Tell Ansible to iterate through a big (network camera) configuration yml and update 100 values simultaneously one api call

Question

I've got a .yml file filled with hundreds of configuration values for an Axis network camera. The contents look like this:

---
axis:
  config:
    "Bandwidth.Limit": 0
    "HTTPS.AllowTLS1": "no"
    "HTTPS.AllowTLS11": "no"
    "HTTPS.AllowSSLV3": "no"
    "HTTPS.Ciphers": AES256-SHA:AES128-SHA
    "HTTPS.Enabled": "yes"
    "HTTPS.Port": 443
    ...

The Axis API, called Vapix, provides an update function that updates a value, so I circled through the values and triggered a new API call with every iteration:

---
  - name: update parameters
    local_action:
      module: uri 
      user: "{{ axis_snmp_role.login_user }}"
      password: "{{ axis_snmp_role.login_password }}"
      url: "{{ axis_snmp_role.server_url }}?action=update&{{ item.key }}={{ item.value }}"
      validate_certs: false
    with_dict: "{{ axis.config }}"

Turns out this works, but takes forever. I manually found out that it's possible to update multiple values with one API call by glueing the key/value-pairs together with the &-symbol like this:

https://{{ axis_snmp_role.server_url }}/axis-cgi/param.cgi?action=update&ImageSource.I0.Sensor.ExposureValue=100&Image.I0.Appearance.Compression=50

Is it possible to craft an Ansible loop that reads 100 key/values-pairs at once, creates one big api call with all of them, sends it off and repeats this until the end of the config file is reached?

Zeitounator · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-09T15:49:46.510

1

Simply create a list of query parameters in a loop and send it at once joining them with &.

---
- name: Create a parameter list
  set_fact:
    my_params: "{{ my_params | default([]) + [îtem.key + '=' + item.value] }}"
  with_dict: "{{ axis.config }}"

- name: Update parameters
  uri:
    user: "{{ axis_snmp_role.login_user }}"
    password: "{{ axis_snmp_role.login_password }}"
    url: "{{ axis_snmp_role.server_url }}?action=update&{{ my_params | join('&') }}"
    validate_certs: false
  delegate_to: localhost

Notes:

You might hit a url max length if you really have a lot or params. In this case, cut the following in several iterations.
You may have to encode your values with the urlencode filter if they contain special chars.

edited Jan 09 '20 at 15:49

answered Jan 09 '20 at 15:38

Zeitounator

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First and foremost tahnk you for the detailed answer! How exactly could I cut this into several iterations of (for example) 100 params until all are set? – Nuokh Jan 16 '20 at 12:15
1

You will need to `count` and [slice](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/509211/understanding-slice-notation) – Zeitounator Jan 16 '20 at 13:06
Sorry but could you modify your example to show how you would count and slice the requests? – Nuokh Jan 16 '20 at 14:37
1

There is one trick because your var is a dict and you can only slice lists. You get the total number of elements in your dict with `axis.config | count`. From there it is rather easy to slice by sets of 100 until your reach the end. To slice your object, what you can do is `(axis.config | dict2items)[x:y] | items2dict`. This will transform your dict in a list like `[{key: keyname, value: keyvalue}, ...]`. You can then slice that list from elements `x` to `y` and transform it back to a dict with `items2dict`. – Zeitounator Jan 16 '20 at 17:22

Tell Ansible to iterate through a big (network camera) configuration yml and update 100 values simultaneously one api call

1 Answers1