Ansible commands

List of general purpose commands for Ansible management:

Installation

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ansible
ansible --version

Inventory

Example of Inventory file

[mysql]
10.0.0.13 = Env=live EcType=mysql EcName=live-mysql-0-b Az=a Nr=0
[nginx]
10.0.0.17 = Env=live EcType=nginx EcName=live-nginx-0-b Az=a Nr=0

[live:children]
mysql
nginx

Check Connection

$ ansible -m ping <host>

Ad-Hoc Commands

Parallelism Shell Commands

ssh-agnet bash $ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Reboot remove server using anisble

ansible mysql -a "/sbin/reboot" -f 20

Run ansible using specific user

ansible nginx -a "/usr/bin/foo" -u anmolnagpal

Run ansible using specific user

ansible nginx -a "/usr/bin/foo" -u anmolnagpal

File Transfer

Transfer file to many servers

ansible nginx -m copy -a "src=/etc/anmol.txt dest=/tmp/anmol.txt"

Transfer file with specific ownership & permission

ansible nginx -m file -a "src=/etc/anmol.txt dest=/tmp/anmol.txt mode=600"
ansible nginx -m file -a "src=/etc/anmol.txt dest=/tmp/anmol.txt mode=600 owner=anmol gorup=anmol"

Create Directories

ansible nginx -m file -a "dest=/tmp/clouddrove mode=755 owner=anmol gorup=anmol stage=directory"

Delete Directories

ansible nginx -m file -a "dest=/tmp/clouddrove state=absent"

Manage Packages

Ensure package is installed, but doesn't get updated

ansible mysql -m apt -a "name=python state=present"

Ensure package is installed to a specific version

ansible mysql -m apt -a "name=python-2.6 state=present"

Ensure package is installed with latest version

ansible mysql -m apt -a "name=python state=latest"

Ensure package is installed is not installed

ansible mysql -m apt -a "name=python state=absent"

Manage Services

Ensure a service is started on all nginx servers

ansible nginx -m service -a "name=nginx state=started"

Restart service on all nginx servers

ansible nginx -m service -a "name=nginx state=restarted"

Ensure a service is stopped

ansible nginx -m service -a "name=nginx state=stopped"

Playbooks

Playbook: Update system (Debian based)

- hosts: local
  tasks:
    - name: Update system
      apt:
        update_cache: yes
        upgrade: yes
    - name: Remove dependencies
      apt:
        autoremove: yes
    - name: Remove useless packages from the cache
      apt:
        autoclean: yes

Playbook: List Kubernetes Cluster Nodes

- name: Kubernetes Cluster Health Check
  hosts: k8s
  become: true
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Checking the Kubernetes Nodes
      shell:
        kubectl get nodes 
      register: results

    - name: Print the Kubernetes Nodes
      debug:
        msg: "{{ results.stdout.split('\n') }}"

Sample Playbooks

- name: dpkg --configure -a
  shell: dpkg --configure -a
  tags:
    - dpkg

- name: install system pakcages and utils
  apt:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    state: latest
    update_cache: yes
    cache_valid_time: 5400
    allow_unauthenticated: yes
  with_items:
   - ntp
   - git
   - git-core
   - htop
   - vim
   - curl
   - unzip
   - jq
   - python-setuptools
   - python-dev
   - build-essential
  tags:
    - packages

Writing Playbooks

Create a playbook

- hosts: live-node-01
  become: true
  roles:
    - { role: common,    tags: [ 'common'    ] }
    - { role: docker,    tags: [ 'docker'    ] }
    - { role: jenkins,   tags: [ 'agent'     ] }
    - { role: selenoid,  tags: [ 'selenoid'  ] }

Ansible Vault

Using the argument “ — ask-vault-pass”

ansible-playbook users.yml --ask-vault-pass

Using the argument “ — vault-password-file”

ansible-playbook users.yml --vault-password-file /anmol/.ansible/vault-passwd

More about Ansible:

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/index.html
• https://medium.com/clouddrove/about-ansible-vault-cbeeae7add87
• https://medium.com/tech-tajawal/ansible-an-effective-it-automation-tool-be603417ea1a

👬 Contribution

• Open pull request with improvements

• Discuss ideas in issues

• Reach out with any feedback