cisco.ios.ios_facts – Collect facts from remote devices running Cisco IOS

Note

This plugin is part of the cisco.ios collection (version 2.5.0).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install cisco.ios.

To use it in a playbook, specify: cisco.ios.ios_facts.

New in version 1.0.0: of cisco.ios

Synopsis

  • Collects a base set of device facts from a remote device that is running IOS. This module prepends all of the base network fact keys with ansible_net_<fact>. The facts module will always collect a base set of facts from the device and can enable or disable collection of additional facts.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
available_network_resources
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
When 'True' a list of network resources for which resource modules are available will be provided.
gather_network_resources
list / elements=string
When supplied, this argument will restrict the facts collected to a given subset. Possible values for this argument include all and the resources like interfaces, vlans etc. Can specify a list of values to include a larger subset. Values can also be used with an initial M(!) to specify that a specific subset should not be collected. Valid subsets are 'all', 'interfaces', 'l2_interfaces', 'vlans', 'lag_interfaces', 'lacp', 'lacp_interfaces', 'lldp_global', 'lldp_interfaces', 'l3_interfaces', 'acl_interfaces', 'static_routes', 'acls'.
gather_subset
list / elements=string
Default:
"!config"
When supplied, this argument restricts the facts collected to a given subset.
Possible values for this argument include all, min, hardware, config, and interfaces.
Specify a list of values to include a larger subset.
Use a value with an initial ! to collect all facts except that subset.
provider
dictionary
Deprecated
Starting with Ansible 2.5 we recommend using connection: network_cli.
A dict object containing connection details.
auth_pass
string
Specifies the password to use if required to enter privileged mode on the remote device. If authorize is false, then this argument does nothing. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_AUTH_PASS will be used instead.
authorize
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Instructs the module to enter privileged mode on the remote device before sending any commands. If not specified, the device will attempt to execute all commands in non-privileged mode. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_AUTHORIZE will be used instead.
host
string
Specifies the DNS host name or address for connecting to the remote device over the specified transport. The value of host is used as the destination address for the transport.
password
string
Specifies the password to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_PASSWORD will be used instead.
port
integer
Specifies the port to use when building the connection to the remote device.
ssh_keyfile
path
Specifies the SSH key to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is the path to the key used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_SSH_KEYFILE will be used instead.
timeout
integer
Specifies the timeout in seconds for communicating with the network device for either connecting or sending commands. If the timeout is exceeded before the operation is completed, the module will error.
username
string
Configures the username to use to authenticate the connection to the remote device. This value is used to authenticate the SSH session. If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable ANSIBLE_NET_USERNAME will be used instead.

Notes

Note

  • Tested against IOS 15.6
  • Facts gathering for L3 devices are supposed to produce blank output for unsupported resources like vlan.
  • For more information on using Ansible to manage network devices see the Ansible Network Guide
  • For more information on using Ansible to manage Cisco devices see the Cisco integration page.

Examples

- name: Gather all legacy facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset: all

- name: Gather only the config and default facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset:
    - config

- name: Do not gather hardware facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset:
    - '!hardware'

- name: Gather legacy and resource facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset: all
    gather_network_resources: all

- name: Gather only the interfaces resource facts and no legacy facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset:
    - '!all'
    - '!min'
    gather_network_resources:
    - interfaces

- name: Gather interfaces resource and minimal legacy facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset: min
    gather_network_resources: interfaces

- name: Gather L2 interfaces resource and minimal legacy facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset: min
    gather_network_resources: l2_interfaces

- name: Gather L3 interfaces resource and minimal legacy facts
  cisco.ios.ios_facts:
    gather_subset: min
    gather_network_resources: l3_interfaces

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key Returned Description
ansible_net_all_ipv4_addresses
list / elements=string
when interfaces is configured
All IPv4 addresses configured on the device

ansible_net_all_ipv6_addresses
list / elements=string
when interfaces is configured
All IPv6 addresses configured on the device

ansible_net_api
string
always
The name of the transport

ansible_net_config
string
when config is configured
The current active config from the device

ansible_net_filesystems
list / elements=string
when hardware is configured
All file system names available on the device

ansible_net_filesystems_info
dictionary
when hardware is configured
A hash of all file systems containing info about each file system (e.g. free and total space)

ansible_net_gather_network_resources
list / elements=string
when the resource is configured
The list of fact for network resource subsets collected from the device

ansible_net_gather_subset
list / elements=string
always
The list of fact subsets collected from the device

ansible_net_hostname
string
always
The configured hostname of the device

ansible_net_image
string
always
The image file the device is running

ansible_net_interfaces
dictionary
when interfaces is configured
A hash of all interfaces running on the system

ansible_net_iostype
string
always
The operating system type (IOS or IOS-XE) running on the remote device

ansible_net_memfree_mb
integer
when hardware is configured
The available free memory on the remote device in Mb

ansible_net_memtotal_mb
integer
when hardware is configured
The total memory on the remote device in Mb

ansible_net_model
string
always
The model name returned from the device

ansible_net_neighbors
dictionary
when interfaces is configured
The list of CDP and LLDP neighbors from the remote device. If both, CDP and LLDP neighbor data is present on one port, CDP is preferred.

ansible_net_python_version
string
always
The Python version Ansible controller is using

ansible_net_serialnum
string
always
The serial number of the remote device

ansible_net_stacked_models
list / elements=string
when multiple devices are configured in a stack
The model names of each device in the stack

ansible_net_stacked_serialnums
list / elements=string
when multiple devices are configured in a stack
The serial numbers of each device in the stack

ansible_net_version
string
always
The operating system version running on the remote device



Authors

  • Peter Sprygada (@privateip)
  • Sumit Jaiswal (@justjais)

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2021 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/cisco/ios/ios_facts_module.html