Ansible Lab Repo

This is a repo where you can create an ansible lab setup and start learning ansible. This setup helps to create a docker environment where you can setup ansible and start learning ansible. Using docker as an option for learning ansible is better since it is light-weight solution compared to having VMs and can be easily created. Also, in case if you make a mistake you can easily create your environment using the docker-compose file.

Ansible Lab Setup:

There are three types of working hosts and one controller host in this project. Feel free to change them as you wish. the roles in this setup is as follows:

1. Loadbalancer (1x): A sing host running Nginx as loadbalancer
2. Web-Server (2x): 2 hosts running Apache as the web server
3. Database (1x): Database host running MysqlDB
4. Controller (1x): Controller host that runs Ansible and automates the configuration of above-mentioned nodes

NOTE: checkout the docker-compose.yml file to change the number of each machine. The current version of the docker-compose file creates the environment below:

Volumes:

There are two docker volumes in this setup, one of them is a named volume and the other one is host volume:

• The first one (named volume) is named ansible_vol in the docker-compose file and is used to share files (in this case ssh-keys that are created by the controller) among hosts. These files will be used in the run.sh script.

• The second one is a host volume which is bind mounts ansible-files to /code in the controller so whatever script you create or modify in ansible-files/codes/ can be easilty accessed from within the controller

Here is a diagram of how the volume setup is:

Setup Environment:

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/BeardedDonut/ansible-lab

2. Navigate to the hosts-docker directory

   cd hosts-docker

3. Change the docker-compose file, according to your prefered setup
4. Deploy the setup

   docker-compose up -d --build

5. Connect to the controller node

   docker container exec -it controller bash

6. Run zsh

   # OPTIONAL: you can also change the zsh theme if you like by modify ~/.zshrc
   # I personally changed the theme to "alanpeabody"
   zsh # this might take a few seconds to run

7. Go to /codes/ directory and run the commands below (Note: this directory is share with your host)

   cd /codes/
   
   # start ssh agent
   ssh-agent zsh
   
   # add master key to ssh agent
   ssh-add /common/master_key
   
   # NOTE: you will be prompted for entering passphrase it 12345

8. ping all the hosts

   ansible -m ping all
   
   # NOTE: You will receive this message:
   ECDSA key fingerprint is ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:ywVL4dyWYdwCipVSqmYzIZPlUA0Q85AaMVe4IbI9ca.
   Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
   # Type "yes" and hit enter, do this four times,

9. Redo step 8 and you should see something like this:

   control | SUCCESS => {
   "changed": false, 
   "ping": "pong"
   }
   lb01 | SUCCESS => {
       "changed": false, 
       "ping": "pong"
   }
   web01 | SUCCESS => {
       "changed": false, 
       "ping": "pong"
   }
   db01 | SUCCESS => {
       "changed": false, 
       "ping": "pong"
   }
   web02 | SUCCESS => {
       "changed": false, 
       "ping": "pong"
   }

Inside ansible-files Directory:

the ansible-files directory contains all the required playbooks,templates and the demo flask application files. The codes directory will be bind mounted to the controller host and is accessible from /codes directory inside host. Ther reason behind this is that if you can edit/update the files on your own environment (not controller) and have them updated inside the controller as well. A brief description of what each directory contains is in the following:

1. ansible-files/codes/demo: demo flask application files and configurations
2. ansible-files/codes/service-playbooks: Ansible playbooks to setup each host
3. ansible-files/codes/templates: Templates that are used for setting up this environment
4. ansible-files/codes/utility-playbooks: Ansible playbooks that usually used against the entire stack and are usually for troubleshooting and stack monitoring.

Setup services:

After setting up the environment, you can setup the loadbalancer, webserver and database. Follow the commands below to setup all services (Note: you should run these commands from inside the controller)

1. Navigate to /codes/service-playbooks directory

   # inside the controller container
   cd /codes/service-playbooks/

2. Run the setup playbook for each service:

   # inside the controller container
   # 1. setup controller
   ansible-playbook controller.yml
   
   # 2. setup database
   ansible-playbook database.yml
   
   # 3. setup webserver
   ansible-playbook webserver.yml
   
   # 4. setup load-balancer
   ansible-playbook loadbalancer.yml

3. To make sure everything is working run the following commands

   # insdie controller container
   curl lb01   
   # >>> "Hello, from sunny web01!" or "Hello, from sunny web02!"
   curl lb01/db
   # >>> "Database Connected from web01!" or "Database Connected from web02!" 
   

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Note: I used this repo to create the setup and it was really helpful