Welcome to NITA 22.8.

Packages built from this branch will be nita-*-22.8-x where x is the packaging release. This branch also contains patches from other branches or minor modifications as required to support the stability and usability of the release. There are also some backwards compatibility packages here for ansible and robot that allow projects written for NITA 3.0.7 to work without having to make any changes.

Note that NITA 22.8 is backward compatible with NITA 21.7 projects, provided the correct ansible and robot containers are installed.

Copyright 2021, Juniper Networks, Inc.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

The idea here is to provide multiple NITA based projects with a firm foundation that they can use to focus on solving customer problems rather than continually tweaking the underlying software.

It allows NITA projects to declare exactly which version of NITA they are compatible with.

Projects must explicitly use the versions of the containers provided by this package in order to avoid docker attempting to download from the registry. No containers tagged as "latest" are provided by the package.

Starting with Ansible 2.10, juniper.device ansible collection is added. This collection has been included in the requirements.yml file and will be built-in the container automatically. Existing juniper.junos role is still supported and works with Ansible 2.10. For more information on this transition see https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/junos-ansible/ansible/topics/concept/junos-ansible-modules-overview.html and https://galaxy.ansible.com/juniper/device. As of juniper.device collection 1.0.1 it is still currently recommended to continue to use the juniper.junos roles versus juniper.device collection per the galxy website.

NITA depends on docker-ce and docker-compose.

• For the docker-ce installation the instructions found here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
• It is recommended to follow this steps after installing docker-ce: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/
• To install docker-compose follow the instructions found here: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

This container holds Ansible executables, related libraries, and files for managing Juniper devices using Ansible. The NITA framework uses the nita-ansible container to run ansible playbooks included with the framework. Nita-ansible can also be used as a standalone container for executing your own playbooks. Simply put your inventory file and playbooks into a project folder on the system hosting the container. You will also want to put a bash script to execute the ansible-playbook command.

A simple project folder with a single playbook may look like this:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 auser auser  972 Jun  4 16:21 playbook.yml
-rw-rw-r-- 1 auser auser  148 Jun  4 10:42 hosts
-rwxrwxr-x 1 auser auser  136 Jun  4 16:22 runme.sh

The runme.sh should execute the playbook pointing to the hosts file as follows:

#!/bin/bash
ansible-playbook -i hosts playbook.yml

To use the nita-ansible container with your project folder, simply use the docker run command, mounting your project folder onto the container and passing the command to run your script like the example below:

docker run -u root -v /project_folder:/container_folder:rw  --rm  -it --name ansible juniper/nita-ansible:<version> /bin/bash -c "cd /container_folder; ./runme.sh"

You can execute the playbook into a bash shell and troubleshoot from the project folder mounted inside the container if your playbooks are not operating correctly by issuing the docker run command above with just the bash shell (remove everything after /bin/bash).

This container contains many built-in roles for building Juniper configuration files related to an EVPN VXLAN IP fabric. An example of a project using these roles can be found at https://github.com/Juniper/nita-webapp/tree/main/examples/evpn_vxlan_erb_dc. When invoking the container to use these roles an additional output directory needs to be mounted for the configuration files to be built and stored in the /container_build_folder (the example uses /var/tmp/build) folder as follows:

docker run -u root -v /project_folder:/container_folder:rw -v /local_output_folder:/container_build_folder --rm  -it --name ansible juniper/nita-ansible:<version> /bin/bash -c "cd /container_folder; ./runme.sh"

When invoking these built-in roles the build-folder needs to be passed to the ansible as a variable in the runme.sh file like this:

ansible-playbook -i hosts playbook.yaml --extra-vars "build_dir=container_build_folder"

This is the main Junos Ansible 2.9 role and is included in the nita-ansible container. This role allows Ansible to communicate with Junos devices. Information on the functionality that is provided with this Ansible role can found here: https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos-ansible/topics/reference/general/junos-ansible-modules-overview.html

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up a Junos eBGP IP fabric underlay. It includes configurations for forwarding, routing, and policy options as well as interfaces participating in the fabric and BGP protocol configuration. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "underlay_ebgp+", "core_interfaces+", "underlay_ebgp+"

Invoking this role from ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: switches
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: junos_qfx_common }
    - { role: ebgp_ip_fabric }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up a Junos policy and routing options for leaf nodes. It also checks the leaf_type variable and if it is type "border" will create the policy to export default routes via both EVPN and OSPF. Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_common }

Included in the evpn_vxlan_common role is junos_commit_config role which includes examples for using juniper.junos roles (commented out) and juniper.device collection (see ansible 2.10 and greater above)

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up a eBGP routing for DCI connectivity. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tab that holds the variable is "dci_ebgp+". Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_dci }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up iBGP EVPN overlay configuration for leafs in spine/leaf IP fabric. Also includes configuration for related switch-options stanza in Junos (vtep source interface, route-distinguisher, vrf-target). In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "evpn_ibgp+" and "base". Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_erb_leaf }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up iBGP EVPN overlay "lean" spines as iBGP route-reflectors for family evpn signaling. Of particular interest the configuration implicitly allows all neighbors from the defined loopback_subnet. This means all the leafs will initiate the BGP connection. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "evpn_ibgp+" and "base". Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: spines
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_erb_spine }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up L2 port information for devices connected to leafs in an EVPN VXLAN IP Fabric. Configures ports, ESIs, VLANs, LAGs, and IP addresses. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "evpn_port+" and "base". Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_port }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up VNI information for EVPN VXLAN configuration. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "vnis+". Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_vni }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make up VRF for EVPN VXLAN configuration. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information include "vrfs+" (and indirectly "vnis+". The example datacenter uses route-targets and does not create unique policies for each VRF. Invoking this role from an ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: leaves
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: evpn_vxlan_vrf }

Builds the configuration stanzas that make that includes configuration stanzas common to all junos devices. Configures ethernet device aggregation in chassis, grpc under system services, management interface (will configure DHCP if no IP address is assigned), static routes under routing-options, and snmp. It is invoked:

- hosts: switches
  pre_tasks:
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: junos_common }

This includes the configuration templates for the base Junos config portion of a QFX switch. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information related to this role include "base" and "password_hashes".

Invoking this role from ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: switches
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: junos_qfx_common }

This includes the configuration templates for the base Junos config portion of an switch. In the sample Excel file included with the NITA package for EVPN data center mentioned above, the tabs that hold the variable information related to this role include "base", "password_hashes", "vrfs+", and "firewall_port+".

Invoking this role from ansible playbook can be accomplished as follows:

- hosts: firewalls
  pre_tasks:
  connection: local
  roles:
    - { role: junos_common }
    - { role: srx_common }
    - { role: srx_firewall }

Once the device configuration files have been built and stored in the build folder, this role will manually commit the configuration files to their respective Junos device. Invokes as follows:

- hosts: all
  connection: local
  gather_facts: no
  roles:
    - { role: junos_commit_config }

If you need additional roles for your playbooks, create a folder in project directory called roles and copy the appropriate files from your local ansible installation's role folder. Ansible will look in /container_folder/roles for any roles that are not already installed in the container itself.

This role is not actually included in the default container build but is an example of a role that can be added via the project. This role is located at https://github.com/Juniper/nita-webapp/tree/main/examples/ebgp_wan and NITA loads it under the roles folder in the project folder.

This role contains junos configuration statements for the MX router in the WAN role in the NITA example project.

More complex examples of project folders can be found in the larger NITA project itself, particularly at https://github.com/Juniper/nita-webapp/tree/main/examples

For more information on NITA releases refer to the README.md for the NITA Webapp.