Can network_cli or expect run tasks via SSH on simple embedded devices?

[CodeWaffle]

Hi all:

Not sure if I'm going about this the right way since I'm pretty new to Ansible.

Bu, can something like "network_cli" be used to drive simple to simple embedded devices over SSH in an expect-like manner?  

I've got a few devices that don't have a custom network_os or custom Ansible module defined.  They also don't have a full shell and just expose a simple command-line REPL. 

Some simple pxssh script might work too, but it would seem nice to expose these steps as first-class Ansible tasks too.

If this is doable via Ansible in a nice manner, can someone point me to the docs that cover this kind of use case?

Thank you!

[Ganesh Nalawade]

"network_cli" connection plugin creates a pseudo terminal on the control node which establishes ssh connection with target host. 

So ideally it can be used to talk to any SSH-based target host. network_cli connection plugin relies on value of ansible_network_os

config variable to load the appropriate terminal and cliconf plugin for the target host.

Fore more details refer: https://github.com/ansible/community/blob/master/group-network/network_dev_network_cli.rst 

[CodeWaffle]

Hi Ganesh:

I have indeed seen the docs you point to below, but the next question remains:  What is the correct value for "ansible_network_os"?

The docs seems to list only real gear like Cisco, etc.  Is there some base or generic option to choose?   A quick look at the source code did not seem to indicate anything obvious either.

Thank you!

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[Ganesh Nalawade]

The value depends on the name of the new terminal/cliconf plugin file added to support the new OS.

So if the plugin file name is 'foo.py' the value of ansible_network_os should be 'foo'.

The ansible_network_os value is used to load the right terminal