ansible-role-arouteserver

A role to install and configure ARouteServer.

Description

This roles...

• installs ARouteServer and bgpq4

• copies a local general policy definition file (general.yml file) or builds one on the basis of best practices and suggestions

• copies a local list of clients (clients.yml file) or import it from an IX-F Member Export JSON file (like those exported by IXP-Manager)

• builds route server configuration files that can be finally pushed to the real route servers.

Please note: it does not sets up the real route server hosts, but only the host where ARouteServer will be executed.

The real route server hosts must be part of the group arouteserver_managed_routeservers to allow this role to find them.

Most of the behaviours of this role can be set using some variables that are documented below.

Installation

ARouteServer is installed using pip via PyPI or from a local package on the control machine. When the ansible variable arouteserver_upgrade is set to true (defaults to false), the --upgrade argument is passed to pip to allow an upgrade of the installation.

Any local file within the role's templates/config directory is copied into the ARouteServer's directory (Jinja2 templates are supported).

General policy (general.yml)

The general policy can be copied from a local file (Jinja2 templates are supported) or can be built on the basis of best practices and suggestions.

A general.yml file will be created for each route server host. Route server details (ASN, router-id, BGP daemon) are gathered from the variables of the host itself.

Clients list (clients.yml)

The list of clients can be copied from a local file or imported from IX-F Member Export JSON files, that can also be fetched via HTTP/HTTPS.

When it changes, the route server configuration files building is also triggered.

Route servers configuration files building

The route server configuration files are saved into the ARouteServer's directory; their names follow this schema: <hostname>-[bird4|bird6|openbgpd].cfg.

If set, an external handler is notified when the configuration files change.

Tags

• configure_policy: when set, only the general policy definition file (general.yml) is built.

• configure_clients: when set, only the list of clients is updated. If it changes, also the configuration files building is triggered.

• build_rs_config: when set, only the route server configuration files are built.

Requirements

No requirements.

Role Variables

Variables used by this role are listed below, grouped by topic.

Package installation

• (optional) arouteserver_local_package_file: when set, the role installs ARouteServer using the package at this local path, otherwise the last version from PyPI is fetched and installed (default).
• (optional) arouteserver_upgrade; when set to true passes --upgrade to PIP to enable selective upgrades of the upstream arouteserver python package.

Route server configuration: general policy (general.yml)

• (optional) arouteserver_general_cfg_file: set this variable to the local path of the general.yml file that will be used to configure ARouteServer (a Jinja2 template can be used). If not set, the configure command will be used to setup the policy definition file using best practices and suggested settings (default).

Route server configuration: client list (clients.yml)

Mandatory, one of the 3 following variables:

• arouteserver_clients_cfg_file: local path of the clients.yml file.

• arouteserver_clients_from_euroix_file: local path of an Euro-IX member list file that will be used to import the list of route server clients.

• arouteserver_clients_from_euroix_url: URL of an Euro-IX member list that will be used to import the list of route server clients. This can be used to integrate ARouteServer with IXP-Manager and to fetch the client list from there.

• (mandatory when Euro-IX import is used) arouteserver_clients_from_euroix_ixp_id: ID of the IXP referenced within the Euro-IX member list file.

• (optional) arouteserver_clients_from_euroix_extra_args: any extra arguments that should be used with the clients-from-euroix command. Example: --merge-from-peeringdb as-set max-prefix --vlan-id 123.

Route server customization: site-specific custom configuration files

The variables arouteserver_local_files_dir and arouteserver_use_local_files can be set to pass pointers to local custom files to ARouteServer via its --use-local-files command line option.

Route server operations: RFC8326 graceful shutdown

The variable arouteserver_perform_graceful_shutdown, when set, instruct ARouteServer to build the following configuration with the graceful shutdown option enabled, to temporarily drain traffic during a maintenance event.

Given the nature of the graceful shutdown operation, it's suggested to not set this variable to true permanently, but rather to pass it at runtime only before the maintenance is performed.

Integration with other roles

• (optional) arouteserver_notify_on_rs_change: when set, the role will notify this handler when route server configuration files are updated.

Directories layout

Directories and paths used to install the role components. Default values are reported below:

• arouteserver_venv_dir: ~/.virtualenvs/arouteserver.
• arouteserver_bin: {{arouteserver_venv_dir}}/bin/arouteserver.
• arouteserver_dir: ~/arouteserver.
• arouteserver_var: ~/arouteserver_var.
• bgpq4_dir: ~/bgpq4.

Host variable names

The following variables define the name of the hostvars used to gather some information from the route servers hosts. For example, the variable referenced by arouteserver_varname_rs_asn (rs_asn by default) must be defined for the route server hosts and must contain the ASN of the route server.

Please see the Example Playbook section for an example.

• arouteserver_varname_rs_asn: rs_asn, the ASN of the route server. Ex. 64496.
• arouteserver_varname_daemon: daemon, the BGP daemon used on the host. One of bird or openbgpd.
• arouteserver_varname_daemon_version: daemon_version, the version of the BGP daemon. Ex. 1.6.3.
• arouteserver_varname_router_id: router_id, the router-id of the host. Ex. 192.0.2.1.
• arouteserver_varname_local_networks: local_networks, comma-separated list of the local networks used by the IXP (needed to build filters that allow the route server to reject any announcement for the IXP own prefixes). Ex. 192.0.2.0/24,2001:db8::/32.

The values used to set the variables referenced by arouteserver_varname_daemon and arouteserver_varname_daemon_version (by default daemon and daemon_version respectively) must be set with one of the daemon and its version supported by ARouteServer.

They will be used to set the main command and the --target-version argument when executing the tool:

arouteserver <daemon> --target-version <daemon_version>

The help commands arouteserver --help and arouteserver <daemon> --help can be used to get a list of the currently supported values.

Dependencies

The hosts that represent the route servers must be part of the group arouteserver_managed_routeservers.

The variables referenced by the names reported in the Host variable names section must be configured on each route server host (or inherited by a group_var).

Please see the Example Playbook section for an example.

Example Playbook

hosts file:

[arouteserver_hosts]
172.17.0.2      # The host where ARouteServer will be installed and
                # executed to build route server configuration files.

[arouteserver_managed_routeservers]
rs1		# The hosts where the route servers will run.
rs2

group_vars/arouteserver_managed_routeservers file:

rs_asn: 64496
local_networks:
- 192.0.2.0/24
- 2001:db8::/32

host_vars/rs1 file:

daemon: bird
daemon_version: 1.6.3
router_id: 192.0.2.1

host_vars/rs2 file:

daemon: openbgpd
daemon_version: 6.2
router_id: 192.0.2.2

site.yml file:

---
- hosts: arouteserver_hosts
  gather_facts: False

  vars:
    arouteserver_clients_from_euroix_url: "http://ixp-manager.example.com/api/v4/member-export/ixf/0.6?apikey=123456"
    routeserver_clients_from_euroix_ixp_id: 1

  roles:
  - ansible-role-arouteserver

$ ansible-playbook -i hosts site.yml

License

GPLv3

Author Information

Pier Carlo Chiodi - https://pierky.com

Blog: https://blog.pierky.com Twitter: @pierky