Let's install Ansible

There are many ways you can install Ansible, for this demo we will install it with pip. You can check other ways to install it in: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html

Make sure you have python installed:

python --version 

If you don't, install it with:

sudo yum install -y python

Make sure you have pip installed:

pip--version 

If you don't, install it with:

sudo yum install -y python-pip

Install Ansible:

pip install ansible

Make sure you have Ansible installed:

ansible --version 

Create a Config and Hosts file

As we installed Ansible with pip, there will not be an ansible directorin in etc, we need to create one:

sudo mkdir /etc/ansible/

Inside this directory, we need to create a config file for Anisble

sudo vim /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

please refer to the ansible.cfg file to review the contents

We also need to create the hosts file

sudo vim /etc/ansible/hosts

please refer to the hosts file to review the contents

To validate the above, you can list the hosts defined

ansible-inventory -y --list

Connect master and host servers

As Ansible communicates with port 22, you need to add it to the security group inbound rules for master and host to communicate.

On the master server: Create an SSH key

ssh-keygen -t rsa

we created a private and public key, we need to copy the public key to the host server so they can connect

On the host server: Edit the sshd config file:

sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Change PasswordAuthentication param to yes:

PasswordAuthentication yes

Restart daemon:

sudo systemctl restart sshd

On the master server: Copy public key to host

ssh-copy-id <host_ip>

Validate connection:

ansible all -m ping

Now you can start creating your playbooks

1. Create a User
2. Install a software
3. Copy files or a directory into the new user’s home directory
4. Change the permissions and ownership to a file/s
5. Create a playbook with all the tasks above

Create the playbooks

Please refer to the playbooks folder for each one.

Run your playbooks

To run a playbook you need to run the command:

ansible-playbook <file name>

Playbook validations

Create a User On the host server use below command to validate the current users:

 less /etc/passwd

Install a software Validate if the software is installed with:

<software> --version

Check if the service is running with:

sudo systemctl status <service>

Copy files or a directory into the new user’s home directory Go to the directory where you copied the file and type ls

Change the permissions and ownership to a file/s Go to the directory of the file and type ll, validate changes are in place

Create a playbook with all the tasks above Open port 80 to your IP in the security group, copy the host public IP and paste it on a browser adding :80 at the end and see your webserver running.