Cloudify Ansible Plugin

The Ansible plugin enables you to configure Cloudify resources with Ansible and provides an agentless method for executing operations on remote hosts.

Playbook Run Operation

Similar to the Script Plugin and the Fabric Plugin, there is no one node type associated with the Ansible plugin. Instead, you modify existing node types to perform one or more of their lifecycle operations using the Ansible plugin and any additional inputs that you provide.

Node types

cloudify.nodes.ansible.Executor

Ansible Playbook Executor Node uses ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run as start action.

Properties:

• site_yaml_path: A path to your site.yaml or main.yaml in your Ansible Playbook.
• sources: Your Inventory sources. Either YAML or a path to a file. If not provided the inventory will be take from the sources runtime property.
• run_data: Variable values.
• options_config: Command-line options, such as tags or skip_tags.
• ansible_env_vars: A dictionary of environment variables to set. Default is {"ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING": "False"}.
• debug_level: Debug level.

NOTE there is a special handling for "ANSIBLE_FACT_PATH" environment variable, where you could add custom .fact files -which could be executable that Ansible expect JSON on stdout. If you include files that are not executable and simply contain raw JSON then Ansible will just read them and use the data inside - when gather facts is triggered they will be part of runtime_properties.facts.ansible_local.{fact_file_name}

For example you could do something like this inside your playbook:

- hosts: all
  connection: local

  tasks:

    - name: "Set fact: output dictionary"
      set_fact:
        output_dict:
          just_a_test: "my value from ansible gathered fact !!"

    - name: "Creates facts directory if it doesn't exist"
      file:
        path: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.env', 'ANSIBLE_FACT_PATH') }}"
        state: directory

    - name: "Insert custom fact file"
      copy:
        content: "{{ output_dict | to_nice_json }}"
        dest: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.env', 'ANSIBLE_FACT_PATH') }}/custom.fact"
        mode: 0644

Operations

ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run

Execute the equivalent of ansible-playbook on the Ansible Playbook provided in the site_yaml_path input.

Inputs:

• site_yaml_path: A path to your site.yaml or main.yaml in your Ansible Playbook.
• sources: Your Inventory sources. Either YAML or a path to a file. If not provided the inventory will be take from the sources runtime property.
• run_data: Variable values.
• options_config: Command-line options, such as tags or skip_tags.
• ansible_env_vars: A dictionary of environment variables to set.
• debug_level: Debug level, Default is 2.

In addition, you can provide additional key-word args parameters to the AnsiblePlaybookFromFile class, such as options_config.

Inventory Sources

There are also two methods for generating the sources parameter automatically, see using compute nodes and Relationships.

For all inventory sources, we require these parameters:

• ansible_host: The hostname or IP address of the host to SSH into.
• ansible_user: The username to SSH with.
• ansible_ssh_private_key_file: The private key file to SSH with.

In addition, we handle these parameters if provided (and highly recommend them):

• ansible_become: A boolean value, true or false whether to assume the user privileges.
• ansible_ssh_common_args: Additional arguments to the SSH command like, we suggest, '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'.

For more information on the sources format in YAML, see Ansible Inventory YAML.

Using Compute Nodes

If your operation is mapped on the lifecycle operation of a node template derived from cloudify.nodes.Compute, we will attempt to generate the sources parameter from the node properties.

Example Compute Node

Provision some component on a VM.

  compute_and_component:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Compute
    properties:
      ip: { get_input: ip }
      agent_config:
        install_method: none
        key: { get_input: private_key_path }
        user: { get_input: username }
    interfaces:
      cloudify.interfaces.lifecycle:
        start:
          implementation: ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run
          inputs:
            site_yaml_path: resources/component/site.yaml

Using Relationships

Use the cloudify.ansible.relationships.connected_to_host relationship defined in the plugin to populate the sources parameter, if the target node is derived from cloudify.nodes.Compute.

Inputs:

• group_name: Ansible node group name
• hostname: Hostname
• host_config: Host configuration:
  • ansible_host: The hostname or IP address of the host to SSH into.
  • ansible_user: The username to SSH with.
  • ansible_ssh_private_key_file: The private key file to SSH with.
  • ansible_become: A boolean value, true or false whether to assume the user privileges.
  • ansible_ssh_common_args: Additional arguments to the SSH command, by default: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'

Example Relationship Usage

  component:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Root
    interfaces:
      cloudify.interfaces.lifecycle:
        start:
          implementation: ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run
          inputs:
            site_yaml_path: resources/component/site.yaml
            sources: { get_attribute: [ SELF, sources ] }
    relationships:
      - type: cloudify.ansible.relationships.connected_to_host
        target: compute

  compute:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Compute
    properties:
      ip: { get_input: ip }
      agent_config:
        install_method: none
        key: { get_input: private_key_path }
        user: { get_input: username }

More Examples

Basic usage with no special node or relationship type behavior.

  my_node:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Root
    interfaces:
      cloudify.interfaces.lifecycle:
        create:
          implementation: ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run
          inputs:
            site_yaml_path: resources/my_ansible_playbook/site.yaml
            sources:
              webservers:
                hosts:
                  web:
                    ansible_host: { get_input: ip }
                    ansible_user: { get_input: username }
                    ansible_ssh_private_key_file: { get_input: private_key_path }
                    ansible_become: true
                    ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'

Passing run_data at runtime:

  component:
    type: cloudify.nodes.Root
    interfaces:
      cloudify.interfaces.lifecycle:
        create:
          implementation: ansible.cloudify_ansible.tasks.run
          inputs:
            site_yaml_path: resources/my_ansible_playbook/site.yaml
            sources:
              foo_group:
                hosts:
                  foo_host:
                    ansible_host: { get_input: ip }
                    ansible_user: { get_input: username }
                    ansible_ssh_private_key_file: { get_input: private_key_path }
                    ansible_become: true
                    ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'
            run_data:
              foo: bar

Examples

For official blueprint examples using this Cloudify plugin, please see Cloudify Community Blueprints Examples.