Ansible Collection for Arista Validated Designs¶

About¶

Arista Networks supports Ansible for managing devices running Arista’s Extensible Operating System (EOS) natively through it’s EOS API (eAPI) or CloudVision Portal (CVP). This collection includes a set of Ansible roles and modules to help kick-start your automation with Arista. The various roles and templates provided are designed to be customized and extended to your needs.

Full documentation for the collection is available on read-the-docs:

Reference Designs¶

The arista.avd collection provides abstracted data models and framework to build, document, deploy and validate the following designs:

Below are the underlay and overlay combinations that can be leveraged to deploy a layer three leaf spine (L3LS) Ethernet VPN (EVPN) fabric:

Underlay	Overlay	Topology
eBGP	eBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs
ISIS	eBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs
ISIS	iBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs
OSPF	eBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs
OSPF	iBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs
RFC5549(eBGP)	eBGP	Multi-Stage + L2 Leafs

Roles Overview¶

This repository provides content for Arista’s arista.avd collection. The following roles are included.

arista.avd.eos_designs - Opinionated Data model to assist with the deployment of Arista Validated Designs.
arista.avd.eos_cli_config_gen - Generate Arista EOS cli syntax and device documentation.
arista.avd.eos_config_deploy_cvp - Deploys intended configuration via CloudVision.
arista.avd.eos_config_deploy_eapi - Deploys intended configuration via eAPI.
arista.avd.cvp_configlet_upload - Uploads configlets from a local folder to CloudVision Server.
arista.avd.eos_validate_state - Validate operational states of Arista EOS devices.
arista.avd.eos_snapshot - Collect commands on EOS devices and generate reports.
arista.avd.dhcp_provisioner - Configure an ISC-DHCP server to provide ZTP services and CloudVision registration.

Arista AVD Overview

Custom Plugins & Modules¶

This repository provides custom plugins for Arista’s AVD collection:

Arista AVD Plugins

Installation¶

Collection Installation¶

Ansible Galaxy hosts all stable versions of this collection. Installation from ansible-galaxy is the most convenient approach for consuming arista.avd content. Please follow this guide.

Requirements¶

Please follow the requirements guide to install dependencies.

Ansible Configuration INI file:

Enable the following jinja2 extensions:
- loop controls
- do
Tip

Jinja2 Extensions Documentation

By default, Ansible will issue a warning when a duplicate dict key is encountered in YAML. We recommend changing this to error instead and stop playbook execution when a duplicate key is detected.

ansible.cfg

jinja2_extensions=jinja2.ext.loopcontrols,jinja2.ext.do
duplicate_dict_key=error

Note

When using ansible-cvp modules, the user who is executing the ansible-playbook must have access to both CVP and the EOS CLI.

Example Playbooks¶

Example playbook to deploy an Arista Validated Design via CloudVision:

Figure 1: Example Playbook CloudVision Deployment

# Play to build EOS configuration from EOS_DESIGNS
- hosts: DC1_FABRIC
  tasks:

    # BUILD EOS configuration
    - name: generate intended variables
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_designs
    - name: generate device intended config and documentation
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_cli_config_gen

# Play to configure CloudVision
- hosts: CVP
  tasks:

  # Generate CloudVision configuration & deployment
  - name: upload cvp configlets
    import_role:
        name: arista.avd.cvp_configlet_upload
    vars:
      configlet_directory: 'configlets/'
      file_extension: 'txt'
      configlets_cvp_prefix: 'DC1-AVD'
    - name: deploy configuration via CVP
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_config_deploy_cvp

Execute eos_validate_state playbook once change control has been approved and devices are deployed via CVP.

Note

Running this playbook requires the following:

ansible_host must be configured in your inventory for every EOS device.
eAPI access must be configured and allowed in your network.

# EOS eAPI state validation
- hosts: DC1_FABRIC
  tasks:
    - name: audit fabric state using EOS eAPI connection
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_validate_state

Example playbook to deploy an Arista Validated Design via EOS eAPI:

Figure 2: Example Playbook CloudVision Deployment

# Play to build EOS configuration from EOS_DESIGNS + Deploy using eAPI
- hosts: DC1_FABRIC
  tasks:

    # BUILD EOS configuration
    - name: generate intended variables
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_designs
    - name: generate device intended config and documentation
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_cli_config_gen

    # EOS eAPI deploy
    - name: deploy configuration via eAPI
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_config_deploy_eapi

    # EOS eAPI state validation
    - name: audit fabric state using EOS eAPI connection
      import_role:
         name: arista.avd.eos_validate_state

Full examples with variables and outputs, are located here:

Arista NetDevOps Examples

Contributing¶

Contributing pull requests are gladly welcomed for this repository. If you are planning a big change, please start a discussion first to make sure we’ll be able to merge it.

You can also open an issue to report any problem or to submit enhancement.

License¶

Project is published under Apache 2.0 License

Last update: August 10, 2022