Documentation for ansible_network_provider

[jwoogee]

Is the expected action for users to set their inventory with the following variable? ansible_network_provider: ansible-network.cisco_ios (or whatever os they are working with)

If so, are these roles built just to interact with ansible_network roles? If so, should we just have the ansible_network_provider determined automatically from the ansible_network_os?

[IPvSean]

hey @jwoogee at this time yes, you would see something like this->

Networking Platform	Ansible Network Provider Role
Arista EOS	ansible-network.arista_eos
Cisco IOS / IOS-XE	ansible-network.cisco_ios
Cisco IOS-XR	ansible-network.cisco_iosxr
Cisco NX-OS	ansible-network.cisco_nxos
Juniper Junos	ansible-network.juniper_junos
VyOS	ansible-network.vyos

we might try to make this easier (defaults) in the future, but the goal is to make this super pluggable for other operating systems that are not these 6... (e.g. Dell, Huawei, etc) so that they can add support for a role without porting any code into the Ansible project

[jwoogee]

Thank you for the clarification. Would it make sense to add this variable requirement to the main READ.me or is there some other place you'd prefer? I can update the documentation, I'm just not sure where to.

[samccann]

How about adding a section called "Role Variables" and put it below the Requirements section? Then list the table @IPvSean has above? Also - how would a user of this role realize other operating systems have been added? I don't necessarily want to set it up that every new provider has to come in and update that table, but maybe that's the only option? (sorry - asking more questions than providing answers here at the moment..)