The main.yaml File¶

Why?¶

A Playbook is a set of instructions. We use these instructions to describe the state, the configuration, we want Ansible to manage for us. Our Playbook is very simple at this point in time.

We combine our Playbook with the inventory we've created and we can begin to configure our fixed systems.

Breakdown¶

What we're doing in our Playbook is the following:

1. Get the system's packages up to date
2. Install the packages we need
3. Set up the ubuntu user's home directory for our application
4. Upload our application
5. Configure systemd to manage our application as a service
6. Start the service

Let's go through each part of the steps above and highlight anything worth mentioning.

This should act as a good introduction to Ansible as well as explaining our goals.

Step 1¶

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    - name: Update all packages and the system package cache
      apt:
        name: "*"
        state: latest
        update_cache: yes

The Ansible module being used here is the apt module.

We're using the additional, optional property update_cache and setting it to yes so that apt, on the remote host, will update the local cache of its packages before attempting to install anything.

Step 2¶

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    - name: Install the packages we need
      apt:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        state: present
      loop:
        - unzip

The Ansible module being used here is the apt module, again.

Notice the use of loop: to create a list that the module will use to install multiple packages. This saves having to call the apt for each package we want.

Step 3¶

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    - name: Create home dirctory
      file:
        path: /home/ubuntu/httpcats
        state: directory
      become: no

The Ansible module being used here is the file module.

We're using state: directory to make the module create a directory for us and not a file.

We're also using the become: no meta property (it's a meta property because it's telling Ansible to behave in a particular way, not the file module.) We want Ansible to create the directory as the normal user we've used to connect to the system. If don't do this the directory will be owned by the root user but will exist inside of the normal user's home directory and be inaccessible.

Step 4¶

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    - name: Upload and unarchive application
      unarchive:
        src: httpcats.zip
        dest: /home/ubuntu/httpcats
      become: no

The Ansible module being used here is the unarchive module.

We're using become: no here again for the same reason as above: ownership and permissions.

This module uses the unzip binary to extract our application. That's why we needed to install the unzip utility in the step above.

Step 5¶

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    - name: Put systemd service file in place
      copy:
        src: httpcats.systemd.service
        dest: /etc/systemd/system/httpcats.service

The Ansible module being used here is the copy module.

Here we're copying a local file, ./files/httpcats.systemd.service, to the remote system so we can get systemd to manage our application for us.

Step 6¶

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    - name: Start service
      systemd:
        name: httpcats
        daemon_reload: yes
        state: started

The Ansible module being used here is the systemd module.

And finally we're using the systemd module to start and manage our application as a service for us.

The daemon_reload: yes property on the module tells systemd to reload its own daemon as we've made changes to the systemd configurations on disk (when we used copy above.)

The Solution¶

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---

- hosts: all
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Update all packages and the system package cache
      apt:
        name: "*"
        state: latest
        update_cache: yes

    - name: Install the packages we need
      apt:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        state: present
      loop:
        - unzip

    - name: Create home dirctory
      file:
        path: /home/ubuntu/httpcats
        state: directory
      become: no

    - name: Upload and unarchive application
      unarchive:
        src: httpcats.zip
        dest: /home/ubuntu/httpcats
      become: no

    - name: Put systemd service file in place
      copy:
        src: httpcats.systemd.service
        dest: /etc/systemd/system/httpcats.service

    - name: Start service
      systemd:
        name: httpcats
        daemon_reload: yes
        state: started

Committing the Code¶

1. Set your working directory to the configuration/ansible repository
2. Save the file as main.yaml and use git add main.yaml to add it to the Git staging area
3. Use git commit -am 'creating and Committing our primary playbook' to commit the file to our repository
4. Push the code to GitLab.com: git push