Ansible variables not recognized

[Gioacchino]

Hi, I'm going through this tutorial to learn ansible with Cisco 9k3

https://developer.cisco.com/learning/modules/intro-ansible-iosxe/ansible-ios-modules/gather-information/

All has been good till the moment I tried to run this playbook (ansible-playbook -v -i hosts 02-ios_facts.yaml)

---
- name: Sample IOS playbook to retrieve facts
  hosts: iosxe
  gather_facts: no

  tasks:
  - name: retrieve ios facts
    cisco.ios.ios_facts:

  - name: display version and serial number
    debug:
      msg: "The IOS version is: {{ ansible_net_version }} and the SN is: {{ ansible_net_serialnum }}"
  
  - name: print out interface information
    debug:
      var: ansible_net_interfaces

Besides the warning

[WARNING]: ansible-pylibssh not installed, falling back to paramiko

eventualy I get

"ansible_net_interfaces": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!: 'ansible_net_interfaces' is undefined. 'ansible_net_interfaces' is undefined"

I had a look at this page

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/cisco/ios/ios_user_module.html#ansible-collections-cisco-ios-ios-user-module

and I replaced the variable (ansible_net_interfaces) with others. Some are recognized (ansible_net_hostname), other are not (ansible_net_config).

Who's wrong? Me, Ansible or the IOS-XE version (17.09.03)?
If it is me, where am I wrong?

Thanks,

Gio

[Gioacchino]

Really no one has encountered this issue earlier?

Gio

[Gioacchino]

Who should define this variable or where this variable should have been already defined?

[Ben Hobday]

Hi Gio, did you figure this out? I'm now stuck on the same thing and new to it all.

[Gioacchino]

@Ben Hobday,

It's been a whilke that I haven't used it. I don't remember whether I have or I haven't found a solution
I have to resume work on this for sure in the future, at that moment I will update this thread.

Sorry,

Gio

[asherpat1]

Hi Gio,

I think its because the default 'gather subset' value in the cisco.ios.ios_facts module is set to min, meaning unless declared it will not gather many of those pre-defined variables

You need change the gather_subset parameter in the yaml file to either 'all' or to be more specific in your case 'interfaces'

Try this instead - it worked for me (my indentation might be bad sorry- i struggled to paste my yaml file and keep indentation but I ran this in my lab and it works)

---
- name: Sample IOS playbook to retrieve facts
  hosts: iosxe
  gather_facts: no

  tasks:
  - name: retrieve ios facts
    cisco.ios.ios_facts:
      gather_subset:
        - interfaces
  - name: display version and serial number
    debug:
      msg: "The IOS version is: {{ ansible_net_version }} and the SN is: {{ ansible_net_serialnum }}"

   - name: print out interface information
     debug:
       var: ansible_net_interfaces
...

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/cisco/ios/ios_facts_module.html#ansible-collections-cisco-ios-ios-facts-module - have a look at the 'gather_subset' parameter

Thanks

Asher

[rob-lobster]

Asher's solution is correct, it needs the gather_subset parameter. The playbook also needs the 

connection: network_cli parameter set higher if you're running from the requirements.txt, or it's not set as an environment variable.

Thank you for saving me trouble with the lab! Frustrating to troubleshoot broken labs.