Httpapi Plugins¶
Httpapi plugins tell Ansible how to interact with a remote device’s HTTP-based API and execute tasks on the device.
Each plugin represents a particular dialect of API. Some are platform-specific (Arista eAPI, Cisco NXAPI), while others might be usable on a variety of platforms (RESTCONF). Ansible loads the appropriate httpapi plugin automatically based on the ansible_network_os
variable.
Adding httpapi plugins¶
You can extend Ansible to support other APIs by dropping a custom plugin into the httpapi_plugins
directory. See Developing httpapi plugins for details.
Using httpapi plugins¶
The httpapi plugin to use is determined automatically from the ansible_network_os
variable.
Most httpapi plugins can operate without configuration. Additional options may be defined by each plugin.
Plugins are self-documenting. Each plugin should document its configuration options.
The following sample playbook shows the httpapi plugin for an Arista network device, assuming an inventory variable set as ansible_network_os=eos
for the httpapi plugin to trigger off:
- hosts: leaf01
connection: httpapi
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: type a simple arista command
eos_command:
commands:
- show version | json
register: command_output
- name: print command output to terminal window
debug:
var: command_output.stdout[0]["version"]
See the full working example on GitHub.
Viewing httpapi plugins¶
These plugins have migrated to collections on Ansible Galaxy. If you installed Ansible version 2.10 or later using pip
, you have access to several httpapi plugins. To list all available httpapi plugins on your control node, type ansible-doc -t httpapi -l
. To view plugin-specific documentation and examples, use ansible-doc -t httpapi
.
See also
- Ansible for Network Automation
- An overview of using Ansible to automate networking devices.
- Developing network modules
- How to develop network modules.
- User Mailing List
- Have a question? Stop by the google group!
- irc.freenode.net
- #ansible-network IRC chat channel