Presentation of my TechTalk at eSapce (Every Thursday one of the departments make a session about something recently begun to use or a new technology, this was my session from SysOps team.) This is an introduction to Ansible, and how to get started with it ... and since then we moved to Ansible :-) Ansible is a great tool for many purposes like: configuration management, contentious deployment, and multi-tier orchestration ... and more! - http://tech.aabouzaid.com/ - http://espace.com.eg/ - http://ansible.com/

2. Getting Started with Ansible
Ahmed M. AbouZaid
tech.aabouzaid.com
2 April 2015

3. What’s the problem?
• Getting Things Done Easier!
• Getting Things Done Faster!
• Getting Things Done Better!

4. Old style!
• Manual.
• Bash and Shell scripts.
• Complex and not reliable tools like “expect”.

5. Solution? CM!
• Configuration Management!
• Why CM?
• What is CM?
• Who lead the market?

6. Ansib ... what?
• Configuration Management.
• Application Deployment.
• Multi-Tier Orchestration.

7. Why Ansible?
• Decentralized.
• Agent-less (Just SSH).
• Super duper easy!
• YAML syntax, no coding.
• Lots of modules.
• Ad-Hoc mode!
• Orchestration and Deployment.

8. Ansible vs Others?
• Puppet.
• Chef.
• Salt.

9. Ansible vs Others?
Puppet
package { 'ntp':
ensure => installed,
}
file { 'ntp.conf':
path => '/etc/ntp.conf',
ensure => file,
source => "ntp.conf"
}
service { 'ntp':
name => $service_name,
ensure => running,
enable => true,
}
Ansible
- name: Install NTP.
apt: package=ntp
- name: Copy NTP conf.
template:
src=ntp.conf
dest=/etc/ntp.conf
- name: Start NTP service.
service:
name=ntp
state=started
enabled=yes

10. Ansible concepts
• Inventory.
• Modules.
• Plays and Playbooks.
• Tasks and Handlers.
• Facts and Variables.
• Templates.
• Roles.

11. Inventory
mail.example.com
[webservers]
foo.example.com
bar.example.com
[dbservers]
one.example.com
two.example.com
three.example.com:5309
four ansible_ssh_port=5555 ansible_ssh_host=192.168.1.50

12. Modules
• Cloud Modules
• Database Modules
• Inventory Modules
• Monitoring Modules
• Notification Modules
• Source Control Modules
• Utilities Modules
• Commands Modules
• Files Modules
• Messaging Modules
• Network Modules
• Packaging Modules
• System Modules
• Web Infrastructure Modules
- name: Ensure Nginx is at the latest version.
apt: pkg: nginx state: latest

13. Plays and Playbooks
---
- name: Install and start Nginx.
host: webservers
user: root
tasks:
- name: Install Nginx.
apt: name=nginx state=latest
- name: Start Nginx.
service: name=nginx state=running
Playbook Play Task

14. Tasks and handlers
tasks:
- name: Ensure Nginx is at the latest version.
apt: pkg: nginx state: latest
- name: Write the Nginx config file.
template: src: /srv/nginx.j2 dest: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
notify: Restart Nginx.
- name: Ensure Nginx is running.
service: name: nginx state: started
handlers:
- name: Restart Nginx.
service: name: nginx state: restarted

15. Facts and Variables
- hosts: webservers
vars:
http_port: 80
server_hostname: www.example.com
ip: “{{ ansible_eth0.ipv4.address }}”
tasks:
- name: Ensure domain is pingable.
command: ping “{{ server_hostname }}”

16. Templates
####################
# {{ server_hostname }} added by Ansible.
#
server {
listen {{ http_port }} default_server;
server_name {{ server_hostname }};
….
….

17. Roles
---
- hosts: webservers
roles:
- common
- webservers
site.yml
webservers.yml
roles/
|- common/
|- files/
|- templates/
|- tasks/
|- handlers/
|- vars/
|- defaults/
|- meta/
|- webservers/
|- files/
|- templates/
|- tasks/
|- handlers/
|- vars/
|- defaults/
|- meta/

18. Demo Time!
• Install Wordpress (Nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL) on
VirtualBox machine with Ansible and Vagrant!

19. Questions? :-)