any option supported by the version of Ansible in use can be used here. Some examples include zip, gz, bz2, xz, and tar as of Ansible 2.5. The zip format is usually appropriate when transferring to Windows-based SCP servers, and that is the default.
  • scp: Nested dictionary containing two subkeys below.
    • user: The SCP username that can write files to the SCP server.
    • host: The SCP server FQDN/IP address. Under its root directory, a directory called racc/ should be created. This is where the archives generated by this playbook are copied. This playdoes does not automatically perform the copying.

There are independent group_vars/ files for each network device type: routers, switches, and firewalls, and wireless LAN controllers for example. Each one has a key of command_list which specifies a list of commands specific to that product's CLI. After those commands are executed on a device, a filename equal to the command (spaces are replaced with underscores) is generated. CLI output redirection (pipes) are supported. It is recommended to type the entire command into the command value since these are printed to stdout during execution. Using abbreviated commands may confuse operators less familiar with some network CLIs.

Note that these are just examples and it is common to adjust the command_list on a per-run basis. For example, if collecting all routing tables is important to quickly troubleshoot a routing loop, simply add show ip route to the list, and run the playbook.

Task Summary

To make the playbook easier to read and troubleshoot, whenever a command is issued on a device, both the inventory hostname and the command being issued are printed to stdout. The example below shows a sample run with a variety of devices.

TASK [ASA >> Gather Cisco ASA information]
ok: [asav1]

TASK [IOSXR >> Gather Cisco IOS-XR information]
ok: [xrv1]

TASK [IOS >> Gather Cisco IOS/IOS-XE information]
ok: [csr1]
ok: [csr2]

Output Files

At the end of the playbook, assuming that remove_files is set to false for the purpose of discussion, the following filesystem components are created.

For each host against which this playbook runs, N files are generated, where N is the number of elements in the relevant command_list. Ansible inventory hostname and the date/time group (DTG) in UTC are included in the file names for easy identification. All files are written to files/ directory and are ignored by git. The format of all text files is <command_that_was_run>.txt while the parent directory format is <hostname>_<dtg>/.

$ tree --charset=asci files/
files/
|-- asav1_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_inventory.txt
|   |-- show_running-config.txt
|   `-- show_version.txt
|-- chr1_20210629T142431
|   |-- export.txt
|   |-- system_license_print.txt
|   `-- system_resource_print.txt
|-- csr1_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_inventory.txt
|   |-- show_license_all.txt
|   |-- show_running-config.txt
|   `-- show_version.txt
|-- csr2_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_inventory.txt
|   |-- show_license_all.txt
|   |-- show_running-config.txt
|   `-- show_version.txt
|-- n9kv1_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_install_active.txt
|   |-- show_inventory.txt
|   |-- show_license_usage.txt
|   `-- show_version.txt
|-- veos1_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_inventory.txt
|   |-- show_license_all.txt
|   |-- show_running-config.txt
|   `-- show_version.txt
|-- vmx1_20210629T142431
|   |-- show_configuration.txt
|   |-- show_interfaces_brief.txt
|   |-- show_system_errors_count.txt
|   `-- show_system_license.txt
`-- xrv1_20210629T142431
    |-- show_inventory.txt
    |-- show_license_all.txt
    |-- show_running-config.txt
    `-- show_version.txt

The actual text output is shown below. You can use the head -n-0 command to view all the outputs from a given device, which prints the filename at the start of each output, making it easy to determine where one output ends and another begins.

$ head -n-0 samples_nohash/csr1_20210629T142431/*
==> samples_nohash/csr1_20210629T142431/show_inventory.txt <==
NAME: "Chassis", DESCR: "Cisco CSR1000V Chassis"
PID: CSR1000V          , VID: V00  , SN: 92ASWZPKBOY

NAME: "module R0", DESCR: "Cisco CSR1000V Route Processor"
PID: CSR1000V          , VID: V00  , SN: JAB1303001C

NAME: "module F0", DESCR: "Cisco CSR1000V Embedded Services Processor"
PID: CSR1000V          , VID:      , SN:

==> samples_nohash/csr1_20210629T142431/show_license_all.txt <==
Smart Licensing Status
======================

Smart Licensing is ENABLED

Registration:
  Status: UNREGISTERED
  Export-Controlled Functionality: NOT ALLOWED

License Authorization:
  Status: No Licenses in Use

Export Authorization Key:
  Features Authorized:
    <none>

Utility:
  Status: DISABLED

Data Privacy:
  Sending Hostname: yes
    Callhome hostname privacy: DISABLED
    Smart Licensing hostname privacy: DISABLED
  Version privacy: DISABLED

Transport:
  Type: Callhome

Miscellaneous:
  Custom Id: <empty>

License Usage
=============

No licenses in use

Product Information
===================
UDI: PID:CSR1000V,SN:92ASWZPKBOY

Agent Version
=============
Smart Agent for Licensing: 5.0.6_rel/47

Reservation Info
================
License reservation: DISABLED

==> samples_nohash/csr1_20210629T142431/show_running-config.txt <==
Building configuration...

Current configuration : 10447 bytes
!
! Last configuration change at 12:00:08 UTC Mon Jun 28 2021 by admin
!
version 17.3
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime msec
[snip, running-config output omitted for brevity]

If hash_type is not a false-y value (such as Boolean false or null), you'll see a *_hashes.txt file as well. This file contains a two-column CSV file with the hash first and the filename second. You can double-check the hash computations using CLI commands such as md5sum, which should match the hashes computed by Ansible.

$ cat md5_hashes.txt
764c8f490b9038afe5a618854bb21852,files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_running-config.txt
fcd7bfac12290c1d7bd94bc195504d37,files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_inventory.txt
d3eaa829011e49cf04603ee926208a17,files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_license_all.txt
705640cd7519ce509b373f3243c45688,files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_version.txt

$ column -s, -t md5_hashes.txt
764c8f490b9038afe5a618854bb21852  files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_running-config.txt
fcd7bfac12290c1d7bd94bc195504d37  files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_inventory.txt
d3eaa829011e49cf04603ee926208a17  files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_license_all.txt
705640cd7519ce509b373f3243c45688  files/csr1_20230811T074823/show_version.txt

$ md5sum show*
fcd7bfac12290c1d7bd94bc195504d37  show_inventory.txt
d3eaa829011e49cf04603ee926208a17  show_license_all.txt
764c8f490b9038afe5a618854bb21852  show_running-config.txt
705640cd7519ce509b373f3243c45688  show_version.txt

Finally, the playbook prints out a shell command that can be copy/pasted by the user to quickly SCP the archive to an SCP server, assuming an FQDN/IP has been specified for it. This is useful for those unfamiliar with the Linux scp command.

scp archives/commands_20180603T070140.zip [email protected]:/racc/