modify/edit irule using ansible

Hello.

There is only one module to deal with iRules ->

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.4/bigip_irule_module.html

From clouddocs perspective ->

https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/orchestration/ansible/devel/modules/bigip_irule_module.html

https://clouddocs.f5.com/training/community/gsts/html/class1/module3/lab07.html

KR,

Dario.

Thanks for your reply Dario. What I want is actually to edit/modify existing irules. I have seen this before its not so clear how to modify or edit existing irules. Or even If I want to take existing irule edit and recreate it.

Please help me.

Thanks in advance,

Ahmed

Hi Ahmed,

Ansible is a state machine. It will deploy a configuration with or without an iRule. The state option on the link provided by Dario hints at this. There is no such thing as edit. You would redeploy the iRule again to overwrite the old one. I would just run the playbook again with an updated file and see if it updates the F5's active configuration.

But I'm not able to write code for it. Can somebody please help me? I'm newbie.

Thanks in advance

Hi  ,  , Kindly please help me with code for redeployment. Please help me.

Thanks in advance,

Ahmed

Hi Dario,

My understanding now is with ansible it is not possible to modify/update existing irule. Is it possible in some other tools like tcl etc? Or do we have REST api for this?

Thanks in advance,

Ahmed

Hi,

I've had a similar challenge and used a combination of REST and Ansible modules, but everything called from Ansible.

In our case its imply to append an additional line to an existing irule for redirects of short names.

 - name: Test F5
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  become_method: runas
 
  vars:
    provider:
      user: '{{ f5_username }}'
      password: '{{ f5_password }}'
      server: '{{ f5_server }}'
      server_port: 443
      validate_certs: no
    irule_add: 'vanitytestxx05'
    irule_add_content: "if { ([HTTP::host] eq \"{{ irule_add }}\")} {\n  HTTP::redirect https://test.com\n }\n}"
 
  tasks:
  - name: Request F5 token
    uri:
      url: "https://{{provider.server}}/mgmt/shared/authn/login"
      method: POST
      force_basic_auth: yes
      return_content: yes
      body_format: json
      body:
        username: "{{ provider.user }}"
        password: "{{ provider.password }}"
        loginProviderName: "tmos"
      validate_certs: no
    register: token
    until: token is success
 
  - name: Get current irule content
    uri:
      url: "https://{{provider.server}}/mgmt/tm/ltm/rule/~Common~VANITY_irule"
      method: GET
      return_content: yes
      headers:
          X-F5-Auth-Token: "{{ token.json.token.name }}"
          Content-Type: "application/json"
      validate_certs: no
    register: irule_current
    until: irule_current is success
 
  - name: List irule content
    set_fact:
      irule_current_content: "{{ irule_current.json.apiAnonymous | regex_replace('}$', '')}}"
    # list content of irule "apiAnonymous" and remove last } in order to append new content
 
  - name: Add content to current irule
    set_fact:
      irule_combined_content: '{{ irule_current_content }} {{ irule_add_content }}'
 
  - name: ADD iRules to F5
    bigip_irule:
      provider: "{{item}}"
      module: "ltm"
      name: "VANITY_irule"
      content: "{{ irule_combined_content }}"

Additionally you could use REST for updating the irule instead of the bigip_irule module.

- name: Update irule
     uri:
       url: "https://{{provider.server}}/mgmt/tm/ltm/rule/~Common~VANITY_irule"
       method: PATCH
       return_content: yes
       headers:
           X-F5-Auth-Token: "{{ token.json.token.name }}"
           Content-Type: "application/json"
       body_format: json
       body: ' {"apiAnonymous":{{ irule_combined_content|to_json }}} '
       validate_certs: no

Hope this helps.