Implementation of Ansible on AWS EC2 Instance

Introduction

Ansible is an open-source automation platform that helps you to automate IT tasks across your infrastructure. It is a powerful tool that can be used to manage everything from servers to networks to applications.

In this blog, I will create 4 AWS EC2 Instances with 1 Instance being Master and the rest 3 Instances as its Nodes

Create an AWS account

To create an AWS Account visit AWS or look up my last blog

Create AWS EC2 Instance

Once you are in, On the top left corner Go to Services -> compute -> EC2

Now let's configure our Instances

As shown below Select Launch insance

Now let's give a Name to your instance and select your operating server

For example Amazon Linux, Mac Os, Ubuntu, Windows, RedHat
Refer to below,

IMPORTANT: DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING, let it be by default Let your AMI be Free Tier eligible selected

Now Create a Key Pair

Save the Key pair on your system from where you can access it

After creating Key Pair type number of Instances to be created alongside

In our case we creating 1 Master and 3 Node we type 4

Refer Below,

After completion of configuring Instances, Select Launce instance as shown above

You will get to see a Success Message

Instances Created

Once all the Instances are created rename them as shown below,

Select the ansible_master instance an click Connect as shown below,

After connecting ansible_master you will be redirected to a new Tab with an console

As you notice ubuntu@ip-172-31-88-245 is the master node you're inside

Now follow the commands to Install Ansible on this master node

Install Ansible on a Master node

1. To install Ansible on a server,

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible -y

1. Check the Ansible version

ansible --version

1. After checking the version create an ansible_key in .ssh directory

cd .ssh
vim ansible_key

1. Now recall the step where we created a Key Pair earlier during Instance creation

2. Open the ansible_key.pem you downloaded on your system in VScode and Copy its content and Paste it in .ssh/ansible_key

   Your ansible_key will look like this,

3. 

   Paste the key into this new file just created using vim ansible_key on the server

4. After pasting the Key Tap Esc and type :wq to Save and Exit the file

Now copy the Public IP Address of your node1 and SSH into it using this command,

sudo ssh ubuntu@[ip adress] -i ~/.ssh/ansible_key

Replace [ip address] with your node's IP

refer below,
After a succesfull SSH you will be inside your Node1

now exit the node using exit command, go back to the master server

Now create an Inventory File inside your Master server

Inventory File: It defines the hosts and groups of hosts upon which commands, modules, and tasks in a playbook operate.

The default location for this file is /etc/ansible/hosts

To check whether your Inventory File is available or not, Use this command,

cat /etc/ansible/hosts

You will get the output as -> cat: /etc/ansible/hosts: No such file or directory

Now let's create our Inventory File in /ansible/hosts

mkdir ansible
cd ansible
vim hosts

You will see an empty file opened up in front of you

Now Let's add some servers information inside the newly created Inventory File,

#ip address below are public ip of 3 nodes
[servers]
server1 ansible_host=54.86.187.96
server2 ansible_host=54.237.129.81
server3 ansible_host=3.83.135.247

[all:vars]
ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3

Check your Inventory file validity using

ansible-inventory --list -y

By default, it will check for the file in /etc/ansible/hosts you won't see any children

run pwd command to check your present working directory, in this case, its /home/ubuntu/ansible

so now the command will be,

ansible-inventory --list -y -i /home/ubuntu/ansible/hosts

You will get an output like this
all:
  children:
    servers:
      hosts:
        server1:
          ansible_host: 13.234.213.104
          ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3
        server2:
          ansible_host: 15.206.75.26
          ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3
        server3:
          ansible_host: 52.66.207.181
          ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3
    ungrouped: {}

Now check for connect establishment on the client side, we will ping the servers

Before checking the connection make sure to give permission to your ~/.ssh and ~/.ssh/ansible_key

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/ansible_key

chmod is a command used for giving permissions to your Files and Folders like read, write, execute

Now run this command,

ansible all -m ping -i /home/ubuntu/ansible/hosts --private-key=~/.ssh/ansible_key

Now let's check the disk space of our servers

ansible all -a "free -h" -i /home/ubuntu/ansible/hosts --private-key=~/.ssh/ansible_key

Now Let's check the uptime of the servers

ansible all -a "uptime" -i /home/ubuntu/ansible/hosts --private-key=~/.ssh/ansible_key

DO NOT FORGET to Terminate all the Instances we created in this Hands-on after successfully done with implementation.

Congratulations you have successfully Implemented Ansible on AWS EC2 Instance

Further useful ansible commands,

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/cheatsheets/how-to-manage-multiple-servers-with-ansible-ad-hoc-commands