CVE-2023-20198  Reference: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxe-webui-privesc-j22SaA4z Overview Cisco recently published an advisory pertaining to an active exploitation of a previously unknown vulnerability in the web UI feature of Cisco IOS XE Software when exposed to the internet or to untrusted networks. This vulnerability allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to create an account on an affected system with privilege level 15 access. The attacker can then use that account to gain control of the affected system.   Recomm ..read more

Like any well-rounded individual, in times of intense concentration, you will find me talking to myself in search of some hidden knowledge that I might have received in a dream, or perhaps quoting something from a fantasy novel about wizards and creatures in an attempt to fix a problem. Unfortunately, wearing a robe and shouting “Repairo Network!” while pointing my pen toward the device has yet to help in any situation.  At the 2023 AnsibleFest, as part of the main stage demonstration, I used the magic of Event-Driven Ansible to integrate ChatOps in our fictional infrastructure drama. Ch ..read more

In the quickly evolving networking environment, efficient management of routing protocols is essential for reliable and optimized network performance. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful tool for streamlining repetitive tasks and orchestrating complex network configurations. One crucial aspect of platform-agnostic network management is the management of routing protocols, and in this blog post, we'll explore how Ansible Automation Platform can be utilized to manage OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), a widely used dynamic routing protocol. At AnsibleFest 2022 we announced a new form ..read more

Introduction At AnsibleFest 2022, we announced a new addition to the content ecosystem offered through Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform: Ansible validated content. Ansible validated content is use case-focused and provides an expert-guided path for performing operational tasks.   While Red Hat Ansible Certified Content Collections focus on how to integrate platforms (typically in the form of modules), Ansible validated content offers expert best practices and guidance for how to perform operations or tasks (typically in the form of roles or playbooks). Some Ansible validated conte ..read more

Overview When we get into the nuts and bolts of implementing a disaster recovery (DR) plan, an important step is to evaluate the tech stack that’s hosting the critical applications. The techstack oftentimes determines the order of operations and execution needed to effect the DR. Most organizations have the following tech stack pattern for their data centers: Each of these layers has their own SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) who will need to work in tandem to address complexities and challenges during a DR event, and create a plan to ensure business continuity.   Challenges in creating a d ..read more

AnsibleFest in October was an amazing experience; the best part was meeting and chatting about multiple network automation use cases with our customers and partners. In case you want to review the most relevant sessions, here is a summary on the abridged network automation related sessions that you can check on-demand for the next 5 months:   Why unified network automation and why now?  Bob Laliberte, Principal Analyst, ESG covers the complexity of modern networks which span across multi-domain teams including campus, branches, data centers, WAN networks and now edge across distribu ..read more

Tackling the complexities of enterprise inventories One common challenge our customers face is the need to track hosts from multiple sources: LDAP, cloud providers, and enterprise CMDB systems. Using a dynamic inventory allows users to integrate with these systems and update the Ansible inventory as it varies over time, with hosts spinning up and shutting down in response to business demands. Ansible supports two ways to connect with external inventory: Inventory plugins and inventory scripts.  Today we are going to cover dynamic inventory plugins as a Collection for network device manag ..read more

Since connectivity is critical to all types of business applications including cloud apps, managing and maintaining the network often falls into the overnight hours. This is great for the business, but it puts a large wrinkle in your work-life balance. Luckily, AnsibleFest is here to help you get more sleep!  Continued use of an overnight network management work model can leave you wondering what other technology career options are available… which may mean that your team is smaller than it used to be due to turnover. Search LinkedIn jobs for “Ansible engineer” and you will find as many ..read more

With the recent release of the ansible.netcommon Collection version 3.0.0, we have promoted two features as standard: libssh transport and import_modules. These features provide increased performance and resiliency for your network automation. These two features, which have been available since July 2020 (libssh) and March 2021 (import_modules), are now turned on by default for playbooks running the latest version of the netcommon Collection, so let's take a look at what makes these changes so exciting!   The road to libssh Libssh support was formally announced in November 2020 for FIPS ..read more

In this blog I would like to showcase the power of Ansible Content Collections to build powerful abstractions. Collections are a distribution format for Ansible content that can include playbooks, roles, modules and plugins. For this blog post, let us address an Infrastructure as Code(IaC) use case for network configuration management of BGP. We will walk through examples for both Cisco IOS and Arista EOS devices. First, let us define a data-model that encapsulates the vendor-agnostic configuration. bgp_global: as_number: '65000' bgp: log_neighbor_changes: true router ..read more