Hi all, hope I’m in the right place for this question.
I’m trying to use Ansible to update the config on Juniper devices on our network. I’m starting with a small script to fetch the current running config, just as a sanity check to make sure my Ansible install is working correctly.
I’m fairly sure my playbook and inventory are correct - the connection is succeeding, but then it’s breaking down from there. When I try to run the playbook, I get the following error from Ansible, and the playbook fails:
nick.lockhart@netops-01:/srv/ansible$ ansible-playbook -u lab -k -i inventory playbooks/junos-get-info.yaml
SSH password:
PLAY [Get interface info to file] *******************************************************************************************************************************************
TASK [get interface information] ********************************************************************************************************************************************
An exception occurred during task execution. To see the full traceback, use -vvv. The error was: ansible.module_utils.connection.ConnectionError: b"name 'RPCError' is not defined"
[WARNING]: Platform linux on host lab-pe-02is using the discovered Python interpreter at /usr/bin/python3, but future installation of another Python interpreter could
change the meaning of that path. See https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.10/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for more information.
fatal: [lab-pe-02]: FAILED! => {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"}, "changed": false, "module_stderr": "[attached below]", "module_stdout": "", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE\nSee stdout/stderr for the exact error", "rc": 1}
PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************
lab-pe-02 : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
nick.lockhart@netops-01:/srv/ansible$
and I’ve printed the stderr to make it more readable:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/ansible/netcommon/plugins/module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 91, in parse_rpc_error
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 1342, in XML
parser.feed(text)
xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError: syntax error: line 1, column 0
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/nick.lockhart/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-21323x9h_bhk7/ansible-tmp-1718959778.907722-21326-77614718989736/AnsiballZ_junos_rpc.py", line 102, in <module>
_ansiballz_main()
File "/home/nick.lockhart/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-21323x9h_bhk7/ansible-tmp-1718959778.907722-21326-77614718989736/AnsiballZ_junos_rpc.py", line 94, in _ansiballz_main
invoke_module(zipped_mod, temp_path, ANSIBALLZ_PARAMS)
File "/home/nick.lockhart/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-21323x9h_bhk7/ansible-tmp-1718959778.907722-21326-77614718989736/AnsiballZ_junos_rpc.py", line 40, in invoke_module
runpy.run_module(mod_name='ansible_collections.junipernetworks.junos.plugins.modules.junos_rpc', init_globals=None, run_name='__main__', alter_sys=True)
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/runpy.py", line 224, in run_module
return _run_module_code(code, init_globals, run_name, mod_spec)
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/runpy.py", line 96, in _run_module_code
_run_code(code, mod_globals, init_globals,
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/runpy.py", line 86, in _run_code
exec(code, run_globals)
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/junipernetworks/junos/plugins/modules/junos_rpc.py", line 177, in <module>
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/junipernetworks/junos/plugins/modules/junos_rpc.py", line 158, in main
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/ansible/netcommon/plugins/module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 58, in exec_rpc
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/ansible/netcommon/plugins/module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 80, in __rpc__
File "/tmp/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload_sdq4f5bz/ansible_junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc_payload.zip/ansible_collections/ansible/netcommon/plugins/module_utils/network/common/netconf.py", line 126, in parse_rpc_error
ansible.module_utils.connection.ConnectionError: b"name 'RPCError' is not defined"
Getting an XML parse error is not what I’d expect - just to check, I manually SSH’d to the Netconf port, and as far as I can tell, it’s returning valid XML:
nick.lockhart@netops-01:/srv/ansible$ ssh -p 830 lab@[redacted]
(lab@[redacted]) Password:
<!-- No zombies were killed during the creation of this user interface -->
<!-- user lab, class super-user -->
<hello xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0">
<capabilities>
<!-- ... -->
Have I missed something in my playbook or inventory?
I’ve attached my files below for reference.
Inventory:
lab:
hosts:
lab-pe-02:
ansible_port: 830
ansible_host: # redacted - hostname here is correct
ansible_network_os: junipernetworks.junos.junos
ansible_connection: ansible.netcommon.netconf
Playbook:
---
- name: Get interface info to file
hosts: all
# roles:
# - junipernetworks.junos.role
gather_facts: no
connection: local
tasks:
- name: get interface information
junipernetworks.junos.junos_rpc:
rpc: get-interface-information
args:
interface-name: ae1
output: xml
register: config_output
- name: Write output to file
copy:
content: "{{ config_output | to_nice_json }}"
dest: "{{ playbook_dir }}/output/test-1.json"
And the output of ansible --version:
ansible 2.10.8
config file = None
configured module search path = ['/home/nick.lockhart/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible
executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
python version = 3.10.12 (main, Nov 20 2023, 15:14:05) [GCC 11.4.0]
I think I’ve attached everything I need to here - if further details on my setup or environment are needed, please let me know and I’ll add it as soon as I can.
Any help would be greatly appreciated - I’ve not really used Ansible before… 
