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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Configure Ansible and start coding YAML playbooks using the appropriate modules
Key Features
- Create and use Ansible Playbook to script and organise management tasks
- Benefit from the Ansible community roles and modules to resolve complex and niche tasks
- Write configuration management code to automate infrastructure
Book Description
Configuration Management (CM) tools help administrators reduce their workload. Ansible is one of the best Configuration Management tools, and can act as an orchestrator for managing other CMs. This book is the easiest way to learn how to use Ansible as an orchestrator and a Configuration Management tool. With this book, you will learn how to control and monitor computer and network infrastructures of any size,physical or virtual.
You will begin by learning about the Ansible client-server architecture. To get started, you will set up and configure an Ansible server. You will then go through the major features of Ansible: Playbook and Inventory. Then, we will look at Ansible systems and network modules.
You will then use Ansible to enable infrastructure automated configuration management, followed by best practices for using Ansible roles and community modules.
Finally, you will explore Ansible features such as Ansible Vault, Ansible Containers, and Ansible plugins.
What you will learn
- Implement Playbook YAML scripts and its capacities to simplify day-to-day tasks
- Setup Static and Dynamic Inventory
- Use Ansible predefined modules for Linux, Windows, networking, and virtualisation administration
- Organize and configure the host filesystem using storage and files modules
- Implement Ansible to enable infrastructure automated configuration management
- Simplify infrastructure administration
- Search and install new roles and enable them within Ansible
- Secure your data using Ansible Vault
Who this book is for
This book is targeted at System Administrators and Network Administrators who want to use Ansible to automate an infrastructure. No knowledge of Ansible is required.
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Seitenzahl: 204
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Ansible Quick Start Guide
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author(s), nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Commissioning Editor: Gebin GeorgeAcquisition Editor: Reshma RamanContent Development Editor:Mohammed Yusuf ImaratwaleTechnical Editor: Sushmeeta JenaCopy Editor:Safis EditingProject Coordinator: Hardik BhindeProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer:Tejal Daruwale SoniGraphics: Alishon MendonsaProduction Coordinator:Deepika Naik
First published: September 2018
Production reference: 1270918
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78953-293-7
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Contributors
About the author
Mohamed Alibi is a Linux system administrator who works at the European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL-EBI. His area of specialization is mass virtual machine and container provisioning and infrastructure administration for medium-sized distributed bioinformatics training facilities. He always keeps abreast of the latest innovations and developments in new technologies to solve his daily challenges. He holds an MSc in Networking and Computer Sciences in a collaborative program with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the IPT of Tunis, where he expanded his expertise in grid computing data management between the NCSA and IGB under the NIH project H3ABioNet. He published his first book in 2015 with Packt, called Mastering CentOS 7 Linux Server.
About the reviewer
Anis Regaieg is an IT infrastructure and cloud computing engineer currently working as a system administrator at the Tunisian Electoral Management Body. With more than five years of experience in Linux system administration, virtualization, and cloud computing, his main expertise is in high availability and performance optimization solutions. Anis is also passionate about new technologies and software programming.
Packt is searching for authors like you
If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please visit authors.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked with thousands of developers and tech professionals, just like you, to help them share their insight with the global tech community. You can make a general application, apply for a specific hot topic that we are recruiting an author for, or submit your own idea.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Ansible Quick Start Guide
Packt Upsell
Why subscribe?
Packt.com
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
What is Ansible?
The IT configuration management market
Ansible: simple, lightweight, and powerful
 Ansible orchestration and automation
Orchestration
Automate everything
Provisioning
Configuration management
Application deployment
Continuous delivery and continuous integration
Ansible project and Ansible Tower
Ansible project
Ansible Tower
Summary
References
Ansible Setup and Configuration
Ansible master node installation
Prerequisites
Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora package installation
Debian package installation
Ubuntu package installation
macOS X package installation
Python PyPI installation
Source GitHub or tarball installation
Ansible Docker container installation
Ansible instance on AWS
Master node essential configuration
Linux client node configuration
Windows client node configuration
Summary
References
Ansible Inventory and Playbook
Basic Ad hoc commands on Ansible
Ansible inventory
Ansible playbook
Summary
References
Ansible Modules
Ansible modules overview
Ad hoc versus playbook: the ping module
Ad hoc versus playbook: the win_reboot module
ad-hoc versus playbook: the copy module
Ansible module return values
Ansible Linux modules
Linux system modules
The user management module
The group management module
The hostname module
The sysctl control module
The service management module
The systemd module
The kernel blacklist management module
The cron job editing module
The SSH authorized keys management module
The Git usage module
The SELinux control module
Linux commands modules
Running the raw command module
The command execution module 
The shell command module
The script execution module
The expect script module
Linux package modules
Apt package manager module
DNF package manager module
Yum package manager module
Homebrew package manager
PyPI Python package manager module
Cpanm Perl package manager module
Linux file modules
File and folder management modules
Data distribution modules (copy, unarchive, and get_url)
Data collection module (fetch)
File editing modules (lineinfile, replace, and blockinfile)
Linux networking modules
Network interfaces management module
Firewall UFW management module
HAProxy control module
Wake-on-LAN trigger module
Linux storage modules
File system management module
Device mounting module 
Disk partitioning module
GlusterFS control module
Ansible Windows modules
Windows System Modules
Windows user and group management module
Windows register editing module
Windows service management module
Windows updates and feature management modules (win_updates, win_hotfix, and win_feature)
Windows Wake-on-LAN trigger module
Windows firewall management module
Windows package modules
Chocolatey control module
Windows package manager
Windows command modules
Windows command modules (win_shell and win_command)
Windows task scheduling module
Windows file modules
Windows file and folder management module
Windows data sharing module
Windows file editing module
Windows data sending modules (win_copy, win_robocopy, and win_get_url)
Ansible network modules
Network data transfer modules (net_get and network_put)
Cisco IOS command module
Cisco ISO system configuration module
Cisco IOS interface management module
Cisco IOS static route control module
Cisco IOS VLAN management module
Ansible cloud modules
VMware modules
VMware guest management modules (vmware_guest and vsphere_guest)
VMware guest snapshot management module
VMware virtual machine shell execution module
VMware host power state control module
Docker modules
Docker container management module
Docker image management module
Docker login module
Amazon AWS modules
AWS EC2 instance management module
AWS WC2 AMI management module
AWS EC2 key management module
Summary
References
Ansible Automated Infrastructure
Linux infrastructure automation
System management automation
Use case 1 – system update automation
Use case 2 – creating a new user with all its settings
Use case 3 – services (systemd) management
Use case 4 – automated network drive mounting (NFS, SMB)
Use case 5 – automated backup of important documents
Automation of applications and service
Use case 1 – setting up a Linux desktop environment with some pre-installed tools
Use case 2 – LAMP server setup and configuration
Windows infrastructure automation
System management automation
Use case 1 – system update automation
Use case 2 – automated Windows optimization
Application and services automation
Use case 1 – automating Windows application management
Use case 2 – setting up an NSclient Nagios client
Network automation
Use case 1 – automated patching of network devices
Use case 2 – adding a new configuration in network devices
Automation of the cloud and container infrastructure
VMware automation
Use case 1 – creating virtual machines from a template
Use case 2 – ESXi hosts and cluster management
Summary
References
Ansible Coding for Configuration Management
Ansible configuration management coding standards
Playbook and task naming
YAML syntax usage for playbooks
The become feature
Group organization
Using handlers
Password usage in playbooks
Playbook version control
Making Ansible roles where possible
Ansible coding best practices
Using comments in playbooks
Playbook files and folder naming
Avoiding the use of command modules
Avoiding ignoring module errors
Using Ansible conditions
Using Ansible loops
Using template files
Stating task status
Shared storage space for data tasks
Ansible roles
What are Ansible roles?
The tasks folder
The handlers folder
The vars folder
The templates folder
The defaults folder
The files folder
The meta folder
The test folder
The README folder/file
Creating Ansible roles
Using Ansible roles
Summary
References
Ansible Galaxy and Community Roles
Ansible Galaxy
The Ansible Galaxy hub
The Ansible Galaxy command line
Galaxy contribution – role importation
What to do before role submission
Role repository
Ansible Galaxy role management
Ansible Galaxy role search
Ansible Galaxy role installation 
Ansible Galaxy role troubleshooting
Summary
References
Ansible Advanced Features
Ansible Vault
What is Ansible Vault?
Using Ansible Vault
Best practices when using Ansible Vault
Ansible Container
What is Ansible Container?
Using Ansible Container
Example Ansible container
Ansible plugins
What are Ansible plugins?
Developing Ansible plugins
Summary
References
Other Books You May Enjoy
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think
Preface
This is an Ansible guidebook for beginner systems administrators. It aims to properly introduce Ansible as an automation and configuration management tool. Readers of the book should, by the end, master basic use of Ansible playbooks and modules by learning from real-life sample codes that demonstrate each module's functionality to help achieve infrastructure and task automation and orchestration. The book contains some extra advanced tips for those who want to go the extra mile and learn about and collaborate with the Ansible community.
Who this book is for
This book is for three major audiences. First, systems administrators who work with either Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. This covers those who work on bare-metal machines, virtual infrastructure, or cloud-based environments. Then, network administrators, those who work on distributed proprietary network equipment. Finally, DevOps. This book offers a good understanding of how the system they are going to deploy their application in will behave, enabling them to code accordingly or suggest modifications that can benefit their applications.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, What is Ansible?, is an introduction to Ansible and compares it with other configuration management tools.
Chapter 2, Ansible Setup and Configuration, explains how to set up and configure Ansible on multiple systems.
Chapter 3, Ansible Inventory and Playbook, is an introduction to and overview of Ansible Inventory and Playbook.
Chapter 4, Ansible Modules, covers Ansible's most often used modules with real-life sample usage code.
Chapter 5, Ansible Automated Infrastructure, enumerates Ansible's use cases for multiple infrastructures.
Chapter 6, Ansible Coding for Configuration Management, contains best practices for coding Ansible playbooks.
Chapter 7, Ansible Galaxy and Community Roles, is an introduction to Ansible community roles, usage, and contribution.
Chapter 8, Ansible Advanced Features, is an overview of some of Ansible's advanced features, such as Vault, plugins, and containers.
To get the most out of this book
Before reading this book, you should have a basic understanding of the Linux shell and some system administration skills in order to be able to follow the practical examples. Also, some basic coding skills will be very handy when dealing with YAML playbooks. As an optional requirement, having some basic knowledge of configuration management will help to simplify many points in the book.
To be able to run most of the code, we recommend having a virtual environment running at least two Linux machines, a Windows machine, and a Mac OS X. For network device testing, you may need a test network device or some virtual network equipment.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
Log in or register at
www.packt.com
.
Select the
SUPPORT
tab.
Click on
Code Downloads & Errata
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Enter the name of the book in the
Search
box and follow the onscreen instructions.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux
The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub athttps://github.com/PacktPublishing/Ansible-Quick-Start-Guide. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789532937_ColorImages.pdf.
Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.
General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, mention the book title in the subject of your message and email us at [email protected].
Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packt.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.
Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.
If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.
Reviews
Please leave a review. Once you have read and used this book, why not leave a review on the site that you purchased it from? Potential readers can then see and use your unbiased opinion to make purchase decisions, we at Packt can understand what you think about our products, and our authors can see your feedback on their book. Thank you!
For more information about Packt, please visit packt.com.
What is Ansible?
Following the first industrial revolution, automation was introduced, making the already-efficient machinery that had been developed even more efficient. This led to the introduction of industrial constructions, vehicle steering and stabilization, and indoor environmental control, among many other developments. After this, the information revolution kicked in, initiating a new process of optimization. This phase is working to reduce human intervention in technological processes and raise productivity.
Nowadays, automation has become the norm across all fields. It started with simple administrator scripts, written to simplify and speed up daily tasks, and quickly developed into fully-fledged configuration management tools. The reasons behind this rapid development were the increase in market demand, the expansion of infrastructure and applications, and the emergence of new technologies, such as continuous integration, continuous development, and machine provisioning, that require a much more complicated setup and configuration.
By nature, systems and network administrators tend to want to reduce repetitive tasks, simplify complicated ones, and try to move on to the next task as quickly as possible. At first, there were a few simple scripts, such as Bash or PowerShell, that were able to optimize tasks in a standard environment. After that, longer and more complicated scripts that involved advanced programming languages such as Python or Ruby were developed. These aimed to address tasks across multiple platforms or in complex environments and to manage infrastructure using automation and orchestration tools, enabling businesses to grow dramatically overnight with more demanding and complicated services. The role of administrators is to manage this growth and act accordingly to ensure a seamless user experience.
This chapter will provide an overview of Ansible. We will demonstrate that Ansible is now a must-have platform for managing a medium to large infrastructure, rather than having a physical, partially virtual or hybrid, private and public cloud. Other automation tools offer different benefits with regard to their installation, usage, speed, and flexibility, so it can be tricky for a first-time user to choose the most appropriate automation tool for their environment. Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and SaltStack are the major configuration management tools available on the market. Each of these follows a different method of deploying, configuring, and managing machines with reduced complexity and increased speed, reliability, and compliance. This chapter will cover the following topics:
Market study of automation tools
Introduction to Ansible as a configuration management and task orchestration tool
Exploration of Ansible's functionalities across operating systems, architectures, and cloud platforms
Overview of the Ansible project and Tower
The IT configuration management market
The major configuration management tools currently used in the market are Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and SaltStack. Each one of these has their own pros and cons, so finding the right one can be a bit challenging, depending on which features are valued or which programming language is preferred. In this section, we will briefly introduce each of the tools and explain why we have chosen Ansible in this book.
Chef is an open source, client-server configuration management tool. It offers a flexible infrastructure automation framework using Ruby and domain-specific language (DSL) for the administration of hosts. This covers all types of hosts, including bare metal, virtual, or on the cloud. Chef is very common with code developers due to its flexibility, stability, and reliability in large cloud deployments. However, it can be challenging to set up and learn its functionalities, so it might take a new user some time before properly mastering it.
Puppet is a Ruby-based configuration management and orchestration tool. It follows an agent/master architecture, where the hosts to be controlled require a Puppet agent to allow their management. Puppet features a strong automation and reporting capability, via its UI interface, for task submission and host real-time reporting. Like Chef, Puppet can be challenging for new users to set up and configure. A prior knowledge of Ruby and DSL is required to perform personalized and complex tasks.
SaltStack is a Python-coded platform built to allow high-speed, master-agent communication. Its configuration management tasks are coded in Yet Another Markdown Language(YAML). The master (or multiple masters) uses the SSH protocol to control the agents/minions. SaltStack is very scalable, meaning it can respond well to environmental changes, it is easy to use, and it has a strong community. On the other hand, its installation can be difficult for a new user, its UI is not well-developed, it focuses on Linux with an average cover of other operating systems, and its documentation lacks good management.
Ansible is a relatively new tool compared to the others. It was built to simplify the complexity of task automation and orchestration. It is built on Python and uses YAML for scripting its jobs, which is a language that is very simple and close to English. This allows new users to understand it easily and write it themselves. Ansible does not require an agent to be installed in the hosts. It supports both push and pull models to send commands to its Linux nodes via the SSH protocol, and the WinRM protocol to send commands to its Windows nodes. It allows for a seamless deployment and provisioning for both VMs, applications, and containers, and scales easily to match the environment growth. It is simple to install and configure, and it is fairly easy to learn how to use it and code its scripts. Ansible does not require agent installation, which improves its communication speed. It is predominantly advanced in configuration management tasks, but it can also behave as an infrastructure orchestration tool. However, it requires extra permission for the master nodes. Users can easily end up with multiple scripts for multiple tasks, which can get confusing, and it lacks a good GUI and a mature platform when compared to older tools.
Each of these tools is built for a specific audience. They have many well-developed features to cover a user's unique requirements to either simplify their daily tasks, improve productivity, speed up a host configuration, or close the gap in a hybrid environment.
