Step 1 - Create Ansible Global Vars File

Copy the below YAML into the your Terminal window to create the all file and populate contents of the file for the ansible_connection, ansible_network_os, and username/password information. Again, this is a file with key/value pairs. group_vars/all is where you place universal variables that apply for all devices.

Note: For passwords, it is best practice to leverage something like Ansible Vault. Due to the time contraints of this lab session, clear text is used.

Further, since NDFC is a single access and connection point into your staging and prod fabrics and Ansible will not be required to connect to each switch, you can define common configuration here that applies to both (or all) fabrics in this case. The new overlay VRF and associated networks are defined here. You will test deploying these to staging first, then prod using the NDFC Ansible modules.

touch /home/pod3u1/LTRDCN-2654/ansible-ndfc/group_vars/all.yml
cat <<EOF > /home/pod3u1/LTRDCN-2654/ansible-ndfc/group_vars/all.yml
---

ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.httpapi
ansible_httpapi_port: 443
ansible_httpapi_use_ssl: yes
ansible_httpapi_validate_certs: no
ansible_network_os: cisco.dcnm.dcnm
ansible_user: admin
ansible_httpapi_pass: cisco.123

fabric:
  name: MSD

vrfs:
  - vrf_name: AnsibleVRF
    vrf_id: 50001
    vlan_id: 2001
    attach:
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.13
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.18

networks:
  - net_name: AnsibleNet1
    vrf_name: AnsibleVRF
    net_id: 30002
    vlan_id: 2302
    vlan_name: AnsibleNet1
    gw_ip_subnet: "172.16.1.1/24"
    mtu_l3intf: 9216
    attach:
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.13
        ports: 
          - Ethernet1/7
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.14
        ports: [] 
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.18
        ports:
          - Ethernet1/7
  - net_name: AnsibleNet2
    vrf_name: AnsibleVRF
    net_id: 30003
    vlan_id: 2303
    vlan_name: AnsibleNet2
    gw_ip_subnet: "172.16.2.1/24"
    mtu_l3intf: 9216
    attach:
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.13
        ports:
          - Ethernet1/8
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.14
        ports: [] 
      - ip_address: 10.3.3.18
        ports: 
          - Ethernet1/8

EOF

Step 2 - Create Ansible Prod Inventory File

For executing the Ansible roles against your prod fabric, create a prod host file. This is a unique way to associate the NDFC instance to a prod group, but inturn, make the prod group a child of an ndfc group. You will create a staging host file in the next step like this. In doing so, you are able to use the ndfc group in both cases agnostically in your Ansible playbooks and roles.

touch /home/pod3u1/LTRDCN-2654/ansible-ndfc/hosts
cat <<EOF > /home/pod3u1/LTRDCN-2654/ansible-ndfc/hosts
# hosts file for Ansible playbook
[ndfc]
10.3.0.17

EOF

Contine to the next section to define your Ansible roles for switch discovery and creating an additional overlay.