Unable to connect to Cisco IOS devices using network_cli - socket is closed error

[Caleb Guerrero]

Hello,

I have been attempting to connect to various Cisco IOS devices in our dev environment with no luck using the network_cli connection method. I can communicate with all devices when running 'ansible ios -m ping' and setting the connection method to 'ansible_connection: local'; however I cannot ping them when using the 'ansible_connection: network_cli.'  When using the network_cli connection method I get a socket error stating "socket is closed." I can ssh manually to all of my cisco ios devices also. More information on release and ansible.cfg can be seen below:

Ansible version - 2.5.2

RHEL release - 7.5

ansible.cfg:

[defaults]

inventory      = inventory/dev/

host_key_checking = False
roles_path    = ~/.ansible/roles:roles/

log_path = /home/cjguerrero/ansible/Ansible-NIS/ansible.log

[paramiko conneciton]

[ssh connection]

[persistent connection]

connect_timeout = 60
command_timeout = 30

One thing that is interesting in the debug logs is that I can see the login banner for the cisco device; however it never retrieves the config and ultimately ends with an error... Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Caleb