name: inverse layout: true class: center, middle, inverse
---
# Ansible
Helena Rasche
last_modification
Updated:
purl
PURL
:
gxy.io/GTN:S00001
video-slides
Video slides
|
text-document
Plain-text slides
|
video
Recordings
video
Lecture (February 2021) - 5m
video
View All
Tip:
press
P
to view the presenter notes |
arrow-keys
Use arrow keys to move between slides
??? Presenter notes contain extra information which might be useful if you intend to use these slides for teaching. Press `P` again to switch presenter notes off Press `C` to create a new window where the same presentation will be displayed. This window is linked to the main window. Changing slides on one will cause the slide to change on the other. Useful when presenting. --- ### <i class="far fa-question-circle" aria-hidden="true"></i><span class="visually-hidden">question</span> Questions - Why Ansible? - How and when to use Ansible? - How to write a role? - How to leverage community build roles? --- ### <i class="fas fa-bullseye" aria-hidden="true"></i><span class="visually-hidden">objectives</span> Objectives - Learn Ansible basics. - Write a simple role. - Install a role from Ansible Galaxy. --- ## Configuration Management Manages the configuration of machines. Specifies what software is installed, how it is configured ??? - Configuration management manages the configuration of machines. - It specifies what software should be installed, and how it should be configured --- ### Why Configuration Management? - Are you keeping track of config changes? - What if your server dies? - ... or your VM is accidentally deleted? - Can you recover? How quickly? ??? - So why do you want configuration management? - What do you do when things go wrong? - What if your server dies? - Did you backup your configuration? - Did you back up your webserver configuration? - Ansible provides an answer. --- ### Configuration Management goals - Reproducibility - Ensure 1000s of machines are correctly configured - Easily recover from bad situations ??? - The goals of using CM are reproducibility, uniformity, and recovery. --- ### Ansible - [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/) is an open-source configuration management tool, sponsored by Red Hat - Several [alternatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_configuration_management_software) are available (Chef, Puppet, Salt, etc) - It uses an agentless model: SSH into machine and executes commands - Very popular, especially among Galaxy admins! - Many modules for common tasks like copying files or managing users or services. ??? - Ansible is a very popular CM tool, sponsored by RedHat. - There are several alternatives, but Galaxy Project uses Ansible. - It uses an agent-less model. You SSH into machines and execute commands on them. - It has many popular pre-existing roles for common tasks. --- ## Important Terms ??? - Some important terms you should know --- ### Inventory File Defines the systems (called "hosts") against which Ansible will work. ```ini [webservers] 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2 ansible_user=ubuntu [databases] db_1.example.org ansible_user=root ``` ??? - First is the Inventory File. - This file lists all of your hosts. - The group name is in square brackets. - Group names are used to select a set of systems, on which Ansible should operate. - It is possible to assign variables to hosts and groups. - Here we override the ansible user variable on two hosts. - This variable controls which user is used in login. --- ### Ansible Module and Tasks A **module** is a piece of code that Ansible can execute on a host, collecting return values. A **task** is an invocation of single module with its configuration. ```yaml --- - copy: src: foo.conf dest: /etc/foo.conf owner: foo group: foo mode: 0644 - package: name: ntpdate state: present ``` ??? - Here is an example of invoking the copy module and the package module. - Copy copies a file from source, on the local host to destination, on the remote host. - Then it sets some attributes about the file like the owner and mode. - Next we see an example of the package module. This is a generic OS package manager module. - It ensures that for the package named ntpdate, its state is present, i.e. installed. --- ### Role .pull-left[ A collection of: - tasks - files - templates - variables - handlers ] .pull-right[ with a predefined directory structure: ``` . ├── defaults │ └── main.yml ├── files │ └── cvmfs_wipecache.centos_7 ├── handlers │ └── main.yml ├── meta │ └── main.yml ├── README.md ├── tasks │ ├── apache.yml │ ├── main.yml │ └── stratumN.yml ├── templates │ └── stratum1_squid.conf.j2 ├── tests │ ├── inventory │ └── test.yml └── vars └── main.yml ``` ] ??? - A role is a collection of tasks, files, templates, variables, and handlers. - Tasks are things to be executed, like a copy task to add files to a remote machine. - Files have static, unchanging files that are used by the tasks. - The templates are like files, but they contain variables which will be replaced, when ansible deploys the file. - Variables contain definitions of variables for use in templates and tasks. - Handlers manage services, restarting them when configuration changes. --- ### Playbook A YAML file listing a set of tasks and/or roles that should be applied to a group of hosts. .pull-left[ - We define a playbook which has a name - And applies to some group of hosts - We specify some additional variables - And then invoke some roles ] .pull-right[ ```yaml - name: CVMFS hosts: all vars: cvmfs_role: client galaxy_cvmfs_repos_enabled: true roles: - geerlingguy.repo-epel - galaxyproject.cvmfs ``` ] ??? - This is an example playbook. - We give it a name, in this case CVMFS. - Then we select some hosts, i.e. all hosts known to our inventory file. - We specify some additional variables. - And then we invoke two roles. --- ### Vault - Ansible playbooks should be kept under **version control** (typically with Git) - Playbooks can be safely shared on public Git repositories (e.g. GitHub) by storing secrets like passwords in encrypted files called **vaults** ``` $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256 63333238633033313664633437316231323932326531386266636637353037313335613563663934 6639666536653631363739383639633165633337393334630a353233393938646539306362633738 61613439366435336230636561663864323765303663666239613430323534333665636665643964 6537376666323333660a663233343565393166373665366138306661343764623561343634656463 31636265303430623731643766346434323565663436626466353765393465376533376366356463 ``` ??? - If you have secrets like API keys or passwords, you need to use Vault. - Vault encrypts your secrets with a password, so you can include them in your playbooks. - This lets you collaborate on playbooks and infrastructure publicly with git. --- ## Ansible Philosophies - Some people write a single playbook that completely manages a machine (installing everything on a brand new machine) - Other people write playbooks for a single task (e.g. upgrading software / installing nginx) - Which one depends on your use case. ??? - There are multiple ways of designing playbooks, use one that fits your use case. - Some prefer a playbook which does everything, so no step can be forgotten. - Others prefer playbooks which do individual steps. These can be faster, and you can only run the ones that change. --- ## Ansible Galaxy - Public repository of roles - Many for common software deployment (nginx, apache, postgresql) - Different "Galaxy" than the bioinformatics tool server (but Ansible can be used to install that too!) ??? - Ansible has a repository for public roles. - There are a huge number of available roles for common tasks. - It is called Ansible Galaxy, but it is a different Galaxy. --- ### <i class="fas fa-key" aria-hidden="true"></i><span class="visually-hidden">keypoints</span> Key points - Ansible lets you do system administration at scale - Many system administration, software installation, and software management tasks are already available as Ansible tasks or roles --- ## Thank You! This material is the result of a collaborative work. Thanks to the [Galaxy Training Network](https://training.galaxyproject.org) and all the contributors!
Authors:
Helena Rasche
Tutorial Content is licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
.