Ansible Modules for Dell Technologies PowerFlex

The Ansible Modules for Dell Technologies (Dell) PowerFlex allow Data Center and IT administrators to use RedHat Ansible to automate and orchestrate the provisioning and management of Dell PowerFlex storage systems.

The capabilities of the Ansible modules are managing SDCs, volumes, snapshots, storage pools, SDSs, devices, protection domains, and to gather high level facts from the storage system. The options available are list, show, create, modify and delete. These tasks can be executed by running simple playbooks written in yaml syntax. The modules are written so that all the operations are idempotent, so making multiple identical requests has the same effect as making a single request.

License

The Ansible collection for PowerFlex is released and licensed under the GPL-3.0 license. See LICENSE for the full terms. Ansible modules and modules utilities that are part of the Ansible collection for PowerFlex are released and licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. See MODULE-LICENSE for the full terms.

Support

The Ansible collection for PowerFlex is supported by Dell and are provided under the terms of the license attached to the collection. Please see the LICENSE section for the full terms. Dell does not provide any support for the source code modifications. For any Ansible modules issues, questions or feedback, join the Dell Automation Community.

Prerequisites

Ansible Modules	PowerFlex/VxFlex OS Version	Red Hat Enterprise Linux	SDK version	Python version	Ansible
v1.2.0	3.5, 3.6	7.9, 8.2, 8.4, 8.5	1.3.0	3.7.x 3.8.x 3.9.x 3.10.x	2.10 2.11 2.12

• Please follow PyPowerFlex installation instructions on PyPowerFlex Documentation

Idempotency

The modules are written in such a way that all requests are idempotent and hence fault-tolerant. It essentially means that the result of a successfully performed request is independent of the number of times it is executed.

List of Ansible Modules for Dell PowerFlex

• Info module
• Snapshot module
• SDC module
• Storage pool module
• Volume module
• SDS module
• Device Module
• Protection Domain Module

Installation of SDK

• Install the python SDK named PyPowerFlex. It can be installed using pip, based on appropriate python version. Execute this command:

    pip install PyPowerFlex
  

• Alternatively, Clone the repo "https://github.com/dell/python-powerflex" using command:

    git clone https://github.com/dell/python-powerflex.git
  

  • Go to the root directory of setup.

  • Execute this command:

      pip install .
    

Building Collections

• Use this command to build the collection from source code:

  ansible-galaxy collection build
  

For more details on how to build a tar ball, please refer to: Building the collection

Installing Collections

Online Installation of Collections

• Use this command to install the latest collection hosted in galaxy portal:

  ansible-galaxy collection install dellemc.powerflex -p <install_path>
  

Offline Installation of Collections

• Download the latest tar build from any of the available distribution channel Ansible Galaxy /Automation Hub and use this command to install the collection anywhere in your system:

  ansible-galaxy collection install dellemc-powerflex-1.2.0.tar.gz -p <install_path>
  

• Set the environment variable:

  export ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATHS=$ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATHS:<install_path>
  

Using Collections

• In order to use any Ansible module, ensure that the importing of proper FQCN(Fully Qualified Collection Name) must be embedded in the playbook. This example can be referred to:

  collections:
  - dellemc.powerflex
  

• In order to use installed collection in a specific task use a proper FQCN(Fully Qualified Collection Name). Refer to this example:

  tasks:
  - name: Get Volume details
    dellemc.powerflex.volume
  

• For generating Ansible documentation for a specific module, embed the FQCN before the module name. Refer to this example:

  ansible-doc dellemc.powerflex.volume
  

Running Ansible Modules

The Ansible server must be configured with Python library for PowerFlex to run the Ansible playbooks. The Documents provide information on different Ansible modules along with their functions and syntax. The parameters table in the Product Guide provides information on various parameters which needs to be configured before running the modules.

SSL Certificate Validation

• Copy the CA certificate to the "/etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors" path of the host by any external means.

• Set the "REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE" environment variable to the path of the SSL certificate using the command:

    export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE=/etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/<<Certificate_Name>>
  

• Import the SSL certificate to host using the command:

    update-ca-trust extract
  

• If "TLS CA certificate bundle error" occurs, then follow these steps:

    cd /etc/pki/tls/certs/
    openssl x509 -in ca-bundle.crt -text -noout    
  

Results

Each module returns the updated state and details of the entity, For example, if you are using the Volume module, all calls will return the updated details of the volume. Sample result is shown in each module's documentation.