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Status Future consideration
Workspace AIX
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 26, 2023

Ansible operation for NIM

Almost every AIX environment has a NIM server as central point of management. Ansible requires ssh connection from Ansible controller to Ansible-managed systems. It is possible to unite both NIM as a central management server for AIX infrastructure and Ansible for automation. Many customers use NIM as an Ansible controller node to automate their AIX workloads.


The proposal is to add a new resource type ansible, which consists of a directory (similar to lpp_source) with playbooks and all information required to run them.


nim -o define -t ansible -a server=master -a location=/export/ansible/play1 play1


The playbooks can be then executed on NIM clients using cust operation:


nim -o cust -a ansible=play1 -a playbook=myplay.yml aix1


NIM client method on aix1 does something like:


if [[ -x /opt/freeware/bin/ansible-playbook ]] ; then

mount nim:/export/ansible/play1 /mnt

if [[ -f /mnt/myplay.yml ]] ; then

/opt/freeware/bin/ansible-playbook -c local -i localhost, myplay.yml

fi

fi


In this case:

  • we use standard AIX features to execute Ansible playbooks

  • we don't need additional SSH connections

  • we centralize Ansible playbooks to manage AIX on our already existing central management point NIM

Idea priority Medium