Ansible playbook cheatsheet

Ansible playbook is a tool for automating documented tasks. These days I use it less since switching to github/gitlab actions, so keeping a cheatsheet here when I need it again…

Installing on Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt install ansible

More on other distros and updated info here.

Configuring hosts

Configure remote hosts where you want to automate your tasks.

cat /etc/ansible/hosts

And add a line at the end of the file. Below is just an example what you can use:

[myhost]
<ip_address> environment_key1=<environment_key1> ansible_connection=ssh ansible_ssh_user=<user> ansible_ssh_private_key_file=<absolute_path_to_pem_file> ansible_ssh_port=<necessary_if_diff_22>

You can set environment variables, ssh connection details like in the example, or other variables.

Ansible recipes

Recipes are schema documented automation tasks. Example of such recipe is myservice.deploy.yml.

- hosts: myhost
  pre_tasks:
    - name: Clean targets
      connection: local
      local_action: shell ./cli.sh -c
      tags:
        - tag1
    - name: Create distribution
      connection: local
      local_action: shell ./cli.sh --dist
        - tag1
  tasks:
    - name: Test
      shell: date +"%Y-%m-%d"
      register: current_date
    - name: Copy release
      copy:
        src: <path_to_dist>
        dest: <remote_path_for_dist>-{{current_date.stdout}}.zip
        owner: daemon
        group: daemon
      tags:
        - tag2        
    - name: Unzip release
      shell:
        cmd: unzip -o <remote_path_for_dist>-{{current_date.stdout}}.zip -d <destination>
        chdir: <command_dir_here>
      tags:
        - tag2    
    - name: Restart docker 
      shell:
        chdir: <command_dir_here>
        cmd: docker-compose stop myservice && docker-compose up -d myservice
      tags:
        - tag2       

Local actions are for executing on your own environment locally, and other tasks are for executing on the remote environment. Tags are there if you don’t want to execute all at once. You can register variables in tasks like current_date and use it in other tasks like calling {{current_date.stdout}}.

Execute

Call an ansible recipe like:

ansible-playbook myservice.deploy.yml
ansible-playbook --tags tag1
ansible-playbook --skip-tags tag1