Backup Config on Mikrotik RouterOS - Ansible Network community.routeros

How to automate network device configuration backup for Mikrotik RouterOS network appliances connecting via SSH protocol using the username and password credentials and save it to a file using Ansible Network community.routeros collection.

May 5, 2022

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#ansible #network #mikrotik #routeros #backup #ansible-network

How to Backup Config on Mikrotik RouterOS with Ansible?

Maintaining a backup copy of your network appliance configuration is a good practice for all IT Professionals. You could automate this process for Mikrotik RouterOS appliances using Ansible. I’m going to show you a live demo with some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.

Ansible Backup Config on Mikrotik RouterOS

community.routeros
Modules for MikroTik RouterOS

Let’s talk about the Ansible collection community.routeros. The full name is community.routeros, which means that is an Ansible Network Collection designed to interact with Mikrotik RouterOS devices. It contains modules for MikroTik RouterOS.

demo

How to Backup Config on Mikrotik RouterOS with Ansible Playbook. I’m going to show how to back up the current configuration of a Mikrotik RouterOS connecting via SSH protocol using the username and password credentials and save it to a file with the device name and timestamp.

code

inventory

[mikrotik]
192.168.88.2

[mikrotik:vars]
ansible_user=luca
ansible_password=mysecretpassword123
ansible_connection=ansible.netcommon.network_cli
ansible_network_os=community.routeros.routeros
ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3
ansible_command_timeout=120

backup_mikrotik.yml

---
- name: Backup Mikrotik
  hosts: mikrotik
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    backup_dir: "/home/luca/network/backup"
  tasks:
    - name: Export
      ansible.builtin.shell: >-
        sshpass -p '{{ ansible_password }}' ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no {{ ansible_user }}@{{ inventory_hostname }} /export        
      register: export
      delegate_to: localhost

   - name: Backup
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        content: "{{ export.stdout }}"
        dest: "{{ backup_dir }}/{{ inventory_hostname }}_config.{{ lookup('pipe', 'date +%Y-%m-%d@%H:%M:%S') }}"
      when: export is defined
      delegate_to: localhost

requirements.yml

---
collections:
  - name: community.routeros

requirements setup

$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml 
Starting galaxy collection install process
Process install dependency map
Starting collection install process
Downloading https://galaxy.ansible.com/download/community-routeros-2.0.0.tar.gz to /home/luca/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-47086a9aez7_s/tmpqz_6puy_/community-routeros-2.0.0-hlve2za9
Installing 'community.routeros:2.0.0' to '/home/luca/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/community/routeros'
community.routeros:2.0.0 was installed successfully
'ansible.netcommon:3.0.0' is already installed, skipping.
'ansible.utils:2.6.1' is already installed, skipping.
luca@luca01:~/network$ ansible-galaxy collection list
# /home/luca/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections
Collection         Version
------------------ -------
ansible.netcommon  3.0.0  
ansible.utils      2.6.1  
community.routeros 2.0.0

execution

$ ansible-playbook -i inventory backup_mikrotik.yml
PLAY [Backup Mikrotik] ****************************************************************************
TASK [Export] *************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.88.2 -> localhost]
TASK [Backup] *************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.88.2 -> localhost]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
192.168.88.2               : ok=2    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

before execution

luca@luca01:~/network$ pwd
/home/luca/network
luca@luca01:~/network$ ls
backup_mikrotik.yml  inventory requirements.yml
luca@luca01:~/network$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.12.4]
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/luca/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/luca/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.8.10 (default, Mar 15 2022, 12:22:08) [GCC 9.4.0]
  jinja version = 2.10.1
  libyaml = True

after execution

$ ls -al backup
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 2 luca luca 4096 May  5 15:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 luca luca 4096 May  5 15:28 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 luca luca 2076 May  5 15:28 192.168.88.2_config.2022-05-05@15:28:55
-rw-rw-r-- 1 luca luca 2076 May  5 15:29 192.168.88.2_config.2022-05-05@15:29:19
luca@luca01:~/network$ file backup/*
backup/192.168.88.2_config.2022-05-05@15:28:55: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
backup/192.168.88.2_config.2022-05-05@15:29:19: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Recap

Now you know how to Backup Config on Mikrotik RouterOS with Ansible. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, and Website, X (formerly Twitter) to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.