topic Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible in Automation/API Discussions

Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

Brandon99 — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 13:11:45 GMT

I may be missing something, but I'm not seeing a way to create a custom URL category via Terraform or Ansible. We are trying to automate our Palo setups as much as possible, and from what I can tell, this is the only thing we are unable to do with it. We can create the URL filtering profiles, just not the URL categories. Anyone ran into this or know of a way to do it? I know you can create them via the API, but that's kind of a messy workaround. Just wanted to check before implementing it.

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

JimmyHolland — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 16:19:47 GMT

Hi @Brandon99, here is the Ansible module reference for Custom URL Categories: https://paloaltonetworks.github.io/pan-os-ansible/modules/panos_custom_url_category.html. Does that help?

For the PAN-OS Terraform provider, Custom URL Categories are not yet implemented, but if you could share your use case with your account team, or via your reseller, that would be really useful, and have them forward over to us. Thanks!

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

Brandon99 — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 21:33:24 GMT

Hey Jimmy, thanks for that. I guess I forgot to include some things. My issue was the I was unable to create the category via Terraform, but was unable to create some of the other things via Ansible, that I can create with Terraform. There was no one solution to set everything up, but I did figure out what I could do. There was only 1 thing I couldn't create via Terraform and 3 I couldn't create via Ansible, so I decided to go with Terraform. I was able to get the URL category working by creating a "null_resource" in Terraform with a provisioner to call an Ansible script.

I basically created an Ansible script with a single task of creating the URL Categories, then used the following for my Terraform script:

resource "null_resource" "whitelisted_sites" {
  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "ansible-playbook -T 300 url_categories.yml --extra-vars='{\"ip_address\": \"IP_ADDRESS\", \"username\": \"USERNAME\", \"password\": \"PASSWORD\"}'"
  }
}

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

JimmyHolland — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:00:17 GMT

Yes, that's a way to supplement Terraform provider functionality, use a null_resource to execute another script, Ansible being one example. If you can let us know via your usual account team or reseller the use case for Custom URL Categories and have them send it to me, it helps prioritise future Terraform provider features. Thanks!

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

Brandon99 — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 11:53:47 GMT

Hey @JimmyHolland,

I'm not even sure who to go to with that to be honest. We're a small team here and as far as I know, we don't really have a reseller.
We are just using the Palo Alto AMI from the marketplace. We do have a license for our physical Palo Altos in our offices, but I'm honestly not sure who we go through for that.

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

JimmyHolland — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 11:57:07 GMT

No problem, I'll send you a message directly.

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

rborunda_dexcom — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 02:29:26 GMT

I'm looking for the same functionality. I'll reach out to our TAM and let them know. Should I reference this forum or is there a specific project/internal ticket I should reference?

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

JimmyHolland — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:19:17 GMT

I've sent you a message directly @rborunda_dexcom

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

gfreeman — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:58:19 GMT

Custom URL categories will be in the next Terraform release (will be out before the end of the year).

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

SohelMomin — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 13:19:58 GMT

Hello,
Could you please tell me by when exactly will this be expected ?
From your above post you hint towards the end of 2021....It would be super awesome if its done by December, I'll escape the pain of incorporating our pure terraform automation with ansible 🙂 🙂

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

gfreeman — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 20:53:00 GMT

Exactly I can't say. But it will be out before Dec 31st for sure. We're looking over the github issues and seeing if there's anything else that can be crammed in in time.

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

SohelMomin — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 08:03:37 GMT

Hello...sorry I missed your reply to my query
Is there a pull request on the repo currently https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/terraform-provider-panos that I can track for this custom url category feature? 🙂
Currently I dont see any open PR 😕

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

JimmyHolland — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 09:07:09 GMT

Hi @SohelMomin, you could track this issue, this issue, or "watch" the repo itself for a new release.

Hope that helps?

Re: Creating Custom URL categories with Terraform or Ansible

gfreeman — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 22:25:41 GMT

Probably the last day of December, it's looking like.