Hi Everyone, 

       We need your input! As part of our ongoing efforts to improve automation capabilities for IBM Power systems, we're looking to identify any missing Ansible modules or functions in the current Power collection for AIX, IBM i, HMC, and VIOS.

If you've encountered any gaps or if there are specific features you'd like to see added, let us know by replying to this post. Your feedback will help us enhance the Ansible collection and deliver the tools you need to streamline your operations.

Thank you for contributing and making this community stronger!

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Hariganesh Muralidharan, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM
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Hi Hari,  Good to see you @LUG!  We have some Power Systems tasks we would like to automate:

SVC Freeze time monitoring for GlobalMirror Change Volume configuration - There is a CLI script around this but the core SVC code lacks this capability.   We use the POWER Automate bot to check freeze time every 15 minutes today and store results.   If freeze time for any system exceeds 45 minutes we are sent an alert every 15 minutes until freeze time falls below 45 minutes.

Setup of Storage Insights FlashSystem storage alert policies - Ability to have a script that will set up our default storage alerting policies.  Today, the default supplied by IBM sends too many alerts for issues not relevant to a remote storage configuration (ie. storage is 99% at capacity).  100% of storage is allocated so this alert is useless.

Power Systems (IBM i) Setup KPI health check playbook - A script that when run will use IBM Db2 for i health services SQL to pull common KPI indicators - CPU Utilization, Disk utilization, Disk average I/O response, Memory Utilization 

These are the ones I can think of right now.

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Jim Olliges
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Hi Hari - regarding the HMC collection, I would like reduce the number of hmc_command module calls I make. For example I would like some i *_facts modules that for things like SRIOVs, WWPNs, general lssyscfg and lshwres output etc., a module or role for setting up call home, an idempotent SRIOV module, a role to remove a service partition (I can share what I have). That's off the top of my head but for provisioning there could be more content. Thanks for the query!

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Michael Quaranta
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Hi Hari,

I've been using playbooks to automate a larger IBM i deployment, high level here's the workflow.

1. Configure HMC's (one off and since they need to be somewhat configured for Ansible to work, so not much there so far)
2. Create and install VIO server LPAR's
3. Create a LPAR (capture WWPN's)
4. Configure SAN switch zoning (using captured WWPN's)
5. Configure DS8K Host and Pathing
6. Add additional tape HBA's to the LPAR (capture WWPN's)
7. Configure TAN switch zoning (using captured WWPN')
8. (to be continued)

So from this, according to steps, here are some notes. I'm by no means an Ansible SME, so if I did things incorrectly, please disregard.

2a. Defining IO slots and virtual ethernet adapters is a bit painful. It works, but wondering if we couldn't make it more eye-readable than 21010010/none/0 and 2/0/1//2/1/ETHERNET0//all/none.

2b. After creating the LPAR, there's no way, besides running a HMC command, to capture WWPN's. (powervm_lpar_instance state=facts doesn't show NPIV WWN's · Issue #129 · IBM/ansible-power-hmc (github.com)). I end up using the lsnports command to capture WWPN's. While that works, the command lacks the ability to filter, sort, etc. So would be really nice to have a way to capture WWPN's from an newly created and not yet booted LPAR.

So far, what I've seen. The biggest miss so far is on the DS8K collection, but guessing that's not in your scope.

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Mark Steele
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Hello @HARIGANESH MURALIDHARAN !

I´ll post some more ideas when I have the time, but at the moment my biggest gripe (how the json output is structured..) is with using the ibm.power_aix.mpio Module, see (but not limited to) https://github.com/IBM/ansible-power-aix/issues/578 !

Thanks,

Ciao,

Steve

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Stephan Dietl
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Hari,

I do have one that would be helpful. A cron module.  The ansible.builtin.cron does not work on AIX.

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Mark Steele
------------------------------

Hey Mark,

we use the ansible.builtin.cron in different cases without problems. Can you share your problem, an example and the used ansible version with us?

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Niklas
System Engineer UNIX and Linux on Power
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Original Message:
Sent: Thu October 24, 2024 02:15 PM
From: Mark Steele
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hari,

I do have one that would be helpful. A cron module.  The ansible.builtin.cron does not work on AIX.

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Mark Steele
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Hey @Niklas Vosskoetter !

I have worked around the linux specific behaviour (user is put into the crontab which doesn´t work on AIX) with this clunky playbook:

   - name: Add it to the crontab
     ansible.builtin.cron:
      name: "{{ CRONNAME }}"
      minute: "25"
      hour: "5"
      weekday: "1"
      job: "{{ CRONCMD }}"
      user: "{{ USER }}"
      cron_file: /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}
      backup: true
     register: cron_output

   - name: Copy the backup back to the original folder
     ansible.builtin.copy:
      remote_src: true
      src: "{{ cron_output.backup_file }}"
      dest: /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}.ansiorig
      owner: "{{ USER }}"
      group: cron
      mode: preserve
     when:
      - cron_output.backup_file is defined


   - name: Make another backup for sedding the different format of the cron module AIX vs. Linux
     ansible.builtin.copy:
      remote_src: true
      src: /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}
      dest: /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}.ansiedit
      owner: "{{ USER }}"
      group: cron
      mode: preserve

   - name: Edit the User out of the crontab because AIX works differently than Linux
     ansible.builtin.shell: |
            cat /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}.ansiedit | sed -e 's/{{ USER }} \/opt/\/opt/' > /var/spool/cron/crontabs/{{ USER }}

With kind regards,

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Stephan Dietl
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Original Message:
Sent: Fri October 25, 2024 02:36 AM
From: Niklas V.
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hey Mark,

we use the ansible.builtin.cron in different cases without problems. Can you share your problem, an example and the used ansible version with us?

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Niklas
System Engineer UNIX and Linux on Power
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Thu October 24, 2024 02:15 PM
From: Mark Steele
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hari,

I do have one that would be helpful. A cron module.  The ansible.builtin.cron does not work on AIX.

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Mark Steele

Niklas, 
I stand corrected, the ansible.builtin.cron worked on AIX when I just tested it. Not sure what I did the first time. 

Thanks! 

------------------------------
Mark Steele
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Fri October 25, 2024 02:36 AM
From: Niklas V.
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hey Mark,

we use the ansible.builtin.cron in different cases without problems. Can you share your problem, an example and the used ansible version with us?

------------------------------
Niklas
System Engineer UNIX and Linux on Power
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Thu October 24, 2024 02:15 PM
From: Mark Steele
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hari,

I do have one that would be helpful. A cron module.  The ansible.builtin.cron does not work on AIX.

------------------------------
Mark Steele

Hey Hari,

from my point of view, we have a double view of the points with this thread, as many ideas are already noted in the Github issues.

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Niklas
System Engineer UNIX and Linux on Power
------------------------------

Hi Hariganesh,

It would be great to implement the AIX chdef command (Define default attributes values for devices).

Regards.

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Damien LEMAGNEN
AIX System Engineer/Architect
NETIXWARE
------------------------------

Hi,

For the Ansible Power collection modules for IBM i, I would rather see that the existing modules gets a refresh before adding new modules/functions.

What I feel is lacking for the existing modules:
Many of the ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_* modules is not idempotent, they will fail if the state is already the prefered state. The goal for Ansible modules is to have desired state and 'idempotency': https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_intro.html
As of now you have to check the state before you make the action or use ignore_errors: true

Some of the modules does not provide any added value than using the native CL command with the ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_cl_command module, for example:
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_start_subsystem
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_end_subsystem
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_tcp_server_service

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_start_subsystem and ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_end_subsystem: There is no reason to have two separate modules, they should be migrated to a common ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_subsystem module and use idempotency and also have the option to monitor for when all jobs and the subsystem are ended. Restart option would also be nice.

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_tcp_server_service: You can't specify instances for *HTTP, *IAS. This module should also have a restart option, so you could specify that a service should be restarted. 

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_sql_execute is lacking an option to set SQL options, it will fail if I try to change a non journaled file/table. There should be a parameter where you can set SQL options.

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_cl_command needs a parameter to set the same thing as you can do with the CHGJOB command, you may want to set a different library list or current library etc, before you execute the command.

This is just a few suggestions.

------------------------------
Krister Karlsson
------------------------------

I concur, that would be an important step to make the modules behave as expected. I've seen that same issue, not being idempotent, on the ibm.power_hmc.powervm_dlpar module when adding specific NPIV adapters, for example. 

------------------------------
Mark Steele
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Wed November 13, 2024 04:29 AM
From: Krister Karlsson
Subject: Input on Ansible for Power Use cases

Hi,

For the Ansible Power collection modules for IBM i, I would rather see that the existing modules gets a refresh before adding new modules/functions.

What I feel is lacking for the existing modules:
Many of the ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_* modules is not idempotent, they will fail if the state is already the prefered state. The goal for Ansible modules is to have desired state and 'idempotency': https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_intro.html
As of now you have to check the state before you make the action or use ignore_errors: true

Some of the modules does not provide any added value than using the native CL command with the ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_cl_command module, for example:
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_start_subsystem
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_end_subsystem
ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_tcp_server_service

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_start_subsystem and ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_end_subsystem: There is no reason to have two separate modules, they should be migrated to a common ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_subsystem module and use idempotency and also have the option to monitor for when all jobs and the subsystem are ended. Restart option would also be nice.

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_tcp_server_service: You can't specify instances for *HTTP, *IAS. This module should also have a restart option, so you could specify that a service should be restarted. 

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_sql_execute is lacking an option to set SQL options, it will fail if I try to change a non journaled file/table. There should be a parameter where you can set SQL options.

ibm.power_ibmi.ibmi_cl_command needs a parameter to set the same thing as you can do with the CHGJOB command, you may want to set a different library list or current library etc, before you execute the command.

This is just a few suggestions.

------------------------------
Krister Karlsson
------------------------------