More Ansible Network Examples

Our first Ansible network example took us from noob to running our first useful network automation task. Let’s try to build from the foundation and learn more features.

We will begin by see how we can build an inventory file that includes all of our network devices. If you recall, we have two data centers, each with core and edge devices:

Figure 5: Full Lab Topology

In this example, we will include all of the devices in our inventory file.

Inventory Nesting

We can build a inventory file that includes nesting. For example, we can put together a host file named ‘hosts_full’ that includes children from one group to another:

[lax_cor_devices]
lax-cor-r1
[lax_edg_devices]
lax-edg-r1
lax-edg-r2
[nyc_cor_devices]
nyc-cor-r1
[nyc_edg_devices]
nyc-edg-r1
nyc-edg-r2
[lax_dc:children]
lax_cor_devices
lax_edg_devices
[nyc_dc:children]
nyc_cor_devices
nyc_edg_devices
[ios_devices:children]
lax_edg_devices
nyc_edg_devices
[nxos_devices:children...