Design Overlay Role Playbook

git branch --show-current

stage

---

---

The diagram above demonstrates how the main playbook tasks will call the Jinja2 templates to render the configuration files that will be used to deploy the VRFs and Networks to the fabric.

1. The task on line 6 uses the ansible.builtin.template module
2. This module calls the roles/configure_overlay/templates/cisco_live_attach_vrfs.j2 Jinja2 template
3. This Jinja2 template renders the configuration to a file called roles/configure_overlay/files/cisco_live_attach_vrfs.yml using the VRF variable data defined in group_vars/all/overlay.yml
4. The task on line 11 saves the rendered configuration to a variable called vrf_config which is then passed to the cisco.dcnm.dcnm_vrf module to create the VRF objects in NDFC

Step 1 - Examine overlay playbook

In this task you will examine the playbook file below that calls the cisco.dcnm.dcnm_vrf and cisco.dcnm.dcnm_network Ansible modules. This playbook will be used to create the VRF and Networks that are part of the overlay using the Jinja2 templates we learned about above.

---
# -------------------
# CREATE VRF SECTION
# -------------------

- name: Create file to hold rendered VRF information
  ansible.builtin.template:
    src: cisco_live_attach_vrfs.j2
    dest: "{{ role_path }}/files/cisco_live_attach_vrfs.yml"

- name: Create and store generated VRF configuration
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    vrf_config: "{{ lookup('file', 'cisco_live_attach_vrfs.yml') | from_yaml }}"

# -----------------------
# CREATE NETWORK SECTION
# -----------------------

- name: Create file to hold rendered Network information
  ansible.builtin.template:
    src: cisco_live_attach_nets.j2
    dest: "{{ role_path }}/files/cisco_live_attach_nets.yml"

- name: Create and store generated Network configuration
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    net_config: "{{ lookup('file', 'cisco_live_attach_nets.yml') | from_yaml }}"

# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# Manage VRF Configuration on NDFC
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
- name: Manage NDFC Fabric VRFs
  cisco.dcnm.dcnm_vrf:
    fabric: "{{ fabric.name }}"
    state: replaced
    config: "{{ vrf_config }}"

# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# Manage Network Configuration on NDFC
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
- name: Manage NDFC Fabric Networks
  cisco.dcnm.dcnm_network:
    fabric: "{{ fabric.name }}"
    state: replaced
    config: "{{ net_config }}"

Step 2 - Examine the jinja2 template for VRF configuration

The playbook above uses a Jinja2 template to render the VRF configuration. The template is located in the roles/configure_overlay/templates folder and is named cisco_live_attach_vrfs.j2. Below is the content of the template.

---
# This file is auto-generated
# DO NOT EDIT MANUALLY
#
{% for vrf in vrfs %}
- vrf_name: {{ vrf['vrf_name'] }}
{# ------------------------------------------------------ #}
{# Properties Section #}
{# ------------------------------------------------------ #}
  vrf_id: {{ vrf['vrf_id']  }}
  vlan_id: {{ vrf['vlan_id'] }}
{# ------------------------------------------------------ #}
{# Attach Group Section #}
{# ------------------------------------------------------ #}
  attach:
{% for switch in vrf_attach_group.all_leaf %}
    - ip_address: {{ switch['ip_address'] }}
{% endfor %}
  deploy: true
{% endfor %}

Step 3 - Examine global variables for the overlay

overlay.yml under the group_vars/all folder defines variables for all VRFs and Network objects that will be configured in the overlay.

---
vrfs:
  - vrf_name: &refvrf_devnet vrf_devnet
    vrf_id: 150001
    vlan_id: 2000
    attach_group: all_leaf

networks:
  - net_name: network_devnet1
    vrf_name: *refvrf_devnet
    net_id: 130001
    vlan_id: 2301
    vlan_name: network_devnet1_vlan2301
    gw_ip_subnet: "10.10.10.1/24"
    attach_group: esxi

  - net_name: network_devnet2
    vrf_name: *refvrf_devnet
    net_id: 130002
    vlan_id: 2302
    vlan_name: network_devnet2_vlan2302
    gw_ip_subnet: "10.10.11.1/24"
    attach_group: esxi

This generates the following configuration for the VRFs:

---
# This file is auto-generated
# DO NOT EDIT MANUALLY
#
- vrf_name: vrf_devnet
  vrf_id: 150001
  vlan_id: 2000
  attach:
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.12
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.13
  deploy: true

Step 4 - Define switch specific variables for the overlay

File /home/cisco/CiscoLive/DEVWKS-3928/group_vars/stage/overlay.yml defines the switch specific settings for the overlay.

Create the file and add content to the file using the following commands.

touch /home/cisco/CiscoLive/DEVWKS-3928/group_vars/stage/overlay.yml
cat << EOF > /home/cisco/CiscoLive/DEVWKS-3928/group_vars/stage/overlay.yml
---
vrf_attach_group:
  all_leaf:
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.12
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.13
attach_group:
  esxi:
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.12
      ports:
        - Ethernet1/15
    - ip_address: 10.15.30.13
      ports:
        - Ethernet1/15
EOF