Network Configuration Listing
Ansible Environment Setup
Playbook Documentation
Ansible Vault Details
Ansible F5 Module Documentation
ZebOS Script Documentation
Ansible Variable Precedence

Running The Playbooks
Verify Config with TMSH
Creating the Playbooks
Modifying the Configuration

This repository contains Ansible playbooks as well as some other scripts and inventory files that allows the automated configuration of a network. The network has a preset configuration and those settings are detailed in the Network Configuration Listing file. However all settings can be overridden to suit the needs of the User.

The playbooks in this repo are meant to configure F5 Big-IP Traffic Management devices. In its initial creation, three Big-IP devices were configured, but as we will discuss, it is possible to have Ansible easily configure any number of these devices in a network.

The best place to get started depends on what is required.
reviewing the current network configuration is a good first step. If that is satisfactory, then setting up the Ansible environment would be the next best procedure.

Once the Ansible Environment has been setup, the playbooks can be executed. This can be done by either manually issuing each of the following, or by using the helper script BGP_Config.sh. On the Ansible host server, run the playbooks in the following order:

In a Command Line Interface (CLI)

• Note that after running each playbook, you should check the settings of each Big-IP to ensure you are getting exactly the results you anticipated.

  1. ansible-playbook -i inventory vlan_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass
  2. ansible-playbook -i inventory selfip_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass
  3. ansible-playbook -i inventory routedomain_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass
  4. ansible-playbook -i inventory vServer_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass
  5. ansible-playbook -i inventory vAddr_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass
  6. ansible-playbook -i inventory command_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass

  needs work: makeRoutingConfigFile_playbook.yml

The BGP_Config.sh contains:

ansible-playbook vlan_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass
ansible-playbook selfip_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass
ansible-playbook routedomain_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass
ansible-playbook vServer_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass
ansible-playbook vAddr_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass
ansible-playbook command_playbook.yml -i inventory --ask-vault-pass

These playbooks were made from a set of data given for a particular network configuration.

The data was derived from a testing environment.

This data was viewed using the TMSH or Traffic Management Shell, developed by F5.

All aspects of the network can be configured differently if the user supplies different values in the variable files.

F5 developed tmsh to allow complete access to all advanced features of F5 devices. Using tmsh you can configure and manage the system from the command line. You can also configure BIG-IP to manage local and global traffic, as well as view system performance data.

The specific commands used to view the data needed for creating the playbooks were:

If running commands from BASH: tmsh list net vlan
tmsh list net self-ip
tmsh list net route-domain
tmsh list ltm virtual
tmsh list ltm virtual-address

type in tmsh at the BASH prompt to enter the shell and use all the commands as above without the tmsh, i.e:
list net vlan.

to exit the TMSH, type exit

These commands will display the current configuration for each aspect of the network and allow verification as to whether all the settings are correct.

Example output for tmsh list net self-ip:

net self 10.1.30.20 {
    address 10.1.30.20/24
    allow-service all
    traffic-group traffic-group-local-only
    vlan Internal
}
net self 10.1.20.20 {
    address 10.1.20.20/24
    allow-service all
    traffic-group traffic-group-local-only
    vlan External
}

The configuration can be altered from that specified in the provided variable files. All Ansible playbooks are designed to be independent of hard-coded values. They are all referencial to either a group_var file or a specific host_var file.

1. Open the group_var file bigip.yml and edit whichever settings that are to be common across the Big-IP devices.

2. Open the host_var files bigipa.yml, bigipb.yml, bigipc.yml and make specific changes to each device if needed.

The Ansible scripts should still run and configure according to the new settings.