Introduction to Ansible (cfgmgmtcamp 2018)

If you haven't heard of Ansible these days, you must have been living under a rock. This session will bring you up to speed to what Ansible is, how it was designed and how you can use it to your advantage.

(Doing this presentation in 30 minutes is a real challenge ;-))

Transcript

1. Ansible introduction in 30 minutes @dagwieers
2. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 2 30 minutes... • Who are you ? • What is Ansible ? • Ansible terminology • How does it work ? • Where do I go for help ? • How to join the community ? • Questions
3. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 3 Dag Wieërs • Freelance Linux and Open Source consultant – Usually as System Engineer/Architect – Past 6 years mostly Ansible-related assignments • Working for various companies (IT, Finance, Telco, Gov) – IBM, HP, Euroclear, Punch, EMC, AXA, ING – Ansible: BNP, Proximus, KBC, Telenet, FedPol, Cisco • Started developing on Ansible from early 2012 • Involved in: Core, Unix, VMware, Networking, Windows • Various modules: debug, fail, set_fact mail, unarchive, xml, ...
4. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 4 Workflow automation tool • Start automating in minutes… by doing it • You are in control – The “what, when and where” • One ring to rule them all – Ad-hoc execution/reporting √ – Bare-metal / VM provisioning √ – Configuration management √ – Standard operational procedures √ • Security patch management, web deployments, ... • GUI: Ansible Tower or AWX
5. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 5 Ansible: cleverly versatile • Agentless, easy to set up and control • Using native technologies/existing standards – well-known, proven and secure • Well-defined interfaces, easy to extend – inventories, modules, plug-ins, connections • Thousands of existing modules and roles • Rich integration with hundreds of: – systems, VMs, containers, devices, appliances, applications
6. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 6 Concepts: Inventory and sources • Inventory – Groups • Group variables – Hosts • Host variables • Inventories can be: – INI, YAML, JSON – Dynamic inventories – Integrated with many sources Example INI inventory [firewalls] fw01 ansible_user=admin [webservers] web01 http_port=80 web02 http_port=8080 [databases] db01 db_type=postgresql
7. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 7 Concepts: Playbooks and tasks • Playbook – Play • Role • Task (Module) • Facts gathering • Notification handlers • Roles + Galaxy • Plugins Example YAML playbook - hosts: webservers tasks: - name: Ensure Apache is up-to-date yum: name: httpd state: latest - name: Manage Apache configuration template: src: httpd.j2 dest: /etc/httpd.conf validate: apachectl -t -f %s notify: - reload-apache - name: Ensure Apache is running service: name: httpd state: started enabled: yes
8. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 8 Concepts: Task execution model • Master sends instructions to individual target nodes • Target nodes execute instructions • Target nodes report back using JSON • Ansible reports status back to user
9. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 9 More than 1600 modules... • Platform – Linux, macOS, Unix, Windows – System, Config, Packaging • Networking aci, aireos, asa, avi, bigswitch, citrix, dellos, f5, ios, iosxr, junos, lenovo, netconf, nso, nuage, nxos, sros, vyos • Monitoring bigpanda, grafana, icinga2, monit, nagios, newrelic, pagerduty, sensu, zabbix • Web infra apache2, django, jboss, jenkins, jira, letsencrypt, nginx, rundeck • Clustering consul, kubernetes, openshift, pacemaker • Cloud amazon, atomic, azure, cloudstack, docker, google, linode, lxc, lxd, openstack, ovirt, rackspace, softlayer, univention, vmware • Database elasticsearch, influxdb, kibana, mongodb, mssql, mysql, postresql, proxysql, redis, riak • Remote management foreman, hpilo, imc, ipmi, manageiq, oneview, stacki, ucs, wakeonlan • Source control bzr, git, github, gitlab, hg, subversion • Network tools cloudflare, dnsimple, dnsmadeasy, haproxy, ldap, lldp, nsupdate, omapi, snmp • Identity cyberark, ipa, keycloak • Crypto
10. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 10 “ ” Who knows what this means ? f(f(x)) = f(x)
11. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 11 Terminology • Idempotency: f(f(x)) = f(x) – Imperative versus Declarative – Various techniques to achieve idempotency • YAML + JSON – Describes datastructures – Domain-specific language • Jinja2 templating – Used for templating configuration files – Or manipulating data inline
12. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 12 Important bits • Keep playbooks readable – No programming constructs in playbooks – A well-designed inventory is key ! – Complex orchestration → Roles – Complex with locality → Modules – Data manipulation → Jinja2 filters – Differentiate using templates • Testing and reporting – Check-mode -C, --check – Diff output -D, --diff
13. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 13 Where go for help ? • Documentation – Latest stable: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/ – Devel branch: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/ • Mailinglist – https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ansible-project • IRC – #ansible on Freenode • Meetups (more than 200 worldwide) – http://ansible.meetup.com/
14. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 14 How to contribute ? • Join us on Wednesday for a developer meeting • Reporting issues – https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues • Discussing ideas – Mailinglist: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ansible-devel – IRC: #ansible-devel on Freenode • Proposals – https://github.com/ansible/proposals/issues • Join a Working group – https://github.com/ansible/community
15. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 15 Staying involved... • Regular meetings – Twice a week core meetings and weekly Working Group meetings – Subscribe to meeting agenda: https://github.com/ansible/community/issues?q=is:open+label:meeting_agenda • Roadmap and Changelog – http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/ROADMAP_2_5.html – https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md • AnsibleFest – Twice a year, in London and San Francisco – Ansible contributor meetings • Ansible Automates • Cfgmgmtcamp
16. Introduction to Ansible Cfgmgmtcamp Ghent 2018 16 “ ” Feedback appreciated Don’t hesitate, I’ll be at Cfgmgmtcamp until Wednesday... Questions ? Remarks ?