Gluware Ansible Inventory (Inventory plugin and Gluware Ansible modules)

This python package installs a Ansible Inventory plugin (glu_devices) to interact with a Gluware Control system to get the current network devices of a organization. A "inventory" user can be created in the Gluware Control system that can then be used in the configuration of the glu_devices inventory plugin to access the devices of the Gluware Control system.

The glu_devices Ansible Inventory plugin gives Ansible playbooks the ability to connect to Gluware devices and get the "ansible_network_os" property of the device to know what kind of device it is (if the discovery function in Gluware is used). The glu_devices inventory plugin also exposes to Ansible playbooks any custom Gluware device attributes that start with "ansible_var_" (minus the "ansible_var_" part) to act on within the logic of the playbook. In addition, the other Gluware device attributes can be mapped to Ansible variables through configuration settings of the glu_devices.

In version 1.2, Gluware Ansible modules are also installed to allow interaction with Gluware device data from within playbook tasks. The Inventory plugin was updated to supply the 'glu_device_id' for the Gluware Ansible modules. The modules are identified as follows:

• glu_audit_config
  • Perform a audit on the current captured config on a Gluware Device
• glu_capture_config
  • Perform a capture config on a Gluware Device
• glu_run_discover_device_attributes
  • Perform a discover device attributes on a Gluware Device
• glu_update_device_attributes
  • Update device attributes on a Gluware Device

To install on the system that is running Ansible run the command line: "pip install gluware-ansible-inventory". If updating to a later version the run the command line: "pip install -I gluware-ansible-inventory".

After install run the command line: "ansible-doc -t inventory glu_devices" to see the specifics of how to use the glu_devices inventory plugin to connect to the Gluware Control system. To see the documentation for each module run the command line: "ansible-doc -t module {{ module_name }}".

• Install Command

  • $ pip install gluware-ansible-inventory

• Update Command:

  • $ pip install -I gluware-ansible-inventory

• Usage documentation command after install

  • $ ansible-doc -t inventory glu_devices
  • $ ansible-doc -t module glu_audit_config
  • $ ansible-doc -t module glu_capture_config
  • $ ansible-doc -t module glu_run_discover_device_attributes
  • $ ansible-doc -t module glu_update_device_attributes

• Installation imlementation note:

  • The 'pip install gluware-ansible-inventory' places the 'glu_devices.py' file in the '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/inventory/' directory for ansible to find the glu_devices inventory plugin. The modules are placed in the '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules/' directory for ansible to find the Gluware modules.
  • The inventory plugin is just the 'glu_devices.py' file with no other files being used.