2.2.1. Prompting for user input¶

You will create a playbook to prompt the user to provide credentials. Use the vars_prompt in your Playbook.

Run a BIG-IP tmsh command.

1. Create a playbook cmd.yaml.

   • Type nano playbooks/cmd.yaml
   • Type the following into the playbooks/cmd.yaml file.

   ---
   
   - name: "Run a tmsh command"
     hosts: bigips
     gather_facts: False
     connection: local
   
     vars:
       validate_certs: no
       server: 10.1.1.245
   
     vars_prompt:
       - name: "username"
         prompt: "Enter BIG-IP username"
         private: yes
       - name: "password"
         prompt: "Enter BIG-IP password"
         private: yes
   
     tasks:
       - name: View system version and LTM configuration
         bigip_command:
           commands:
             - list /ltm virtual all
             - list /ltm pool all
             - list /ltm node all
           server: "{{ server }}"
           password: "{{ password }}"
           user: "{{ username }}"
           validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}"
         register: result
   
       - debug: msg="{{ result.stdout_lines }}"
   

2. Run this playbook.

   • Type ansible-playbook playbooks/cmd.yaml

   You will be prompted to enter username and password before executing the playbook. If successful, you should see config for virtual servers, pools and nodes. username: admin password: admin

   Note

   Prompting is a great way to get input from the user. It can function in both an interactive, and non-interactive way.

   The bigip_command module is what we recommend for all situations where you need to do something that a current module does not support.

   This module will always warn you when you use it for things that change configuration. These warnings will inform you to file an issue on our Github Issue tracker for a feature enhancement.

   Ultimately, the goal we want to get to is to have a suite of modules that meets all the needs of customers that use Ansible. Since that is not yet possible, the bigip_command is there to accommodate.

   This module can also be used over SSH, but password SSH is the only method known to work at this time.