Network Compliance with Ansible

Network compliance refers to ensuring that network devices and configurations adhere to prescribed policies and standards. Ansible is a powerful automation tool that can help achieve network compliance through configuration management and automation.

• **Configuration Management**: Managing configurations of devices to maintain compliance.
• **Idempotency**: Ensuring that applying the same playbook multiple times does not change the result after the first application.
• **Playbooks**: YAML files that define the tasks to be executed on the target nodes.

3.1 Prerequisites

• Install Ansible on your control node.
• Ensure SSH access to the target devices.
• Have the necessary modules for network devices (e.g., ansible.netcommon).

3.2 Installing Ansible

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ansible

4.1 Creating a Playbook

Below is an example playbook that checks the compliance of a Cisco device's hostname:

---
- name: Check Cisco device compliance
  hosts: cisco_devices
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - name: Ensure hostname is compliant
      ansible.netcommon.cli_command:
        command: "show run | include hostname"
      register: result

    - name: Fail if hostname is not compliant
      fail:
        msg: "Hostname is not compliant!"
      when: result.stdout != "hostname compliant_hostname"

• Use version control for your playbooks.
• Regularly update your inventory and playbooks to reflect changes in the network.
• Test your playbooks in a lab environment before deploying them to production.