IOS XE ASR1001-X Ansible/Netconf identityref error

[Seth Beauchamp]

Hello, I have an ASR1001-X running XE 16.9.4. I am working on an ansible playbook to make certain configuration changes using netconf and yang. It works just fine against a CSR1000v running 16.9.4, but when I try the ASR1001-X I get the error below. Even trying a simple get-config produces the same error. I can ssh to the command line of the router just fine, i can also retrieve the capabilities as well. Any ideas?

The full traceback is:
  File "/tmp/ansible_netconf_get_payload_tvs6bfsr/ansible_netconf_get_payload.zip/ansible/    module_utils/network/netconf/netconf.py", line 86, in get_config
    response = conn.get_config(source=source, filter=filter)
  File "/tmp/ansible_netconf_get_payload_tvs6bfsr/ansible_netconf_get_payload.zip/ansible/    module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 76, in __rpc__
    return self.parse_rpc_error(to_bytes(rpc_error, errors='surrogate_then_replace'))
  File "/tmp/ansible_netconf_get_payload_tvs6bfsr/ansible_netconf_get_payload.zip/ansible/    module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 108, in parse_rpc_error
    raise ConnectionError(rpc_error)

fatal: [rtr01]: FAILED! => {
    "changed": false,
    "invocation": {
        "module_args": {
            "display": null,
            "filter": null,
            "lock": "never",
            "source": "running"
        }
    },
    "msg": "b'error: expected type identityref, got boolean.\\nerror: expected type     identityref, got boolean.'"
}

[Francesco Molino]

Hi

Don't have any asr right now available for testing but last time i used it, it was working just fine.
Have you followed this doc to validate netconf is enabled and accessible?
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/cns/configuration/xe-16-6/cns-xe-16-6-book/netconf-sshv2.html

You got RPC connection error and I would definitely re-validate the connection part.

[Seth Beauchamp]

Netconf appears to work if I use something other than ansible. I did some more testing last night and this problem appears to be specifically with the interaction between anisble and the ASR1001-X with XE 16.9.4.

I tried the same playbook against an ISR 4321 and an ASR1002-HX both with XE 16.9.4 and did not have the RPC problem.

[Francesco Molino]

Have you tested getting the config without ansible first to see if that works? Then run it through ansible without any more tasks to see how it works.
I'm sorry I don't use too often ansible, I prefer using other librairies/tools