First steps with Ansible. – DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻

Ansible is among the most up-to-date instruments launched by Crimson Hat and top-of-the-line selections for Builders and DevOps engineers to automate virtually all the things inside a brand new server. It’s free and open-source, and belief me, configuring distant servers has by no means been really easy.

On this tutorial, I intend to point out you tips on how to set up and begin to use this highly effective device.

Putting in Ansible

First, you have to an Ansible controller host to handle all of your nodes. This host could possibly be your localhost, don’t fret, Ansible will work regardless of which working system you employ. I’m utilizing Ubuntu, however the set up steps for every other os are virtually the identical.

Let’s set up Ansible utilizing apt.

$ sudo apt set up ansible

As soon as the set up completed, run

$ ansible --version

If the bundle set up was profitable, you must see one thing like this.

Ansible nodes

Now your ansible controller is working, fairly simple proper?
Let’s arrange your nodes, open the /and so forth/ansible/hosts file along with your most well-liked editor, you must see this template

# That is the default ansible 'hosts' file.
#
# It ought to dwell in /and so forth/ansible/hosts
#
#   - Feedback start with the '#' character
#   - Clean strains are ignored
#   - Teams of hosts are delimited by [header] parts
#   - You may enter hostnames or ip addresses
#   - A hostname/ip is usually a member of a number of teams
# Ex 1: Ungrouped hosts, specify earlier than any group headers.
#inexperienced.instance.com
#blue.instance.com
#192.168.100.1
#192.168.100.10
# Ex 2: A set of hosts belonging to the 'webservers' group#[webservers]
#alpha.instance.org
#beta.instance.org
#192.168.1.100
#192.168.1.110
# When you've got a number of hosts following a sample you possibly can specify
# them like this:
#www[001:006].instance.com# Ex 3: A set of database servers within the 'dbservers' group
#[dbservers]
#
#db01.intranet.mydomain.web
#db02.intranet.mydomain.web
#10.25.1.56
#10.25.1.57# Here is one other instance of host ranges, this time there aren't any
# main 0s:#db-[99:101]-node.instance.com

You may add your hosts on the backside of the file or delete all of the content material and exchange it along with your hosts. The one rule is to observe the syntax under.

# Linux host
# host_alias ansible_host=<host_ip_or_url> ansible_connection=ssh ansible_user=<host_user> ansible_ssh_pass=<ssh_password_for_user>
# Home windows host
# host_alias ansible_host=<host_ip_or_url> ansible_connection=winrm ansible_user=<host_user> ansible_password=<password_for_user>
# I'm including two servers, each of them are Linux servers
web1 ansible_host=my.webserver.com ansible_connection=ssh ansible_user=root ansible_ssh_pass=Passw0rd
db1 ansible_host=my.databaseserver.com ansible_connection=ssh ansible_user=root ansible_ssh_server=Passw0rd

Now, add some teams to your servers. Teams allow you to run instructions and scripts on a number of hosts concurrently.

[web_nodes]
web1 ansible_host=my.webserver.com ansible_connection=ssh ansible_user=root ansible_ssh_pass=Passw0rd
[db_nodes]
db1 ansible_host=my.databaseserver.com ansible_connection=ssh ansible_user=root ansible_ssh_server=Passw0rd

Save your modifications and shut the file.

Ansible depends upon sshpass bundle, set up it working the next command

$ sudo apt set up sshpass

The one remaining step is to connect with your hosts by means of ssh; that is for including your host’s fingerprints to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file.

$ ssh root@my.webserver.com
$ ssh root@my.databaseserver.com

Now, strive your hosts by working:

$ # Ansible has an 'all' group which accommodates all of your outlined hosts
$ ansible all -m ping

If all the things goes nicely, you will notice an identical output

Working playbooks

Your hosts are prepared for use by means of Ansible. Please create a brand new folder in your house listing.

$ mdkir ~/ansible-tutorial
$ cd ~/ansible-tutorial

Ansible’s scripts are simply YAML information. When you’ve got labored with YAML earlier than, this step will probably be simple.
Open a brand new playbook.yml file and add the next strains

- title: My playbook
  hosts: web1
  duties:
  - title: Runnig date
    command: date

• title is an alias for the playbook
• hosts defines the hosts to run the playbook, is usually a group
• duties is an array that holds the actions or modules to make use of

Save your modifications and shut the file, now run it with
$ ansible-playbook playbook.yml
You must see an identical output as under

A easy, real-life instance

You realized some new issues thus far

• Set up and configure an Ansible controller
• Add a brand new playbook
• Run it in your hosts

Now it’s time to learn the way we will use Ansible in a real-life situation.
For this instance, you’re going to set up and run an Nginx webserver.
Let’s create a brand new playbook

$ vim nginx-playbook.yml

To begin to write this playbook, add a reputation and the host the place the Nginx needs to be working (keep in mind the identation)

- title: 'Set up and deploy nginx'
  hosts: web1

Now, add the duties, on this case you have to to outline two actions.
Set up the newest Nginx model
Begin Nginx server

duties:
  - title: 'Set up Nginx newest model'
    apt:
      title: nginx
      state: newest

This activity appears for Nginx on the goal host. If Ansible finds Nginx’s newest model, the set up will not occur.

- title: 'Run Nginx'
    service:
      title: nginx
      state: began

And this activity checks if the Nginx server is already working. If it isn’t, then the step is skipped.
Your full nginx-playbook.yml ought to seem like this

- title: 'Set up and deploy nginx'
  hosts: web1
  duties:
    - title: 'Set up Nginx newest model'
      apt:
        title: nginx
        state: newest
    - title: 'Run Nginx'
      service:
        title: nginx
        state: began

Save your modifications, and now, strive it!
Since we’re putting in a bundle in your host, you have to so as to add the ‘-b’ flag to the playbook command.

$ ansible-playbook nginx-playbook.yml -b 
$ # -b or --become grants root privileges to ansible consumer.

And at last let’s verify the browser!

Conclusion

Ansible is a superb ally; it makes it simple to put in and deploy issues in all of your servers. Positive, that is simply an introductory tutorial, however this device has one module for all the things you should automate. You will discover all at all times out there here.

Thanks for studying. Each suggestions, remark, or sharing is very appreciated!