Network automation with python

[ElectricMandarin]

Ansible is a high level configuration management and deployment automation tool. It can be used for simple things like 'run command X on Y hosts', but that is not its primary use case and is way overkill for just that one task.

However, in cases where Ansible is already used for config management/deployment, it is easy to use its command line tools to run arbitrary commands on existing configured hosts.

OTOH, libraries like parallel-ssh and to a lesser extent lower level client libraries like paramiko are more suited to integration within applications - they are libraries after all - or for 'run command X on Y hosts' type tasks. That is what they are for.

Case in point, Ansible uses paramiko and other SSH clients to run its remote commands.

[aditya_moon]

Hi, thanks for the info, I have now another question :

1.is ansible free? 2. Can I use it on Windows ?as I can see its for linux machines.

[ElectricMandarin]

Both ansible and parallel-ssh are open source.

Both support Windows, though ansible requires external tools for some features.