Documentation

ios_command - Run commands on remote devices running Cisco IOS

New in version 2.1.

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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