As an Ansible newcomer, I’m trying to write some scripts to standardize Cisco switch configuration. Unfortunately since Cisco doesn’t offer a way to clear existing configuration before setting (in this instance I’m wanting to erase and standardize syslog targets, which is mostly configured as one value, but on some switches may have never been set, or may have been pointed at one of three other hosts in addition to the normal), I decided the easiest way was to first fetch the current setting(s), then iterate through and erase them, then set the correct target.
This works fine, but it fails on a switch that has no current value set, so I used a ‘when’ clause to check if stdout from the collection task is empty. However, this isn’t working. If I print via debug the value of stdout, it certainly looks empty so why isn’t the when clause working?
Any help on what I’m doing wrong (or a better way to do it) appreciated? For the moment I can kludge around it by setting a value before I delete all the values, so that I know it should always have something and not worry about it, but that’s bad practice and I’d prefer to know what I’m doing wrong for next time!
`
-
hosts: switches
gather_facts: False
vars:
cli:
host: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”
username: user
password: password
auth_pass: password
transport: cli
tasks: -
name: Collect logging configuration
connection: local
become: false
register: syslog
ios_command:
provider: “{{ cli }}”
authorize: yes
commands: -
show running-config | include logging host
-
debug: msg=“empty”
when: syslog.stdout == “” -
debug: msg=“not empty”
when: syslog.stdout != “” -
debug: var=syslog.stdout
-
name: Remove existing syslog config
connection: local
become: false
when: syslog.stdout != “”
ios_command:
provider: “{{ cli }}”
authorize: yes
commands: -
configure terminal
-
no {{ item }}
-
exit
with_items: “{{ syslog.stdout_lines }}”
`
Output:
`
PLAY [switches] ****************************************************************
TASK [Collect logging configuration] *******************************************
ok: [switchname]
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
skipping: [switchname]
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [switchname] => {
“msg”: “not empty”
}
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [switchname] => {
“syslog.stdout”: [
“”
]
}
TASK [Remove existing syslog config] *******************************************
failed: [switchname] (item=) => {“commands”: [“configure terminal”, "no ", “exit”], “failed”: true, “item”: “”, “msg”: “matched error in response: no \r\n% Incomplete command.\r\n\r\nSwitchName(config)#”}
`
Thanks,
Steve.