Complete Ansible Automation Training

Ansible for Remote

Clients Management
 Remote Clients hosts File Syntax
/etc/ansible/hosts

• All remote clients are considered inventory in Ansible

• Ansible keeps its inventory information in host file located: /etc/ansible/hosts
• The hosts file is created during Ansible installation

app1.example.com [appservers] [allservers]

app2.example.com app1.example.com app1.example.com
web1.example.com app2.example.com app2.example.com
206.198.210.35 web1.example.com
205.168.20.13 [webservers] web2.example.com
web1.example.com 10.91.50.111
One client listed in each line web2.example.com 10.91.50.112
206.198.210.35 10.91.50.113
10.91.50.114
[dbservers]
205.168.20.11
No need to define allservers because
205.168.20.12
Headers to group clients Ansible has a default for all

IP Range 205.168.20.[11:14]

• You can specify different location of the file

# ansible-playbook -i /home/iafzal/ansible/hosts By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Remote Clients hosts File Syntax
/etc/ansible/hosts

[servers]
server1 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.110 Aliases
server2 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.111
server3 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.112
server4 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.113
server5 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.114
server6 ansible_ssh_host=10.91.50.115

[appserver]
server1
server2

[webserver]
server3
server4

[dbservers]
server5
server6

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Remote Clients hosts File Syntax
/etc/ansible/hosts

• Inventory host file can either be static or dynamic (using additional plug-ins)

• Listing host file

# ansible-inventory --list
OR
# ansible all --list-hosts

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
Establish Connection to Remote Clients
• Take a snapshot of our Linux client1 and then power it up
• Note down its IP address

• Populate the hosts file with IP or FQDN for our clients:

[labclients] = For grouping
10.253.1.18
10.253.1.20

• Generate SSH Keys on the control node and copy over to clients for password less
SSH connections
# ssh-keygen
# Leave everything default and enter
# ssh-copy-id 10.253.1.18
# ssh-copy-id 10.253.1.20

• Now SSH into the clients to test

# ssh 10.253.1.18

• Run Ansible add-hoc to ping remote nodes (make sure hosts file has remote clients IPs)
# ansible all -m ping
# ansible –a “uptime” all (To run a command on the remote clients) By: Imran Afzal
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Check Remote Clients Connectivity

# su - root
# cd /etc/ansible/playbooks
# vim clientstatus.yml

---
- name: “Check remote clients connectivity status”
hosts: all

tasks:
- name: Test connectivity
ping:

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook clientstatus.yml

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Copy Files to Remote Clients
# echo somestuff > /home/iafzal/some.cfg
# vim copy.yml

---
- name: Copy file from local to remote clients Description of the playbook
hosts: all Run it on all hosts
tasks: Run the following task(s)
- name: Copying file Description of the task
become: true Transfer as a current user
copy: Run copy module
src: /home/iafzal/some.cfg
dest: /tmp
Source of the file
owner: iafzal
group: iafzal
Destination of the file
mode: 0644
Change ownership and file permissions

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Change File Permissions
# Login to LinuxClient1
# touch /home/iafzal/linux2

# Login to ControlNode
# vim filepermission.yml

---
- name: Change file permissions
hosts: all

tasks:
- name: Files Permissions
file:
path: /home/iafzal/linux2 File location
mode: a+w Permissions

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook filepermission.yml

• Ansible modules and options

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/modules/ By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Setup Apache and Open Firewall Port
• The playbook will
1. Install httpd package
2. Start httpd service
3. Open http service port in firewall
4. Restart firewalld service

# Login to LinuxCleint1
# rpm –qa | grep http
# systemctl status firewalld

# Login to ControlNode

• Install additional Ansible collection for firewalld

# ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.posix

# cd /home/ansible/playbooks
# vim httpsetup.yml

• Ansible modules and options

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/modules/
By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Setup Apache and Open Firewall Port
---
- name: Setup httpd and open firewall port
hosts: all
tasks:
- name: Install apache packages
yum:
name: httpd
state: present State = What to do with the package?
• present or installed = Install
- name: Start httpd
service: • absent or removed = Un-install
name: httpd • latest = Upgrade
state: started
State = What to do with the service?
- name: Open port 80 for http access • started|stopped|reloaded|restarted
firewalld:
service: http
permanent: true
state: enabled

- name: Restart firewalld service to load firewall changes

service:
name: firewalld
state: reloaded

save httpsetup.yml By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Setup Apache and Open Firewall Port
• Login back to LinuxCleint1

• Check httpd package status

# rpm –qa | grep http

• Check httpd package service status

# systemctl status httpd

• Check firewalld service status

# systemctl status firewalld

• Check if http service is enabled in firewalld

# firewall-cmd --list-all

• Open FireFox and go to 10.253.1.115

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Run Shell Scripts on Remote Clients
• The playbook will run shell script on the remote client (LinuxClient1)
• Create /home/iafzal/cfile.sh script on LinuxClient1
• The cfile.sh script should create a new file example1

# vim shellscript.yml

---
- name: Playbook for shell script Description of the playbook
hosts: all or 10.253.1.115 Run on client1

tasks: Run the following task

- name: Run shell script Name/description of the task
shell: “/home/iafzal/cfile.sh” Run shell module which will execute shell script on
LinuxClient1

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook shellscript.yml

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Schedule a job (crontab)
• The playbook cronjob.yml will
• Schedule a job as a root
• Every thursday at 10am
• Define job (/home/iafzal/cfile.sh) to be executed by root
# vim cronjob.yml

---
- name: Create a cron job
hosts: all

tasks:
- name: Schedule cron:
cron:
name: This job is scheduled by Ansible
minute: “0”
hour: “10”
day: “*” Day of the month
month: “*”
weekday: “4“ Day of the week
user: root
job: “/home/iafzal/cfile.sh”

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook cronjob.yml
By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 User Account Management
• The playbook will
• Create a user george on remote clients
• The user george will have a home directory as /home/George
• The shell environment for user george will be /bin/bash
# vim adduser.yml

---
- name: Playbook for creating users Description of the playbook
hosts: all Run on all clients

tasks: Run the following task

- name: Create users Name of the task
user: Run user module for account management
name: george Username
home: /home/george User home directory
shell: /bin/bash User shell

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook adduser.yml
By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Add or Update User Password
• The playbook will
• Add/update a password for user george

Please note: Ansible does not allow us to pass a cleartext password through the user module

# vim changepass.yml
---
- name: Add or update user password
hosts: all

tasks:
- name: Change “george” password
user:
name: george
update_password: always
password: "{{ newpassword|password_hash('sha512’) }}”

• To run this playbook, run the command as below. This will input the newpassword variable
that will be used by our playbook

Run the playbook

# ansible-playbook changepass.yml --extra-vars newpassword=abc123
By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Download Package from a URL
• The playbook tomcat.yml will
• Create a directory for tomcat with required permissions
• Download tomcat from a url and place it in that directory with modified permissions
vim tomcat.yml
---
- name: Download Tomcat from tomcat.apache.org
hosts: localhost
tasks:
- name: Create a Directory /opt/tomcat
file:
path: /opt/tomcat
state: directory
mode: 0755
owner: root
group: root
- name: Download Tomcat using get_url
get_url:
url: https://dlcdn.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.5.78/bin/apache-tomcat-8.5.78.tar.gz
dest: /opt/tomcat
mode: 0755
group: iafzal
owner: iafzal

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook tomcat.yml By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Kill a Running Process
• The playbook killprocess.yml will
• Find a running process by process name
• Ignore any errors
• Hold the result in registry variable
• Use shell module and run kill command to kill the registered variable

# vim killprocess.yml

---
- name: Find a process and kill it
hosts: 10.253.1.115

tasks:
- name: Get running processes from remote host
ignore_errors: yes
shell: "ps -few | grep top | awk '{print $2}'"
register: running_process

- name: Kill running processes

ignore_errors: yes
shell: "kill {{ item }}"
with_items: "{{ running_process.stdout_lines }}"

Run the playbook

# anisble-playbook killprocess.yml

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Pick and Choose Steps
• Start a playbook at a specific task
# anisble-playbook yamlfile.yml --start-at-task ‘Task name’
# anisble-playbook http.yml --start-at-task ‘Intall telnet’

---
- name: httpd and telnet
hosts: all

tasks:
- name: Install httpd
yum:
name: httpd
state: present

- name: Start httpd

service:
name: httpd
state: started

- name: Install telnet

yum:
name: telnet
state: present
By: Imran Afzal
www.utclisolutions.com
 Create and Mount New Storage
• To create a new storage, we will power-off the VM add new disk (2GiB) from our
virtualization software

• Also “parted” and “mount” module will be used in Ansible playbook

• Some Ansible distribution does not come with parted and mount module

• Install parted and mount module

• ansible-galaxy collection install community.general

• ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.posix

ERROR! couldn't resolve module/action 'mount'. This often indicates

a misspelling, missing collection, or incorrect module path.

By: Imran Afzal

www.utclisolutions.com
 Create and Mount New Storage
# vim newstorage.yml
---
- name: Create and mount new storage Run the playbook
hosts: all # anisble-playbook newstorage.yml

tasks:
- name: create new partition
parted:
name: files
label: gpt
device: /dev/sdb
number: 1
state: present
part_start: 1MiB
part_end: 1GiB
- name: Create xfs filesystem
filesystem:
dev: /dev/sdb1
fstype: xfs
- name: Create mount directory
file:
path: /data
state: directory
- name: mount the filesystem
mount:
src: /dev/sdb1
fstype: xfs By: Imran Afzal
state: mounted
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