Presentation to the Ansible.DC Meetup on January 8th, 2015. Example of using the Amazon EC2 dynamic inventory feature for Ansible.

1. Using Ansible Dynamic Inventory
with Amazon EC2
Brian Schott, CTO
Nimbis Services
brian.schott@nimbisservices.com
Using Ansible Dynamic Inventory for Amazon EC2 1

2. Something Borrowed…
Using Ansible Dynamic Inventory for Amazon EC2 2
http://www.slideshare.net/lorinh/
vagrant-ansible-and-openstack-on-your-laptop
http://www.ansible.com/ansible-book

3. Shell scripts are painful, Puppet & Chef
have steep learning curves
if [[ $EUID -eq 0 ]]; then
ROOTSLEEP=${ROOTSLEEP:-10}
echo "You are running this script as root."
echo "In $ROOTSLEEP seconds, we will create a user 'stack' and run as that
user"
sleep $ROOTSLEEP
# since this script runs as a normal user, we need to give that user
# ability to run sudo
if [[ "$os_PACKAGE" = "deb" ]]; then
dpkg -l sudo || apt_get update && install_package sudo
else
rpm -qa | grep sudo || install_package sudo
fi
if ! getent passwd stack >/dev/null; then
echo "Creating a user called stack"
useradd -U -s /bin/bash -d $DEST -m stack
fi
Source: devstack/stack.sh
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4. Ansible big idea: very simple syntax,
SSH for communication
• Open Source
https://github.com/ansible/ansible
• Agentless
• Python
• YAML
• Jinja2
• SSH
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http://ansible.com/ansible-resources

5. Example Ansible playbook: install ntp
---
- hosts: controller
tasks:
- name: ensure ntp packages is installed
action: apt pkg=ntp
- name: ensure ntp.conf file is present
action: copy src=files/ntp.conf dest=/etc/ntp.conf
owner=root group=root mode=0644
- name: ensure ntp service is restarted
action: service name=ntp state=restarted
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6. Specify hosts in an inventory file
[controller]
192.168.206.130
[compute]
192.168.206.131
192.168.206.132
192.168.206.133
192.168.206.134
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7. Run the playbook
$ ansible-playbook ntp.yaml
PLAY [controller] *********************
GATHERING FACTS *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp packages is installed] *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp.conf file is present] *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp service is restarted] *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
PLAY RECAP *********************
192.168.206.130 : ok=4 changed=3
unreachable=0 failed=0
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8. What did Ansible just do?
1. Made SSH connections to remote host(s)
2. Copied over Python modules and arguments
parsed from playbook file
3. Executed modules on remote machine
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9. Can run a single action using
ansible command
$ ansible controller –m apt –a "pkg=ntp"
192.168.206.130 | success >> {
"changed": false,
"item": "",
"module": "apt"
}
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10. Ansible scripts are idempotent: can
run multiple times safely
$ ansible-playbook ntp.yaml
PLAY [controller] *********************
GATHERING FACTS *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp packages is installed]
*********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp.conf file is present] *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
TASK: [ensure ntp service is restarted] *********************
ok: [192.168.206.130]
PLAY RECAP *********************
192.168.206.130 : ok=4 changed=1
unreachable=0 failed=0
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11. What does Ansible have to do with cloud?
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http://docs.ansible.com/list_
of_cloud_modules.html

12. Ansible Dynamic Inventory Feature
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http://docs.ansible.com/intro_dynamic_inventory.html

13. A Practical Example
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https://github.com/electroniceagle/ansible-dc-ec2-tutorial

14. AWS Free Tier
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15. Ansible Galaxy (https://galaxy.ansible.com)
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16. Ansible Directory Structure
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17. ansible.cfg
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18. provision_instances.yaml
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19. keypair.yaml
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20. securitygroup.yaml
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21. instance.yaml
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22. Provision Playbook
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23. setup_instances.yaml, part 1
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24. setup_instances.yaml, part 2
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25. setup_instances.yaml, part 3
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26. Setup Playbook
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27. terminate_instances.yaml
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28. Terminate Playbook
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29. Thank You
• Brian Schott, CTO
Nimbis Services
brian.schott@nimbisservices.com
• https://github.com/electroniceagle/ansible-dc-ec2-tutorial
https://slideshare.net/bfschott
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