Ansible

A great place to learn Ansible as well as some useful playbooks to get started using it. Over time, it may grow into a place for more advanced and complex implementations.

Getting Started

NOTE: The following is a history of the steps I took to get a fully working example, including everything that failed. So, be ready to make changes to the end and see the actual files in this directory for the final working example.

Certainly! Here's a guide to help you get started with Ansible:

1. Install Ansible:

   • On Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt update && sudo apt install ansible
   • On macOS: brew install ansible
   • On Windows: Use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or run Ansible in a virtual machine

2. Understand key concepts:

   • Control Node: The machine where Ansible is installed
   • Managed Nodes: The servers you're managing with Ansible
   • Inventory: A list of managed nodes
   • Playbooks: YAML files describing the desired state of your systems
   • Modules: Units of code Ansible executes on managed nodes

3. Create an inventory file:

   [webservers]
   192.168.1.101
   192.168.1.102
   
   [databases]
   192.168.1.103
   

4. Write a simple playbook (e.g., webserver.yml):

   ---
   - hosts: webservers
     become: yes
     tasks:
       - name: Install Apache
         apt:
           name: apache2
           state: present
   
       - name: Start Apache service
         service:
           name: apache2
           state: started

5. Run your playbook:

   ansible-playbook -i inventory webserver.yml
   

6. Learn about Ansible roles for organizing more complex playbooks

7. Explore Ansible Galaxy for community-contributed roles and collections

8. Practice with more complex tasks and playbooks

Would you like me to explain or elaborate on any of these steps?

Issues with my Ansible Install

ansible --version

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ansible", line 34, in <module>
    from ansible import context
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ansible'

Tried installing with Conda

conda install ansible

That threw an error

Retrieving notices: ...working... done
Channels:
 - defaults
Platform: linux-64
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed
PackagesNotFoundError: The following packages are not available from current channels:
  - ansible
Current channels:
  - defaults
To search for alternate channels that may provide the conda package you're
looking for, navigate to
    https://anaconda.org
and use the search bar at the top of the page.

Tried instead with pip

pip install ansible

Looks like it worked with pip

Collecting ansible
  Downloading ansible-10.1.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (8.2 kB)
Collecting ansible-core~=2.17.1 (from ansible)
  Downloading ansible_core-2.17.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (6.9 kB)
Collecting jinja2>=3.0.0 (from ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading jinja2-3.1.4-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (2.6 kB)
Collecting PyYAML>=5.1 (from ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading PyYAML-6.0.1-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (2.1 kB)
Collecting cryptography (from ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading cryptography-42.0.8-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (5.3 kB)
Collecting packaging (from ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading packaging-24.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.2 kB)
Collecting resolvelib<1.1.0,>=0.5.3 (from ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading resolvelib-1.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (4.0 kB)
Collecting MarkupSafe>=2.0 (from jinja2>=3.0.0->ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading MarkupSafe-2.1.5-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (3.0 kB)
Collecting cffi>=1.12 (from cryptography->ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Using cached cffi-1.16.0-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (1.5 kB)
Collecting pycparser (from cffi>=1.12->cryptography->ansible-core~=2.17.1->ansible)
  Downloading pycparser-2.22-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (943 bytes)
Downloading ansible-10.1.0-py3-none-any.whl (47.9 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 47.9/47.9 MB 27.5 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading ansible_core-2.17.1-py3-none-any.whl (2.2 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 2.2/2.2 MB 30.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading jinja2-3.1.4-py3-none-any.whl (133 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 133.3/133.3 kB 5.4 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading PyYAML-6.0.1-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (757 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 757.7/757.7 kB 20.7 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading resolvelib-1.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (17 kB)
Downloading cryptography-42.0.8-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (3.9 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 3.9/3.9 MB 33.6 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading packaging-24.1-py3-none-any.whl (53 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 54.0/54.0 kB 2.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Using cached cffi-1.16.0-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (464 kB)
Downloading MarkupSafe-2.1.5-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (28 kB)
Downloading pycparser-2.22-py3-none-any.whl (117 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 117.6/117.6 kB 5.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Installing collected packages: resolvelib, PyYAML, pycparser, packaging, MarkupSafe, jinja2, cffi, cryptography, ansible-core, ansible
Successfully installed MarkupSafe-2.1.5 PyYAML-6.0.1 ansible-10.1.0 ansible-core-2.17.1 cffi-1.16.0 cryptography-42.0.8 jinja2-3.1.4 packaging-24.1 pycparser-2.22 resolvelib-1.0.1

[notice] A new release of pip is available: 24.0 -> 24.1.2
[notice] To update, run: pip install --upgrade pip

Now I'm able to run the playbook.

ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini webserver.yml

It's throwing errors obviously, because I'm testing all of this locally. Let's set up a containerized server simulation with Docker so we can get this do do stuff.

PLAY [webservers] ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [192.168.1.102]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.102 port 22: Connection refused", "unreachable": true}
fatal: [192.168.1.101]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.101 port 22: No route to host", "unreachable": true}

PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
192.168.1.101              : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   
192.168.1.102              : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Here is my Dockerfile

FROM ubuntu:20.04
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y openssh-server python3
RUN mkdir /var/run/sshd
RUN echo 'root:password' | chpasswd
RUN sed -i 's/#PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/PermitRootLogin yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
EXPOSE 22
CMD ["/usr/sbin/sshd", "-D"]

Build it.

docker build -t ansible-test-server .

Run two containers.

docker run -d -p 2224:22 --name server1 ansible-test-server
docker run -d -p 2223:22 --name server2 ansible-test-server

Update the inventory file.

[webservers]
localhost ansible_port=2224 ansible_user=root ansible_password=password
localhost ansible_port=2223 ansible_user=root ansible_password=password

Update your Ansible configuration to allow using password authentication: Create or edit ansible.cfg in your project directory:

[defaults]
host_key_checking = False

[ssh_connection]
scp_if_ssh = True

Modify your playbook to use apt instead of yum for Ubuntu:

---
- hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install Apache
      apt:
        name: apache2
        state: present
        update_cache: yes

    - name: Start Apache service
      service:
        name: apache2
        state: started

Got an error related to SSH

(base) jay@RevenantCyborg-237:~/Web/CyberWorld/ansible$ ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini webserver.yml

PLAY [webservers] ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"msg": "to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords or pkcs11_provider, you must install the sshpass program"}

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Installed sshpass

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sshpass

Now it's working.

PLAY [webservers] ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
[WARNING]: Platform linux on host localhost is using the discovered Python interpreter at /usr/bin/python3.8, but future installation of another Python interpreter could change the meaning of that path. See
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/2.17/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for more information.
ok: [localhost]

TASK [Install Apache] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]

TASK [Start Apache service] ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

I think something was using port 2222, which is where I originally had server1 forwarding to. If I skip 2222 and use 2223, 2224, and so on, it works with any number of other ports.

Anyway, it works now.

docker exec server2 service apache2 status

Gives the response

 * apache2 is running

So does server3, which is running on 2224.

So that's a pretty good intro. I'll call that a commit for now and build more complexity and security into it in future examples.