ios_command - Run commands on remote devices running Cisco IOS¶

New in version 2.1.

Synopsis
Parameters
Notes
Examples
Return Values
Status
- Support
- Author

Synopsis ¶

Sends arbitrary commands to an ios node and returns the results read from the device. This module includes an argument that will cause the module to wait for a specific condition before returning or timing out if the condition is not met.
This module does not support running commands in configuration mode. Please use ios_config to configure IOS devices.

Parameters ¶

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
auth_pass		Deprecated Starting with Ansible 2.5 we recommend using `connection: network_cli` and `become: yes` with `become_pass`. For more information please see the IOS Platform Options guide. Specifies the password to use if required to enter privileged mode on the remote device. If authorize is false, then this argument does nothing. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_AUTH_PASS` will be used instead.
authorize	Choices: no ← yes	Deprecated Starting with Ansible 2.5 we recommend using `connection: network_cli` and `become: yes`. For more information please see the IOS Platform Options guide. Instructs the module to enter privileged mode on the remote device before sending any commands. If not specified, the device will attempt to execute all commands in non-privileged mode. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_AUTHORIZE` will be used instead.
commands required		List of commands to send to the remote ios device over the configured provider. The resulting output from the command is returned. If the wait_for argument is provided, the module is not returned until the condition is satisfied or the number of retries has expired.
interval	Default: yes	Configures the interval in seconds to wait between retries of the command. If the command does not pass the specified conditions, the interval indicates how long to wait before trying the command again.
match (added in 2.2)	Choices: any all ←	The match argument is used in conjunction with the wait_for argument to specify the match policy. Valid values are `all` or `any`. If the value is set to `all` then all conditionals in the wait_for must be satisfied. If the value is set to `any` then only one of the values must be satisfied.
provider		Deprecated Starting with Ansible 2.5 we recommend using `connection: network_cli`. For more information please see the IOS Platform Options guide. A dict object containing connection details.
username		Configures the username to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_USERNAME` will be used instead.
authorize	Choices: no ← yes	Instructs the module to enter privileged mode on the remote device before sending any commands. If not specified, the device will attempt to execute all commands in non-privileged mode. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_AUTHORIZE` will be used instead.
ssh_keyfile		Specifies the SSH key to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is the path to the key used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_SSH_KEYFILE` will be used instead.
auth_pass		Specifies the password to use if required to enter privileged mode on the remote device. If authorize is false, then this argument does nothing. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_AUTH_PASS` will be used instead.
host required		Specifies the DNS host name or address for connecting to the remote device over the specified transport. The value of host is used as the destination address for the transport.
timeout	Default: 10	Specifies the timeout in seconds for communicating with the network device for either connecting or sending commands. If the timeout is exceeded before the operation is completed, the module will error.
password		Specifies the password to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_PASSWORD` will be used instead.
port	Default: 22	Specifies the port to use when building the connection to the remote device.
retries	Default: 10	Specifies the number of retries a command should by tried before it is considered failed. The command is run on the target device every retry and evaluated against the wait_for conditions.
wait_for (added in 2.2)		List of conditions to evaluate against the output of the command. The task will wait for each condition to be true before moving forward. If the conditional is not true within the configured number of retries, the task fails. See examples. aliases: waitfor

Notes ¶

Note

Tested against IOS 15.6
If a command sent to the device requires answering a prompt, it is possible to pass a dict containing command, answer and prompt. See examples.
For more information on using Ansible to manage network devices see the Ansible Network Guide
For more information on using Ansible to manage Cisco devices see the Cisco integration page.

Examples ¶

tasks:
  - name: run show version on remote devices
    ios_command:
      commands: show version

  - name: run show version and check to see if output contains IOS
    ios_command:
      commands: show version
      wait_for: result[0] contains IOS

  - name: run multiple commands on remote nodes
    ios_command:
      commands:
        - show version
        - show interfaces

  - name: run multiple commands and evaluate the output
    ios_command:
      commands:
        - show version
        - show interfaces
      wait_for:
        - result[0] contains IOS
        - result[1] contains Loopback0
  - name: run command that requires answering a prompt
    ios_command:
      commands:
        - command: 'clear counters GigabitEthernet0/2'
          prompt: 'Clear "show interface" counters on this interface [confirm]'
          answer: c

Return Values ¶

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key	Returned	Description
failed_conditions list	failed	The list of conditionals that have failed Sample: ['...', '...']
stdout list	always apart from low level errors (such as action plugin)	The set of responses from the commands Sample: ['...', '...']
stdout_lines list	always apart from low level errors (such as action plugin)	The value of stdout split into a list Sample: [['...', '...'], ['...'], ['...']]

Status ¶

This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface.

Support ¶

For more information about Red Hat’s support of this module, please refer to this Knowledge Base article

Author ¶

Peter Sprygada (@privateip)

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