bigip_command - Run arbitrary command on F5 devices¶

New in version 2.4.

Synopsis
- Requirements
Parameters
Notes
Examples
Return Values
Status
Maintenance
- Author

Synopsis ¶

Sends an arbitrary command to an BIG-IP 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 is not idempotent, nor will it ever be. It is intended as a stop-gap measure to satisfy automation requirements until such a time as a real module has been developed to configure in the way you need.
If you are using this module, you should probably also be filing an issue to have a real module created for your needs.

Requirements ¶

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

f5-sdk >= 3.0.16

Parameters ¶

Parameter		Choices/Defaults	Comments
chdir (added in 2.6)			Change into this directory before running the command.
commands required			The commands to send to the remote BIG-IP 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 as expired. Only `tmsh` commands are supported. If you are piping or adding additional logic that is outside of `tmsh` (such as grep'ing, awk'ing or other shell related things that are not `tmsh`, this behavior is not supported.
interval		Default: 1	Configures the interval in seconds to wait between retries of the command. If the command does not pass the specified conditional, the interval indicates how to long to wait before trying the command again.
match		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.
password required			The password for the user account used to connect to the BIG-IP. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_PASSWORD`. aliases: pass, pwd
provider (added in 2.5)		Default: None	A dict object containing connection details.
	ssh_keyfile		Specifies the SSH keyfile to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This argument is only used for cli transports. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `ANSIBLE_NET_SSH_KEYFILE`.
	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.
	server required		The BIG-IP host. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_SERVER`.
	user required		The username to connect to the BIG-IP with. This user must have administrative privileges on the device. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_USER`.
	server_port	Default: 443	The BIG-IP server port. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_SERVER_PORT`.
	password required		The password for the user account used to connect to the BIG-IP. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_PASSWORD`. aliases: pass, pwd
	validate_certs bool	Choices: no yes ←	If `no`, SSL certificates are not validated. Use this only on personally controlled sites using self-signed certificates. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_VALIDATE_CERTS`.
	transport required	Choices: rest cli ←	Configures the transport connection to use when connecting 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 conditionals.
server required			The BIG-IP host. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_SERVER`.
server_port (added in 2.2)		Default: 443	The BIG-IP server port. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_SERVER_PORT`.
transport required (added in 2.5)		Choices: rest ← cli	Configures the transport connection to use when connecting to the remote device. The transport argument supports connectivity to the device over cli (ssh) or rest.
user required			The username to connect to the BIG-IP with. This user must have administrative privileges on the device. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_USER`.
validate_certs bool (added in 2.0)		Choices: no yes ←	If `no`, SSL certificates are not validated. Use this only on personally controlled sites using self-signed certificates. You may omit this option by setting the environment variable `F5_VALIDATE_CERTS`.
wait_for			Specifies what to evaluate from the output of the command and what conditionals to apply. This argument will cause the task to wait for a particular conditional to be true before moving forward. If the conditional is not true by the configured retries, the task fails. See examples. aliases: waitfor
warn bool (added in 2.6)		Choices: no yes ←	Whether the module should raise warnings related to command idempotency or not. Note that the F5 Ansible developers specifically leave this on to make you aware that your usage of this module may be better served by official F5 Ansible modules. This module should always be used as a last resort.

Notes ¶

Note

For more information on using Ansible to manage F5 Networks devices see https://www.ansible.com/integrations/networks/f5.
Requires the f5-sdk Python package on the host. This is as easy as pip install f5-sdk.
Requires BIG-IP software version >= 12.
The F5 modules only manipulate the running configuration of the F5 product. To ensure that BIG-IP specific configuration persists to disk, be sure to include at least one task that uses the bigip_config module to save the running configuration. Refer to the module’s documentation for the correct usage of the module to save your running configuration.

Examples ¶

- name: run show version on remote devices
  bigip_command:
    commands: show sys version
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: run show version and check to see if output contains BIG-IP
  bigip_command:
    commands: show sys version
    wait_for: result[0] contains BIG-IP
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  register: result
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: run multiple commands on remote nodes
  bigip_command:
    commands:
      - show sys version
      - list ltm virtual
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: run multiple commands and evaluate the output
  bigip_command:
    commands:
      - show sys version
      - list ltm virtual
    wait_for:
      - result[0] contains BIG-IP
      - result[1] contains my-vs
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  register: result
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: tmsh prefixes will automatically be handled
  bigip_command:
    commands:
      - show sys version
      - tmsh list ltm virtual
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Delete all LTM nodes in Partition1, assuming no dependencies exist
  bigip_command:
    commands:
      - delete ltm node all
    chdir: Partition1
    server: lb.mydomain.com
    password: secret
    user: admin
    validate_certs: no
  delegate_to: localhost

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	The set of responses from the commands. Sample: ['...', '...']
stdout_lines list	always	The value of stdout split into a list. Sample: [['...', '...'], ['...'], ['...']]
warn bool	changed	Whether or not to raise warnings about modification commands. Sample: True

Status ¶

This module is flagged as stableinterface which means that the maintainers for this module guarantee that no backward incompatible interface changes will be made.

Maintenance ¶

This module is flagged as certified which means that it is maintained by an Ansible Partner. See Module Maintenance & Support for more info.

For a list of other modules that are also maintained by an Ansible Partner, see here.

Author ¶

Tim Rupp (@caphrim007)

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