Dan Kohn's Blog

Useful Links:
https://geektechstuff.com/2019/06/25/installing-ansible-raspberry-pi/
https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/config.html#ansible-configuration-settings-locations

Did the install commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt install ansible

this did not create the default directory /etc/ansible or the default config files so had to do the following:
sudo mkdir -p /etc/ansible
sudo touch /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg /etc/ansible/hosts
ansible-config init –disabled > ansible.cfg
sudo mv ansible.cfg /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Now check the config:
ansible –version

Now edited the hosts file for ansible
sudo pico -w /etc/ansible/hosts

and put in a test group:

[test]
192.168.0.1
192.168.0.2

errored as predicted in https://geektechstuff.com/2019/06/25/installing-ansible-raspberry-pi/ but I did not like the solution of ssh keys, so I found how to add name and password to host file:
[test]
192.168.0.212

[test:vars]
ansible_user=user
ansible_password=*******

and that worked for what I want (to be able to log into switches and routers to run commands

Host 192.168.0.*
kexalgorithms +diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie- hellman-group1-sha1
HostkeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa
PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms +ssh-rsa
Ciphers +aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc

had to modify hosts file as follows:

[sw]
192.168.0.12
192.168.0.22
192.168.0.32
192.168.0.42

[sw:vars]
ansible_connection=network_cli
ansible_network_os=cisco.ios.ios
ansible_user=cisco
ansible_password=clasS

[router]
192.168.0.11
192.168.0.21
192.168.0.31
192.168.0.41

[router:vars]
ansible_connection-network_cli
ansible_network_os_cisco.ios.ios
ansible_user=cisco
ansible_password=class

then got error so I had to do the following:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y python3-paaramiko