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Support for Dell OpenManage Ansible Modules

Summary: Dell RedHat Ansible Modules allows Data Center and IT administrators to automate and orchestrate the provisioning, configuration, deployment, and update of PowerEdge Servers by leveraging the out-of-band (agentless) management automation capabilities built into the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC), Dell OpenManage Enterprise-Modular, and Dell OpenManage Enterprise. ...

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Symptoms

Ansible Mark Ansible

Dell OpenManage Ansible Modules allows Data Center and IT administrators to use Red Hat Ansible to provision, configure, deploy, and update PowerEdge servers through the management automation capabilities built into the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC), OpenManage Enterprise, and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular. Ansible by Red Hat is a DevOps tool that can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates.

OpenManage Ansible Modules simplifies and automates provisioning, deployment, and updates of PowerEdge servers and modular infrastructure. It allows system administrators and software developers to introduce the physical infrastructure provisioning into their software provisioning stack, integrate with existing DevOps pipelines and manage their infrastructure using version-controlled playbooks, server configuration profiles, and templates in line with the Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) principles.

 

Dell EMC OpenManage Ansible Modules

Enhancements to OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible Collection
  • OpenManage Ansible modules are available as an Ansible Collection on Ansible Galaxy.
  • OpenManage Ansible collection is certified and included as part of the Ansible community major release v3.0.0 and onwards.
OpenManage Ansible Modules for OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular
  • Smart Fabric management:
    • Network VLAN configuration
    • Fabric management – create, modify and delete fabrics
    • Uplinks management – create, modify and delete uplinks
    • Port breakout – configure port breakouts for fabric configuration
OpenManage Ansible Modules for iDRAC
  • Enhanced firmware update:
    • Check firmware compliance with check mode support
    • Improved job tracking till completion for all components' update
    • Removed dependency on python omsdk library for iDRAC9
  • Enhanced user configuration:
    • Support for configuring privacy encryption protocols (AES, DES etc.)
  • Enhanced server power management:
    • Removed dependency on omsdk for both iDRAC7/8 and iDRAC9
    • Standard redfish API support for power management operations
    • Bug-Fixes and Deprecations – please see the CHANGELOG for all the details
Ansible Roles: The following Ansible roles are also provided as part of this release. However, unlike the collection and modules, these are provided as is and community supported only
  • Import server configuration profile – import SCP from a remote network share (CIFS, NFS, HTTP/S) or a local path
  • iDRAC certificate management – generate certificate signing request (CSR), import / export certificates, and reset SSL certificate to factory default
  • iDRAC lifecycle controller job – get job status, delete a job, delete job queue and force delete job queue
  • iDRAC lifecycle controller status – get lifecycle controller status and the server status
  • iDRAC attributes configuration – iDRAC, LC and system attributes configuration
 
 
 

Features of OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible modules for OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular
  • Automate the lifecycle management of PowerEdge servers, MX7000 chassis and compute blades
  • Device Inventory and Health Status - View detailed device inventory, including health status, of all the devices OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular manage and monitor
  • Template-based server deployment:
    • Capture reference deployment templates from a golden server and deploy it on target servers to ensure consistent and repeatable configuration
    • Edit configuration templates as per the desired server configuration end state
    • Deploy OS images as part of the template deployment using a single task
  • Firmware baseline compliance using a catalog and firmware repository
  • User Administration – automate the CRUD operations for OpenManage Enterprise and OpenManage Enterprise-Modular users
  • Power Management – automate the power management operations such as power up, power down, graceful restart, etc. of servers and compute blades
  • Job Management – View job details and monitor their progress status within your playbook for complex workflows
  • Appliance Configuration – webserver, network proxy, time-zone, NTP, DNS, and IPv4 / IPv6 addressing including multi-homing configuration
  • Appliance web-server certificate management – generate certificate signing requests (CSR) and upload certificates
OpenManage Ansible Modules for iDRAC
  • Supports agent-free and automated bare-metal configuration, provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers with iDRAC7, iDRAC8, or iDRAC9
  • Leverages Redfish REST APIs provided by iDRAC for agent-Free (out-of-band) bare-metal provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers
  • Export Server Configuration Profile (SCP) containing the complete representation of server configuration in XML or JSON format to a remote network share (CIFS or NFS) or local file path
  • Import Server Configuration Profile (SCP) from a remote network share (CIFS or NFS) or local file path for a consistent and repeatable configuration
  • Use Ansible playbooks for zero-touch automated end-to-end configuration, provisioning, deployment, and update of PowerEdge servers:
    • Power cycle: power up, down, and graceful restart
    • iDRAC configuration
      • User and Password administration – create, modify, or delete local user settings
      • Network Configuration – iDRAC network settings including DHCP and Static address configuration
      • Services – Web server and SNMP settings
      • SNMP Alerting and Email settings
      • Configure Time zone and NTP settings
      • System Lockdown
      • iDRAC reset
    • BIOS configuration - configure all BIOS attributes using a single task including Boot Order, One-Time Boot settings, etc.
    • Storage configuration - create, modify, or delete multiple RAID volumes on direct-attached storage associated with a storage controller
    • OS deployment - deploy operating system ISO from a remote network share (CIFS, NFS)
  • Utilize Ansible modules for keeping status of the Lifecycle Controller jobs and construct a step-by-step workflow for your automation playbook
  • Get detailed component level hardware and firmware inventory
  • Perform Out-of-Band firmware updates from remote network file share (HTTP/HTTPS, CIFS, NFS) using Dell Update Packages and catalog files
 
 

Licensing for OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible Modules are open source and licensed under GNU GPL v3.0 License. Learn more >

 
 

Download of OpenManage Ansible Modules

OpenManage Ansible Modules are open-source stand-alone software. Dell is continuously improving the modules with minor releases containing new features, enhancements, and bug-fixes. For detailed information, read the CHANGELOG on GitHub repository. Take advantage of the new features and contribute to the ongoing development by either downloading the latest collection from Ansible Galaxy or by cloning the repository from the OpenManage Ansible Modules GitHub repository. Major releases of the modules may also be downloaded from Dell Support.

 
 

Resources for OpenManage Ansible Modules

Community

Engage in the Systems Management community to find:

  • Boards to post questions and answers
  • Blogs to read and comment on articles
  • Idea exchanges to improve products and vote for ideas that other community members have posted
  • And more...

Documentation

Refer to the OpenManage Ansible Modules Documentation. Sample playbooks can be found in the playbook folder.

Support

Videos

OpenManage Ansible modules for iDRAC - Overview

 

Demonstrate configuration of a PowerEdge servers using OpenManage Ansible Modules. In addition, demonstrate deploying the entire stack using a single Ansible playbook.

November 2018

OpenManage Ansible Modules for iDRAC - Out of band firmware update

 

Demonstrate updating firmware out-of-band on a PowerEdge server using a networked remote repository with OpenManage Ansible Modules.

August 2018

Cause

Dell EMC

Resolution

Dell Technologies 2021

Affected Products

OpenManage Ansible Modules
Article Properties
Article Number: 000177308
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 28 Feb 2023
Version:  8
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