Unable to connect to BIG IP device using F5 module

[corpslave69]

Playbook: main.yml

---
- name: Read-only operations on F5 BIG-IP
  hosts: f5
  connection: local
  vars:
    provider:
      server: "10.177.85.144"
      user: "user"
      password: "secret"
      validate_certs: "false"

  tasks:
    - name: run show version on remote devices
      bigip_command:
        provider: "{{ provider }}"
        commands: show sys version

Inventory:

[f5]
proxy ansible_host=10.177.85.144

I'm unable to connect to the BIG IP device using SSH. When I run this playbook, I receive this error:

URLError: <urlopen error Tunnel connection failed: 500 handshakefailed>\n",
    "module_stdout": "",
    "msg": "MODULE FAILURE\nSee stdout/stderr for the exact error",
    "rc": 1

Why is it trying to connect via HTTP instead of SSH when I have specified connection: local?

[pgouband]

Hi @corpslave69,

By default it's going to use port 443 to reach out API endpoint as explained here https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/orchestration/ansible/devel/modules/bigip_command_module.html#bigip-command-module-3 on transport setup under provider.

You can specify cli transport in provider like the following:

    provider:
      server: "10.177.85.144"
      user: "user"
      password: "secret"
      validate_certs: "false"
      server_port: 22
      transport: cli

[corpslave69]

Thanks @pgouband ! That resolved my issue but now I'm getting this:

Unexpected failure during module execution: [Errno 8] nodename nor servname provided, or not known

And I've verified that this device is reachable from the control node (My PC) and it's IP is resolvable. Also I am able to SSH to this device using username and password. (I'd also like to note that I've not set up SSH keypair with this device and the SSH login is done through keyboard interactive mode.)

Also is there any way I can add this ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no' parameter to the provider dictionary?

[pgouband]

Hi @corpslave69,

I'm doing some test with CLI transport but I'm facing a different issue.
Why don't you want to use REST transport to execute tmsh command?

Also, regarding ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no', this can be added to inventory.
Here more information:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23074412/how-to-set-host-key-checking-false-in-ansible-inventory-file

[pgouband]

Hi @corpslave69,

We did some tests with success.

network_cli should be set:

- name: Read-only operations on F5 BIG-IP
  hosts: all
  collections:
    - f5networks.f5_modules
  connection: network_cli

also host file should look like:

[default]
10.1.2.3 ansible_network_os=bigip ansible_user=root ansible_password=mypassword