Introduction to EX457

0:00Hey friends and welcome to the Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Network

0:04Automation.

0:05Now that's a mouthful. So what we're going to be doing in this particular

0:10course is mostly

0:11focused in on building out our lab environment. Pretty much we're going to be

0:15downloading some

0:16virtualization software. We're going to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux and

0:20then on that machine

0:21we're going to go and install Ansible. Now following that what we're going to

0:25then do is look at some

0:26options for getting access to networking devices so we can automate them using

0:32Ansible. Now just

0:34before we begin doing that what I want to do is just talk to you a little bit

0:37about what the exam

0:39actually entails. So with that said let's go and talk about it. Alright so

0:43straight off the bat

0:43from the exam description we can see here that this is a performance based test

0:49. What does that mean?

0:50Pretty much what we're talking about is that this is not going to be multiple

0:53choice. You are

0:55instead going to be in a hands-on environment whereby you have access to Red

0:58Hat Enterprise

0:59Linux and Ansible and you're going to have to perform a series of tasks. So

1:04really what I'm

1:04saying here is that this course is going to really be focused on the practical

1:08application of Ansible

1:09itself. That means that you can walk into the exam and have confidence using

1:13the tool and not

1:14just knowing the basic theory. You know how to get hands-on and actually do

1:18this stuff. So that

1:19really has a big focus okay and by passing the exam you become a Red Hat

1:24Certified Specialist in

1:26Ansible Network Automation and you know despite the fact that as a mouthful it

1:31still is a pretty

1:32good title to have I think so definitely worthwhile spending the time to learn

1:37this stuff and also by

1:39the way just to clarify you'll notice here that it also contributes to your Red

1:44Hat Certified

1:45Architect certification. Pretty much if my memory serves me correctly if you

1:48happen to get five

1:50individual special asserts like this one here you qualified to become a RHCA.

1:57So all good stuff.

1:58Now if we just look at the audience for this exam basically the target audience

2:02is network

2:03engineers, network admins, infrastructure engineers that type of thing but we

2:07want to be doing all

2:08of this stuff the manager of networks using Ansible Automation. So the question

2:13is what are the

2:14pre-reqs for the actual exam itself? Well the good news is is that there is no

2:19formal pre-requisite

2:20you can just go in and take the exam but in order to not to be overwhelmed with

2:25the exam these are

2:25the things that you're kind of expected to have familiarity with so basically

2:29understanding

2:30some concepts around network admins so you know about networking, routing and

2:34switching that type

2:35of stuff. You can I get to the command line on network devices happens to work

2:38you're going to have

2:39experience hopefully with some particular network providers so that could be

2:45Cisco, Juniper,

2:46the rest of that type of stuff and hopefully you'd also have some experience

2:49working any

2:50Linux command line environments and it also suggests that before you take the

2:54actual exam

2:55you should have some experience with things such as Visual Studio and them and

3:00having an

3:01understanding of things such as GET. Now the good news is in this course we are

3:06going to cover

3:07all this type of stuff so we'll look at things such as using Visual Studio Code

3:11which is actually

3:11what we'll install in this particular skill and upcoming skills we'll talk

3:15about things like them

3:17we'll talk about GETs we'll talk about you know basic Linux command line stuff

3:21and then really dig

3:22into the meat of using Ansible to automate network databases such as Cisco, Jun

3:27iper and

3:28Arista okay. Now what is actually covered here in the objectives? So some of

3:32the things that you

3:33can expect to see in the exam are these types of stuff right here so using a

3:37text editor to modify

3:38files running commands from the shell using SSH to lock into remote systems

3:43also by the way we'll

3:44talk about how we can build Infantones in Ansible use the automation content

3:49navigator, write and

3:50run playbooks the kind of core of Ansible that is and do other stuff like you

3:54know working with

3:55GET again we'll talk about this in upcoming skills now also by the way with

3:58respect to these

3:59playbooks well there's quite a bit to them but again if you're not we'll

4:04definitely be covering

4:04all this stuff so basically managing variables and facts we'll be implementing

4:08task controls like

4:09writing loops and conditional tasks see how we can handle task failures we'll

4:13be working with the

4:14actual controller itself so we can see how we can manage credentials that type

4:17of thing as well as

4:18a bunch of other cool things such as working with ginger templates creating

4:22automation roles

4:22performing backups all that good stuff so really that is the general overview

4:27of the exam itself

4:28these are the things we're going to have to know now like I say because this is

4:33a performance based

4:34exam that emphasis on practicality really cannot be stressed enough so it is so

4:39important that we

4:40have a working lab environment so because of that the rest of this skill is

4:44going to be focused

4:46just on that all right so what I will say is if you happen to have experience

4:49with Ansible you

4:50know how to set it up you know how to build a network automation lab you can

4:54automate devices

4:55with Ansible then feel free to skip the rest of this skill because pretty much

4:59that is what we're

5:00going to be focused in on so if you don't have experience the rest of these

5:03videos in this

5:04skill are certainly for you because once that's set up this is going to really

5:07prepare you for

5:08success on the exam itself so friends without further ado let's go begin

5:12building out that lab

0:00Alright friends, so what we're going to do in this particular video is we're

0:02going to go and get some

0:04virtualization software so that we can well, so we can virtualize our operating

0:08system.

0:09Now just to be clear here, there are different solutions that you can use for

0:12this virtualization.

0:14For example, one tool you can use is something known as virtual box. Another

0:18option is something

0:19known as UTM, and there are a few others, but the one that I'm going to be

0:22using is this one right

0:24here VMware. Now there isn't anything special about VMware, you can choose any

0:28which one you so

0:29much depending on your platform. VMware just happens to be my own personal

0:32platform, so this is the

0:34one I'm going to walk through the basic installation of. So once we have that

0:37up and running, then we'll

0:38go and get the operating system that we're going to be using for Ansible OK, so

0:42let's go and

0:43download VMware first then. So let's go to our browser here, and all I'm going

0:49to do is set for

0:50VMware Download OK, so it should take you to this website right here, OK?

0:54Alright, so just to be

0:55clear here, VMware has actually been bought by Broadcom, and since this has

0:59happened,

1:00well some people who complain that downloading VMware can be a little bit

1:03cumbersome, and I

1:04wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, but nevertheless what I'm going to do

1:08is I'm going to walk you

1:09through how you can effectively still get VMware, OK? Or at least this will be

1:13the process when I'm

1:14recording, I can't guarantee that in a year's time that it's going to be

1:17different, but fingers crossed

1:18that it's going to be OK. Alright, so what I'm going to do is go to the

1:22Download Now button right here,

1:24so let's just click here as so, and what it's going to do is it's going to take

1:27me to the Broadcom

1:28website, this is the redirection I was talking about, so just give this a

1:32moment, and what we can

1:33see here is where we have a login page, OK? So let's just zoom in a little

1:36touch. Now first thing is

1:39first, if you have a Broadcom account, you can just go and log in. If you do

1:43not have an account,

1:44well you're going to have to go and create one. So if you just go and search

1:48for create Broadcom

1:49account, what we can do is just go to this link here to register, and pretty

1:52much all we're going

1:53to do here is to walk through a simple registration process, so pretty much

1:56typing your email address,

1:58and we're going to have to enter in the capture form right here, and all I've

2:01done now is they've

2:02sent me a verification email. Alright, so all I've done is went to my email

2:04account, I'm going to

2:05paste in the numbers that they sent me here, OK? So let's just go and verify,

2:09and what I'm going to

2:10have to do now is to fill in some registration details, so let's type in my

2:13name, select my country,

2:15you can go and select a job title, then type in a password and just accept the

2:20conditions here,

2:20and then we can create the account. Alright, so we have successfully registered

2:24, and for now what

2:24I'll do is just say I'll do it later, so in this stage here, if we go back here

2:28, let me type in

2:29my email account. Now it says here that permission has been denied, this is

2:33part of the annoying stage

2:35since the Broadcom acquisition, so what we're going to have to do is we're

2:38going to have to unlock

2:39the account, so you'll notice here that upon first login, you'll see a message

2:42saying your account

2:43is locked to unlock the account, follow all of the stuff you're documenting, OK

2:48? So let's click this

2:49here, and what we can actually see here is the resolution that we have to go

2:52through, OK?

2:52We just do them in a little bit, so we're going to have to go to the support

2:55portal and then click

2:56login in the upper right corner, so let's go up here, login, type in the

3:01password,

3:01alrighty-oh, so after all that nonsense, it appears that we have logged in, OK?

3:05So what I'm going to do

3:06now is go to my downloads, and what we're going to see here is no data is found

3:10, but we have this

3:10option here for free software downloads available here, OK? So what I'm going

3:14to do here is choose

3:17this here, click this, now this stage here I should be able to go and search

3:20for VMware,

3:21OK? So let's just show results, now here is the software right here, OK? So

3:25depending on what you

3:26happen to be using, the i.e. the computer you have, the software that you want

3:30is going to be a little

3:31bit different, because it happened to be in a Mac, I want to download a VMware

3:34Fusion which is

3:34their MacBook implementation, OK? Whereas if you happen to have a Windows

3:39machine or a Linux machine,

3:40you can choose VMware Workstation Pro, OK? So depending on which one you have,

3:44choose the correct

3:45one, OK? So I'm going to go to VMware Fusion, now this stage here, the version,

3:49as I record,

3:50this is going to be VMware Fusion 13, let's click this right here, and I'll

3:54just choose the latest

3:55release, OK? So let's click this, if I try to download this, again, I'm going

3:58to have a little

3:58bit of an issue, look at this, can't do it, can't do it, what's going on, well,

4:02first thing we're

4:02going to have to do is to agree to the terms and conditions, now what you'll

4:06notice is, is if you

4:07try to click this, seems like you can't click it, you have to make sure you

4:11click this link right

4:12here, terms and conditions, now you should redo this, OK? So we're going to go

4:16and redo this, of course,

4:17and once you've done that, now that you've clicked this, now you can actually

4:20tick this box, but make

4:22sure you actually click this link first, OK? Now at this stage here, we can go

4:26and choose to download,

4:28but again, you're going to see something else, it's leaning as required, more

4:31hoops to jump through,

4:32so fun, fun, fun, let's just download this, and it says you're probably to

4:35download, and this,

4:36additional verification is required till it's proceed, OK? So what I'm going to

4:39have to do here,

4:40is to type in information related to who I am, pretty much my name, my address,

4:43my postcode, all of that stuff, and then once I've done that, I'm going to

4:47choose submit, so I'm

4:48going to go through this, I'll blossom it out, and then once I'm done, I will

4:51go and submit this,

4:52OK? Alrighty, so with that, now done, what I will do is choose submit, OK, so

4:57here we go, now what

4:58I should be able to do is to go and download this, so click here, the download

5:01should begin,

5:02let's just save this as so, and hey, we're now beginning to get VMware

5:06downloaded, OK? So I know

5:08it's quite a bit of, well, it's quite difficult to be honest, but hopefully at

5:13home you were able to

5:14get this up and running, assuming that they haven't changed anything of course,

5:16and they'll

5:17have access to this really good virtualisation software. Alright, so now the

5:21download should be

5:22complete, let's go up here, and let me just click this, so I'm going to do it

5:26to double click,

5:27to install Fusion, and I'll choose to open it, type in my password to confirm,

5:31so now we have

5:32VMware up and running, what we're going to do now is to get a copy of Rhetat

5:36Enterprise Linux,

0:00Alright, so now we have our virtualization software installed.

0:02What we now want to do is we want to download Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

0:07This is going to be the operating system that you're going to be using in the actual exam itself.

0:12Now, in order to get RHEL or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you're going to have to go and register for an account.

0:18So with that done, let's go to Google again.

0:21So what I've done here is just search for Red Hat Developer and let's just click this top link right here.

0:27Okie dokie. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to choose to log in.

0:31Now, and again, just let me zoom in a little touch.

0:33Alright, so really quite similar to what we talked about in the previous video with respect to VMware.

0:38We're going to have to either create an account with Red Hat or log in if you already have an account.

0:43So in my case, I already have an account.

0:45But if I didn't, all I would do would be to choose create or rather register a Red Hat account like so.

0:50Now, in this case here, they're going to ask you a whole bunch of information.

0:53We're going to specify what your login ID is going to be.

0:56So just type in some login username.

0:57Notice it's going to have to be at least five characters.

1:00And we can just then set a password that's going to satisfy the requirements of being 14 characters, so on and so forth.

1:06And now we're going to have to do all the personal information stuff.

1:09Your name, your email address, what your job happens to be.

1:12Then go and give them some contact information.

1:14And then you have to effectively go and specify that you're going to agree to the terms and then create that account.

1:20Now, in my case here, I already have an account with Red Hat, so I'm not going to go and create another one.

1:24So with that done, what I can then do is just go back and try to log in with that particular credential.

1:30Okay, so once again, we just go back to our link.

1:32And now you should have an account.

1:34So all I will do here is go up to login, click you at the very top right.

1:38All right, so at this stage here, what I'm going to do is to just go and choose my login.

1:42And then all I will do is type in the password that I used when I created this account, okay?

1:47All right, so now on the Red Hat developer website, now that I've logged in, I'm going to go and click on Red Hat product download.

1:53Let's click this here.

1:54And if I just scroll on down, we're going to see we have this option for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

1:58Let's click this.

1:59And what it says here is we can click download RHEL at no cost.

2:02Seems straightforward.

2:03However, just to be clear here, depending on the type of device you're using, you may have to download it using more ways to try.

2:11Now, if you happen to have an Intel processor, that is if you're on a Linux machine or a Windows machine, you can just go and click download RHEL at no cost.

2:19In my case, though, because I have an M1 MacBook, which uses particular silicon from Apple, I'm going to have to choose more ways to try, okay?

2:27All right, so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to get down to the RHEL server ISO.

2:32Now, again, if you happen to have a Windows machine, you can just choose the x8464.

2:37In my case, though, I need to have the ARM64 option, okay?

2:41So this is the one I'm going to download.

2:42So let's just download the ISO here.

2:44Hey, friends, this is John from the future.

2:46Now, I know in the video that I just downloaded RHEL 10, but what I'm going to recommend to you is that you actually get RHEL 9.

2:54Let me tell you why.

2:55Now, let me explain.

2:56When recording this video, the latest version, of course, was RHEL number 10.

3:00So naturally, that is the one that I happened to install.

3:03Now, let me be clear here.

3:04For the vast majority of circumstances, this is completely irrelevant whether you choose RHEL 10 or choose RHEL 9.

3:12Basically, for almost everything that we do, so long as we have Red Hat Enterprise Linux in some form and Ansible installed on that system,

3:19then everything is going to be the same, same.

3:21However, there is a slight little wrinkle, and it is because of this that I am intervening right now and just giving you a heads up

3:29because it's going to make your life a little bit easier if you just go and install this version.

3:34So let me tell you exactly where I'm going with this.

3:36So later on, almost at the very end of this course, we're going to be dealing with Ansible Automation Platform.

3:41See this thing right here?

3:42And the version that we're going to be using, at least at this time of recording, is going to be version 2.3.

3:49Now, the problem is, is if you happen to install RHEL 10, when you go to install the Automation Platform 2.3, the option is not going to be there.

3:58The only one you're going to be able to install is version 2.6.

4:02Now, automatically, this would not be a big deal because, you know, things do update, things do change.

4:08But the big thing is, is that in version 2.6, the graphical user interface is quite radically different from the one we have to understand.

4:15So it's for that reason that if you just pause right now, get RHEL 9, follow the rest of the course as per usual,

4:21when it comes to the point of installing the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform,

4:26you will be able to get access to the relevant version without having to go through and build an entirely new RHEL 9 virtual machine all over again.

4:33So pretty much, just to save yourself the installation of an additional virtual machine later down the line,

4:39just go ahead and download either the x86-64 version of RHEL 9.6, or if you happen to have the ARM architecture, the 9.6 for ARM64 here, okay?

4:49And that's it.

4:51From that point on, just copy everything the same way as you see in the video.

4:55Alright, so all I did was pause the video, now RHEL has downloaded.

4:58Alright, so all I'm going to do is I'm going to take the actual image that I downloaded, I'm going to drop it on to this portion right here.

5:04And at this stage, all I'll do is just choose continue.

5:07Now all I'm going to do is specify the operating system that I have here, so in my case here, I'll say Red Hat Enterprise Linux,

5:12although I know it does say 9, that should be okay if I just choose this, even though I do have RHEL 10, if I just choose continue.

5:18What we can see here are the basic default settings.

5:21Now in my case here, I'm going to choose customize settings.

5:24And let me just give the machine a name, let's just say RHEL, call it anything you so wish.

5:27Now in my case here, I'm going to go to the network adapter, and I want to make sure that I'm using bridged networking.

5:33So I'll put it on my Wi-Fi network, which will give it this particular IP address.

5:37And all I will then do is if I so wish, I can give the machine more, well, more resources, should I say,

5:42and go and increase the memory from 2GB up to say, for example, let's say 4GB or 8GB, whatever you can spare.

5:47In my case here, I'll just give it, let's just say 4GB, okay, that should be plenty.

5:51And if you so wish, you can choose to increase the CPU, but in my case here, that's going to be fine, okay.

5:55Alrighty, oh, so that should be pretty much all good.

5:57If I now go back and just choose to play the actual machine.

6:00And all I'm going to do is go up and say install Red Hat Enterprise Linux and hit enter.

6:05So in my case here, I have English language, I am in the UK.

6:08So in my case, I'll choose this, and then I'll choose continue, but choose whatever one suits your needs best, okay.

6:13Now in my case here, I'm going to go to the installation destination first.

6:17And all I want to do is to make sure that this here, I want to make sure it's actually ticked, okay.

6:22So like this, and then I'll choose done.

6:25Okay, that's my 20GB drive that I'm going to be installing into.

6:28The next thing I will do is I'll go to the network and host name.

6:32Now all I want to do here is to make sure that the Ethernet connection is indeed set on.

6:36So make sure it's not at this, make sure we do have the blue here, okay.

6:39And then I can choose done.

6:41After that, I'm going to go to the software selection.

6:44The one I'm going to choose is server with the graphical user interface.

6:47Then I will choose done.

6:49Let's go down to the root password right here, root account.

6:52And let's just enable the root account since it is a lab environment.

6:55Let's just give it the password of password1, which is definitely not a good password to have.

6:59Let's just look at it right here, okay, as so.

7:01And again, just confirm it.

7:03Okay, let's just choose done.

7:04And again.

7:05Now the next thing I will do is go to user creation.

7:07Let's create a username.

7:08And let's just type in the name of learner here, okay.

7:10And to keep things as simple as possible, I'll add the admin privileges to this particular account.

7:15Then I'll give it a password.

7:16And again, to keep it super simple, I'll just say password1.

7:19So once again, this is not the best practice for real world,

7:21but it's just for our lab environment to keep things as easy as possible.

7:24And with this done, I will now say done.

7:26And click it again.

7:27Okay, so with this now done, what I will do is choose begin installation.

7:30And what we're going to begin doing is building our virtual machine.

7:33So again, I'll just give it some time.

7:35And for the moment, I'll pause the video and come back.

7:37All right, friends, so the installation has completed.

7:39Let's go and reboot the system and see how we get on.

7:41All right, so it begins reloading.

7:43Okay, so now we can go and log in.

7:45So let me just fullscreen this for a moment.

7:47And all I'll do is type in password1, which is the user account that I created.

7:51And hit enter.

7:52And as you can see here, it's giving us an option to take a tour.

7:55In our case here, we're going to decline the very kind offer and just choose skip.

7:59All right, so all I'm going to do is go up to the top left-hand corner,

8:01click on this right here.

8:02And then I'm going to go and click this icon for the terminal, okay?

8:05All right, so let's go and try to register the system with Red Hat then,

8:08since I'm using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

8:10So I'll say sudo subscription-manager register.

8:12I'm going to have to type in my password of password1 to use the sudo command.

8:16Now, at this stage here, I'm going to try to register my system.

8:18So I'll say my username is ipv0.

8:21And then I'll type in my password, okay?

8:23Now, remember, this is not the password of password1 for this machine.

8:26This is my password with Red Hat itself.

8:29So remember, on Red Hat Developer, we created an account.

8:32This is what I'm talking about here, okay?

8:33So hit enter, give it a moment.

8:35And as we can see here, it says the system has been registered with a particular ID.

8:39All right, the next thing I will do is I'll say sudo dnf.

8:42And I'm going to say a repo list to check the repositories that I have available.

8:45Okay, so I have my Red Hat repos because I registered.

8:48What I'll now say is sudo dnf.

8:51And I'm going to say install ansible-core and hit enter.

8:55So let's give this a moment to go and download.

8:57Okay, here we go. So I'll say yes and hit enter.

9:00And it appears we have some type of error.

9:02Let me just go and fix this.

9:06All right, so let's try this again.

9:07Hit yes and hit enter.

9:08Let's say why and hit enter again and again.

9:11And the last thing I will do just for my own edification is to do sudo hostnamectl.

9:15And I'll set the hostname.

9:17And I'll just call it ansible, okay?

9:18So you'll notice if I happen to exit out and I open up the terminal once again, go up here, click on this.

9:24Now it's just going to say learner at ansible.

9:26Again, not necessary for ansible to run.

9:28But just when I log into this machine, I like to know that this machine is what I'm using for ansible.

0:00Alright friends, so previously what we did was we installed VMware.

0:03This would effectively allow us to install particular operating systems

0:07such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is what we did. We created a RHEL VM.

0:11So pretty much this here, this RHEL environment, this is going to act as our

0:14automation station. However, we actually need somewhere

0:17whereby we can talk to networking devices. Now,

0:22this is where things might get a little bit confusing, but I'm going to try my

0:25best to explain what is going on. Okay, so here is

0:29VMware. Okay, so inside of VMware, what we have is Red Hat Enterprise Linux

0:35as a virtual machine. And what I'm also going to do is

0:38install some other type of virtualization software whereby we can

0:41run networking labs. So let's just for the

0:43moment call this Network OS. So pretty much we have two

0:46different virtual machines, but ultimately they're going to be able to

0:49talk to each other. Alright, so people who are on Mac, here's

0:52the bad news. And for people who are on Windows

0:56machines or Linux machines, this is where you get to

0:59laugh at us and cackle. So these networking devices, we're going

1:03to have to build them utilizing particular

1:05networking images. Now, just as it happens, these networking images, at least at the

1:10moment of this recording, they are not available on Apple

1:14Silicon. Or rather, should I say not available, I should say they

1:17do not operate, they don't function correctly on

1:20Apple Silicon. So what we have here is a problem.

1:24Now, there is one kind of workaround that's a little bit limited that I'll

1:28tell you about later on in this video. But for the moment, if you want to build

1:31your own lab and you happen to have a MacBook, well, unfortunately we're going

1:35to have to, we're going to have to use some other

1:37solutions. So let me tell you how I am handling it myself. Right, so the

1:42computer you're looking at here, this is my MacBook, okay, because this is the

1:44computer that I record on when I do all my screen recordings.

1:47So pretty much what I have is VMware installed on the Mac, as you just saw,

1:51and inside of here I've got Red Hat Enterprise Linux, no surprise there.

1:54Now, because the networking labs won't actually run

1:57on my MacBook, what I actually have is a separate

2:00computer entirely. I've also got a Windows machine and I've basically done

2:04the same type of thing. I've got VMware installed on my Windows machine

2:07and it's on the Windows machine whereby I'm actually going to install my

2:11networking emulator whereby I can run the networking labs.

2:14Yep, I know, it's unfortunate, it's a bit of a pain, but there's nothing I can

2:17actually do about that. So this really is, the main workaround is to have a

2:22different machine entirely, either a Linux laptop or

2:25a Windows machine or a dedicated ESXi server, that type of thing, and there you

2:29can install the network emulation software. Now, just

2:32in the event, because I know not everyone has the money to go and buy a separate

2:36device to run a Windows machine, that type of

2:38thing, so long as you actually have RHEL installed, we will be able to do some

2:42basic automation by using things such as the Cisco

2:45DevNet sandbox, okay, so this is going to give you some limited access to devices,

2:50but it isn't optimal for practicing for the actual examination itself, so really

2:54if you can, if you can somehow get away to getting this emulation software

2:59running on your machine, then that's going to be the best bet

3:01going forward, but like I say, it's not going to be completely limiting if you

3:04can't get it, there are some limited workarounds. So with that said,

3:09with that caveat out the road, what I'm going to do is to walk through

3:12the installation of the emulation software. Now, you can use different

3:15things, you can use things such as GNS3. Cisco happen to have a software

3:19known as CMLP, which is very, very good, but the one that is my preference is

3:23something known as EVE-NG. Now, if you happen to have familiarity with

3:27Networking Labs, perhaps you have used one of these types of emulation

3:31softwares before. Pick whatever software that you happen to prefer.

3:34So if you search for Cisco CMLP, let's click this link right here.

3:38Alright, so the next thing you're going to have to do is, in order to legally get

3:42these Cisco images, you're going to have to buy a license, that is just the way

3:45things are, so you're going to have to go and add this to your cart.

3:48Now, in my case, I already have an active license with Cisco Modeling Lab, so once

3:52you do this, you're going to get access to the images,

3:55and it's these images that we're going to be using within our EVE-NG

3:58topologies. Once again though, I appreciate this is

4:01quite a lot of money, so it's not easy for everyone just to go and freely buy

4:04this. We still have a limited but workable

4:07workaround using the DevNet sandbox, and we'll talk more about that later.

4:11All I'm saying here is that this is the best option for maximum flexibility if

4:15you can make it happen. Alright, so now what I want to do is to

4:18download something known as FileZilla. This is going to be an FTP client

4:23that's going to allow me to transfer my Cisco images that I've downloaded from

4:27my CMLP license, and it's going to allow me to

4:30transfer them from my actual machine over into my EVE-NG virtual machine, okay?

4:35This is what we want. So depending on the platform that you

4:38have, you want to install whatever FileZilla suits you. So for example, if you

4:42happen to have a Windows machine set for FileZilla Windows,

4:45click this link right here, and you can download

4:48FileZilla for that particular platform. If you happen to have, say for example,

4:52MacBook, you can just search for Mac. Here is the one here for

4:55the Intel processor, if you've got an older MacBook. Whereas if you happen to

4:58have a newer MacBook with the Apple Silicon, you can search for that, and if

5:01we click this here, then again this would be the Apple Silicon

5:04version. So let's just click this to download.

5:06In my case here, I want to have the free version, and I'll just save this as so.

5:10And if you just open this file, once you have downloaded it, pretty much this is

5:13the option right here, okay? Alright, so now I have

5:16FileZilla, which is going to allow me to transfer the actual image. In this case

5:20here, this is the Cisco image that I'm going to be transferring into my EVE-NG

5:23machine. The problem is though, is I can't really

5:26demonstrate the installation of EVE-NG because it's

5:29on a different machine entirely, not on my recording device.

5:32Nevertheless, fear not, I will show you exactly where to find the information as

5:36to how to install the EVE-NG machine, and then

5:38we'll pick up from there, okay? So what you want to do to get EVE-NG

5:41installed is to, well, first go, if I just get my browser up, just

5:45search for EVE-NG, if you click this link right here.

5:47What you're going to do is go to the downloads here, and you'll notice there

5:50is a professional edition, this is the one that you have to pay for. In my case

5:53here, we would want to get the community edition, so pretty much if

5:56you just go and download the community. From this point on,

6:00what you would want to do is to look at the documentation, okay?

6:02So see this here, the community cookbook, this is going to tell you all the

6:05instructions you need to actually get the installation up and running, okay?

6:09So as you can see here within the cookbook, it's got all the information

6:12that you need to get the VM up and running, okay? So pretty much

6:15that's what you're going to have to do in the meantime. Now in my case here, I

6:18can actually log into my EVE-NG machine by just typing ssh

6:22and the login name will be root, and the IP address of my EVE-NG machine is

6:26going to be 192.168.1.102, and once I do this, I just type in

6:30the word EVE, so E-V-E to log in, that's the password,

6:33and now I have effectively logged in to the EVE-NG machine, okay?

6:37Now if you're wondering how I knew the IP address of my machine, don't worry,

6:40when you happen to create your machine as per the instructions,

6:43it's actually going to tell you on the screen of the VM itself,

6:47okay? So you will have your own IP address. Like I say, all of this is

6:50very clearly explained in the documentation that I just showed you.

6:53Alright, so here's the thing, I've now logged into my EVE-NG machine,

6:56I have FileZilla, so what I want to do is I want to also connect

7:00my FileZilla application to the EVE-NG machine so I can transfer over those

7:04images. So let me just go to FileZilla again, let

7:07me just zoom in a little bit so you can see it a bit better.

7:09So what I'm going to do here in the host, I'm going to type in the IP address of

7:12the machine, which is 192.168.1.102, the username, like I say, is going to be

7:17root, the password will be EVE, just the word EVE,

7:20and I'll say I want to connect on port 22, and I'll just say quick

7:23connect, okay? I'm going to allow this connection, and it's pretty much the

7:26same, we'll get an unknown host key, let's just go down and just say okay to accept,

7:30and essentially what I've got here is on the left hand side, this part here, this

7:33is my local machine, this is the file system here, and on

7:35the right hand side, this here is all the stuff in the EVE-NG

7:39machine. So all I've done is went back to the EVE-NG website, if I go to

7:43documentation here, and then I'll go to how to create images, okay? Now what it's

7:47going to do here, it's going to show you how you actually create the images for

7:51all of these different vendors. Now in my case here,

7:53the type of device I'm going to be installing is this one here, the CSR-1000V,

7:57the reason being is that this is running Cisco

8:00iOS XE, and this is going to be featured prominently within the exam

8:04itself, okay? So this is a good one to actually have installed,

8:07however, what I will say is that it can be a little bit intensive

8:10in terms of resources. Another option you can use, which is pretty much going to be

8:14really quite similar, are these ones right here, the Cisco

8:17vIOS from CML, okay? But like I say, what I'm going to do is I'm

8:21going to go to this one right here, okay? So let's click this,

8:23so pretty much all I'm going to do is issue these particular commands, I'm

8:26going to copy these, okay? I'll go back to my SSH session, okay?

8:29So I've pasted these commands in, all it's done is created a random folder

8:33called ABC, and I've changed into that folder,

8:35and what I now want to do is I want to effectively transfer the image

8:39on my machine into the folder using FileZilla, okay?

8:42So if I go back to FileZilla, all I'm going to do here is to refresh this, okay?

8:46So we're now going to see the new folder that's just been created, let's just

8:49go inside of here, as we can see it. Now I want to go and navigate to where my

8:53images are stored, now I've just happened to put it on my desktop,

8:56this is directly from my CMLP license, and all I'm going to do is click this

8:59image, I'm going to drag it into this ABC folder, okay?

9:02That's going to transfer and take a little bit of time,

9:04once it's done, it's now going to be available inside that particular

9:08directory. All right, so the transfer has now

9:10completed, let's go to the next stage then, okay?

9:12So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back to my terminal window, all right,

9:15so here is the image in this folder, the first thing I'm going to do is to rename

9:18this image, I'm going to say nv to move it, then I'm just going to

9:22specify the name of the image that I have here, now your image name might be a

9:25little bit different, don't worry about that,

9:27one thing you do want to make sure though is you do rename it this

9:31very particular name, okay? So see this here, virtuoa.qcow2,

9:36that's what you want to call it, so if I hit enter, do a listing of the directory,

9:40now we can see the file has been renamed. At this stage here, what I want to do is

9:44I want to create a new directory and move this file into this very

9:48particular directory structure. So if we go back to the documentation, just

9:51skip down to step number eight down here, okay? All I'm

9:54going to do is just copy this particular command right here, so

9:58all I'll do is just paste in this command, like so, and what I now want

10:01to do is to move this particular file here into this

10:05file path, so again let's just copy the path,

10:08okay? Now this stage here, what I want to do is I want to go back

10:11and just issue this particular command to fix the permissions, okay?

10:14Let's just copy you and just paste this in, if I hit enter,

10:17give it a moment to complete. Now like I say, I want to go to the IP address of

10:21the EVE-NG machine, which is going to be this IP address right here, 192.168.1.102

10:27So let's copy this and go to my browser, okay? Paste it in, hit enter, now what I'm

10:30going to do is log in with the word admin and then type the word EVE, these

10:34are the default credentials, and choose sign in.

10:37Now here I will right click, choose node, then search for Cisco. We're going to see

10:41we have our CSR device and all I'll do is just

10:44choose save and at this stage here I can right click and start the device.

10:48Now it should take a few minutes, maybe five minutes to fully load up, just be

10:51patient and what I'll do is pause the video and

10:54come back. Alright, so I paused the video for around five minutes, what I'm now

10:57going to do is to double click this device here and try to open a terminal,

11:00okay? So let's hit enter and as we can see here

11:02the device is now running, just say N and enter again and now as we can see

11:07here we've got access to our networking device. Alright friends,

11:10so I know that was a lot to get to but we're kind of at the end point here, okay?

11:14So it's good news from this point on, okay?

11:16So if you search for DevNet Sandbox and click this link right here,

11:19what you're going to have to do is to, and let me just zoom in a little touch,

11:22you're going to have to go and create an account,

11:23so you can sign up for free and that's going to allow you access to these

11:26sandboxes. Alright, so all I've done is log in, if I

11:29choose launch sandbox, what you can do is search for

11:33particular devices such as in this case here,

11:35Cisco iOS XE. Now this particular box is reservable,

11:39so what you're going to have to do is to book out particular time so that you can

11:42access these devices. However, if you want to

11:45use, say for example, Cisco iOS XR, this is an always on sandbox, meaning

11:49that it's accessible to everyone all the time, this is also an option for you.

11:53So in my case here, if I just click this one here, the XR,

11:56if I go down here, you're going to see the login details, so here it is here,

11:59let's just copy this. You can see the username is admin and

12:01the password is c1seo12345. So if I just say ssh

12:06admin, which is the username, and paste in that address that we just saw,

12:10this is just over the internet, if I just say yes to accept the fingerprint

12:13and I type in the password of c1seo12345, as you can see here, we

12:19actually do have access to a Cisco device, but it's only one

12:22device, okay, we don't actually have a full topology,

12:24so it's a little bit limited, but in the case that you can't get these Cisco

12:28images, or you can't get EVE-NG up and running,

12:30this is still an option for you, okay, so don't despair, we still have other

12:34solutions to solve the problem.

0:00Alright friends, so here we are, we have Eveng up and running.

0:03What I'm going to do is to add one of my devices that I've just created.

0:06So it starts for Cisco and hit enter and just choose save.

0:10Now, just for the moment, what I want to do is I want to test the connection

0:14between my rail device into the Eveng topology.

0:19Now the way we connect the devices inside the Eveng to external things

0:23is we can effectively go and create a new network.

0:26And the network type is going to be the management cloud zero.

0:30So if I choose save here, all I'm going to do is connect this

0:33into one of the interfaces of the device itself.

0:35Let's choose gigabit one.

0:36And at this stage here, I'm going to turn on the device

0:38and wait a few minutes for the device to boot.

0:40Alright, so now the device has booters, let's go on and take a figure terminal.

0:44And what I will do is give the device a name, so I'll say host name.

0:47And let's just call this one device number one.

0:49Okay. Then the next thing I will do is I'm going to say username

0:52and I'll create a username of let's just say learner.

0:55I'll give this a privilege of let's say 15.

0:58And I'm going to say the password is going to be in just get the password

1:00quite simple as password one so we're not forgetting anything.

1:03Alright, so the first thing I'm going to do is type the commands

1:05a new model and then a authentication log in default local.

1:11And then I'll say authorization exact default local.

1:15And then I'm going to have to create a domain name so SSH will operate

1:18or just call this example dot local keep it nice and simple.

1:20Alright, so here's the thing you see this device here or this device.

1:23This interface in this device gigabit one.

1:26I'm going to use this explicitly to manage this device.

1:30It's going to be used for Ansible to connect into the device.

1:33It's not going to be used for the regular traffic of the device.

1:36So because of this, I'm going to put this into its own VRF.

1:40This is how we separate this logically.

1:42So what I'm going to do here is say VRF definition

1:44and create a VRF just called management.

1:47I'm going to say this is going to be for IPv4 and I can exit back out.

1:51Now I can go into that particular interface

1:53and I'll put the interface into that VRF by saying VRF forwarding

1:57and specifying the name of the VRF which is management.

2:00Now at this stage here, I'm going to give this interface an IP address.

2:03I'm going to put it in the same network range as my regular system.

2:07So basically in the same network range as my rail system.

2:10So let's just give this the address of 192.168.1.

2:14Well, let's just say 151.0.

2:15As long as it's in the network range of 192.168.1.0,

2:19that's all I care about for the moment.

2:21I'll give it a slash 24 mask and then say no shots.

2:23Now at this stage here, I'm going to say crypto key

2:26and I want to generate an RS key with a modulus of 2048.

2:30So let's do that.

2:31Kelt's going to my VT wire lines.

2:33I'll say zero all the way to 530.

2:36And I'll say transport input SSH.

2:38And I'll say login authentication default.

2:41Alright, so over on my Ansible machine,

2:43what I should be able to do is to ping that particular device.

2:45So I'll try to ping 1.151.

2:47And as we can see here, we have the connection.

2:49However, depending on how old your device is happened to be,

2:52you might have an issue trying to connect them over SSH.

2:55Let me show you what I mean.

2:56If I say SSH and type in learner and then do the IP address of 1.151.

3:02If I hit enter, same here that we've got no matching host key type found.

3:06So all I'm going to do here is to configure my system to allow for some old

3:10encryption stuff.

3:11Okay.

3:11So the way we do this is I say pseudo nano and I say exit and then SSH

3:16and then SSH underscore config.

3:19Now let me just type in my password of password 1.

3:22And at this stage here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to paste in this

3:24particular piece of configuration right here.

3:26Okay.

3:27Now I'm going to attach this into the scale itself.

3:29So you can just copy in the exact same stuff.

3:31Once you've done this, I want you to press control or hold down control press O

3:37.

3:37That's going to allow to write the file.

3:38I'll then press enter.

3:40Then I'll hold down control and then press X and that'll escape back out.

3:43Now at this stage here, I'm just going to type the command pseudo update crypto

3:47policies

3:48and I'll say dash dash and I'll say set legacy.

3:51Okay.

3:51Now once it's done, I'm going to say reboot and let the system reboot for a

3:54moment.

3:55All right.

3:55So let's log back in.

3:56Okay.

3:57Let's add up and try the same connection one more time.

4:00I'll then say yes to accept the fingerprints and I'll type in the password of

4:03password 1 and to enter.

4:05And as we can see here, I now have the connection from my rail machine into my

4:09Cisco device, meaning that

4:11Ansible will also be able to use this SSH connection to log in and manage the

4:15device using automation.

0:00Alright friends, so the final component is we're going to go and install an IDE

0:04.

0:04This is pretty much an environment we can use to write our Ansible Playbooks.

0:08Now to be clear here, you absolutely do not have to download an IDE.

0:12You could, if you so wish, just use General Text Editors, but in terms of the

0:16spacing

0:17in terms of the visualization, it can make things much, much easier if you use

0:21these

0:21IDEs because that's what they're built for.

0:23Okay, it's just meant to make writing code, writing things like Playbooks, it's

0:28meant

0:28to make it easier, so why not take advantage of that, okay?

0:31So there's two options that we have here.

0:34We can install it directly on to the Rail system right here.

0:38So I've got this Rail VM, as you can see right here, I can install it on there.

0:42Or what I could also do is I could just install it on my regular host machine.

0:47So my host machine is just a MacBook.

0:49And what I could do is install the IDE on here locally and just connect it and

0:54attach

0:54it to this particular VM.

0:57So the answer to which way it's fine, my own preference is I like to install it

1:00locally

1:01and then attach it to the VM.

1:03But I appreciate the amount of everyone wants to do it that way.

1:05So I'll show you the easiest way to get it done and that is to just install it

1:08directly

1:09on to Rail itself.

1:11So with that said, let's go and do it then.

1:14So if you go to Rail and you're searching for Firefox, let's open this up.

1:17Okay, so let's go to Google.

1:19So all I'm going to do is search for VS Code Download.

1:22This is a product developed by Microsoft, but you can use it on all different

1:26platforms.

1:26Super super popular.

1:28So let's go in here.

1:29All right, so here's the thing.

1:30If we're going to be downloading it directly on to Rail, we're going to have to

1:33specify

1:33the Linux downloads.

1:35And because we have Red Hat, we want to install the RPM version.

1:39Whilst we are installing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this is ultimately a VM

1:44on a host

1:45machine.

1:46Now my host machine, like I said, it's a MacBook.

1:47I'm going to have to make sure I get the ARM 64 version.

1:51If your underlying host machine is a Windows machine or a Linux machine, then

1:55you want

1:55to get the X64 version.

1:57So my case here, I'm choosing ARM 64 and that's what I'm going to download.

2:01Okay.

2:02So now we can see the download has begun.

2:03Okay, so we just click this download.

2:05Now that it's finished, give it a moment.

2:07And all we're going to do is to click install and then type in my password of

2:10password one.

2:11Okay, then we'll choose to authenticate and now the install is beginning.

2:14And as we can see here, I can just open the application.

2:17So now here we are.

2:18So let me just close this for a moment.

2:20So here's the thing.

2:21If I want to go and create a new file, I can just go up here and say new text

2:24file.

2:25And pretty much what we've got here is the ID.

2:27So I can begin typing stuff and just say this is just some example of some text

2:32.

2:32And I can go to file and then save this so I can choose where the boat I want

2:35to save

2:35it.

2:36Let's go into documents and let's just give it a name of my example dot txt and

2:41save this

2:42okay.

2:43So now it's been saved.

2:44If I want to go into the terminal, what I can do is say terminal and say new

2:47terminal.

2:48And down here, pretty much what we see here is well, it's a command line of our

2:51system.

2:52So I can do a listing.

2:53I can go into the documents folder.

2:56If I do a listing again, we're going to see the text file that we just created.

2:59And I can open it as so by typing the cat command and we can see here we have

3:03used VS code

3:04to create new files on our system.

3:06Now, obviously this is just a simple text file, but not really getting many

3:10benefits

3:10of it right now.

3:12But when it comes to writing Ansible Playbooks where indentation is important,

3:15so on and

3:15so forth, this is going to make things much, much easier for us to learn.

3:19All right, so that is us pretty much up and running on the actual rail system

3:23itself.

3:24The alternative solution, like I said, is if I just go back here, let me just

3:28minimize

3:28my virtual machine.

3:29So what I can also do is just directly download it onto my host machine.

3:33So this is me and my Mac book just do the same type of thing sets for visual

3:36studio

3:36codes.

3:37In this case, though, we're going to choose a Mac and it's going to be Apple

3:40Silicon in

3:41this case here.

3:42So let's just choose this one right here and then we can save it and just give

3:45it a moment

3:45to download.

3:46And of course, if you're doing this on a Windows machine, it might look a

3:49little bit different,

3:51but the process is generally the same.

3:52All right, so here we go.

3:54Let's try to open up and VS code is beginning to open.

3:57Now you might notice that mine here looks a little bit different on my system.

4:00That is because my Mac book is remembering old system settings from previous

4:04installations.

4:05So don't worry about that.

4:06What we do want to get though is to get a particular extension to allow us to

4:09connect into the

4:10rail system.

4:11So what I want to do is to go into the settings and then go into the extensions

4:15here and the

4:15extension that I want to search for is something known as remote SSH.

4:19So this one right here.

4:20So what I want to do here is choose to install it and effectively this is going

4:23to allow me

4:24to log in over SSH into my rail system.

4:28So I'm now going to do is attempt to connect to this device by going to the

4:31remote explorer.

4:32Now you can see here my system remembers these old connections to all devices.

4:36Don't worry about that at all.

4:37What I'm going to do is to establish a brand new connection.

4:39So over here SSH, I'm going to go and add a new connection and I'm just going

4:43to say

4:43SSH learner at and I'll type in IP address of 192.168.1.136 and to enter and

4:51then I'll

4:52hit enter again.

4:53And at this stage here I'm going to right click it and then say connect in a

4:56new window.

4:57So now what it's doing is it's offering me the fingerprint.

4:59If I say continue, what I'm now going to do is have to type in the password

5:02which is

5:03password one and to enter and now we can see here it's downloading the VS code

5:08server

5:08on to the rail system itself.

5:10And what I can do is close the first window and leave this one open on my

5:13MacBook.

5:14So what I can now do is go up to terminal and ask for a new terminal.

5:17And what you're going to notice here is that on the right hand side we're

5:20actually connected

5:21into the, well the right hat system as we can see LS.

5:24If I do CD documents LS, there is that fail that we created directly on the

5:29system itself.

5:30So pretty much either of these solutions is going to be absolutely fine.

5:33Pretty much either which way it's going to give us IDE access on the rail

5:36system which

5:37is going to make writing Ansible Playbooks much much easier.