Get Started with NetScaler Automation using Ansible

Get Started with NetScaler Automation using Ansible

NetScaler provides Ansible modules to support configuration of different NetScaler use cases, from load balancing to web application firewall policies. NetScaler automation through Ansible enables simplicity and agility, helping IT admins to maintain distributed IT infrastructure and even migrate across different environments.

In this tutorial, we will go through Ansible installation and configure our first basic use-case of setting up load balancing vserver on NetScaler:

Pre-requisite : NetScaler is installed, its NSIP, VIP and SNIP configured and ready to receive user traffic.

1. Setting up pre-requisite for Ansible

sudo apt-get install virtualenvwrapper

Edit the .bashrc file last line with “---"

source /usr/share/virtualenvwrapper/virtualenvwrapper.sh

After editing it, reload the startup file by running

source ~/.bashrc

Now create a virtual env

mkvirtualenv -p `which python3` venv_python3

2. Install Ansible and NetScaler Ansible modules

workon venv_python3

Install Ansible

pip install ansible

Install NetScaler collections for Ansible

ansible-galaxy collection install git+https://github.com/citrix/citrix-adc-ansible-modules.git#/ansible-collections/adc

Clone NetScaler GitHub Repo

git clone https://github.com/citrix/citrix-adc-ansible-modules

Install Python Nitro API SDK as shown below

(venv_python3) nsroot@autsvr1:~/automation-repos/ansible-ctxadc/citrix-adc-ansible-modules/$ pip install  deps/nitro-python-1.0_kamet.tar.gz

3. Define NetScaler configurations in  Ansible Playbook

Create a new playbook – my_lb_vserver.yaml with the content as below:

---- hosts: citrix_adc  vars:    max_clients: 5  remote_user: root  gather_facts: False  collections:    - citrix.adc  tasks:    - name: Set service 1      delegate_to: localhost      citrix_adc_service:        nsip: "{{ nsip }}"        nitro_user: "{{ nitro_user }}"        nitro_pass: "{{ nitro_pass }}"        validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}"        state: present        name: ans-service-1        servicetype: HTTP        ipaddress: 10.217.107.86        port: 80    - name: Set service 2      delegate_to: localhost      citrix_adc_service:        nsip: "{{ nsip }}"        nitro_user: "{{ nitro_user }}"        nitro_pass: "{{ nitro_pass }}"        validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}"        state: present        name: ans-service-2        servicetype: HTTP        ipaddress: 10.217.107.87        port: 80    - name: lb vserver 1      delegate_to: localhost      citrix_adc_lb_vserver:        nsip: "{{ nsip }}"        nitro_user: "{{ nitro_user }}"        nitro_pass: "{{ nitro_pass }}"        validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}"        state: present        name: ans-lb-vserver-1        servicetype: HTTP        timeout: 12        ipv46: 10.217.107.100        port: 80        servicebindings:            - servicename: ans-service-1              weight: "1"            - servicename: ans-service-2              weight: "1"        disabled: no

In above playbook, we are creating simple HTTP load balancing vserver named ans-lb-vserver-1 that will load balance user traffic across group of your backend services named ans-service-1 and ans-service-2.

You can configure the ipv46 of ans-lb-vserver-1 to the IP where you want to receive client traffic and define the ip of your backend app services in the ipaddress of ans-service-1 and ans-service-2.

Now create an inventory file such as here with your NetScaler credentials as follows:

[citrix_adc]myadc_1 nsip=10.78.60.200 nitro_user=adcusername nitro_pass=adcpassword validate_certs=no

4. Run Ansible Commands to apply configuration to NetScaler

ansible-playbook -i vpx_inventory.txt  my_lb_vserver.yaml

We will get above response where all the 3 tasks in playbook are executed successfully and lb vserver 1 configuration is updated.

To delete configurations you need to edit the state variable in playbook to absent state : absent for each resources that you want to delete. And then run the above ansible-playbook command again.

That’s the power of using Ansible with NetScaler, where various NetScaler configurations are defined as code in playbooks and executed as set of tasks with just one ansible commands. Explore various example playbooks here and build your desired NetScaler config easily.