Ansible for DevOps: server and configuration management for humans

Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
	Who is this book for?
	Typographic conventions
	Please help improve this book!
		Current Published Book Version Information
	About the Author
Introduction
	In the beginning, there were sysadmins
	Modern infrastructure management
	Ansible and Red Hat
	Ansible Examples
	Other resources
Chapter 1 - Getting Started with Ansible
	Ansible and Infrastructure Management
		On snowflakes and shell scripts
		Configuration management
	Installing Ansible
	Creating a basic inventory file
	Running your first Ad-Hoc Ansible command
	Summary
Chapter 2 - Local Infrastructure Development: Ansible and Vagrant
	Prototyping and testing with local virtual machines
	Your first local server: Setting up Vagrant
	Using Ansible with Vagrant
	Your first Ansible playbook
	Cleaning Up
	Summary
Chapter 3 - Ad-Hoc Commands
	Conducting an orchestra
	Build infrastructure with Vagrant for testing
	Inventory file for multiple servers
	Your first ad-hoc commands
		Discover Ansible's parallel nature
		Learning about your environment
		Make changes using Ansible modules
	Configure groups of servers, or individual servers
		Configure the Application servers
		Configure the Database servers
		Make changes to just one server
	Manage users and groups
	Manage packages
	Manage files and directories
		Get information about a file
		Copy a file to the servers
		Retrieve a file from the servers
		Create directories and files
		Delete directories and files
	Run operations in the background
		Update servers asynchronously with asynchronous jobs
	Check log files
	Manage cron jobs
	Deploy a version-controlled application
	Ansible's SSH connection history
		Paramiko
		OpenSSH (default)
		Faster OpenSSH with Pipelining
	Summary
Chapter 4 - Ansible Playbooks
	Power plays
	Running Playbooks with ansible-playbook
		Limiting playbooks to particular hosts and groups
		Setting user and sudo options with ansible-playbook
		Other options for ansible-playbook
	Real-world playbook: CentOS Node.js app server
		Add extra repositories
		Deploy a Node.js app
		Launch a Node.js app
		Node.js app server summary
	Real-world playbook: Ubuntu LAMP server with Drupal
		Include a variables file, and discover pre_tasks and handlers
		Basic LAMP server setup
		Configure Apache
		Configure PHP with lineinfile
		Configure MySQL
		Install Composer and Drush
		Install Drupal with Git and Drush
		Drupal LAMP server summary
	Real-world playbook: Ubuntu server with Solr
		Include a variables file, and more pre_tasks
		Install Java 8
		Install Apache Solr
		Apache Solr server summary
	Summary
Chapter 5 - Ansible Playbooks - Beyond the Basics
	Handlers
	Environment variables
		Per-play environment variables
	Variables
		Playbook Variables
		Inventory variables
		Registered Variables
		Accessing Variables
		Host and Group variables
			Automatically-loaded group_vars and host_vars
			Magic variables with host and group variables and information
		Facts (Variables derived from system information)
			Local Facts (Facts.d)
		Ansible Vault - Keeping secrets secret
		Variable Precedence
	If/then/when - Conditionals
		Jinja Expressions, Python built-ins, and Logic
		register
		when
		changed_when and failed_when
		ignore_errors
	Delegation, Local Actions, and Pauses
		Pausing playbook execution with wait_for
		Running an entire playbook locally
	Prompts
	Tags
	Blocks
	Summary
Chapter 6 - Playbook Organization - Roles, Includes, and Imports
	Imports
		Includes
		Dynamic includes
		Handler imports and includes
		Playbook imports
		Complete includes example
	Roles
		Role scaffolding
		Building your first role
		More flexibility with role vars and defaults
		Other role parts: handlers, files, and templates
			Handlers
			Files and Templates
		Organizing more complex and cross-platform roles
	Ansible Galaxy
		Getting roles from Galaxy
			Using role requirements files to manage dependencies
		A LAMP server in nine lines of YAML
		A Solr server in seven lines of YAML
		Helpful Galaxy commands
		Contributing to Ansible Galaxy
	Summary
Chapter 7 - Inventories
	A real-world web application server inventory
		Non-prod environments, separate inventory files
	Inventory variables
		host_vars
		group_vars
	Ephemeral infrastructure: Dynamic inventory
		Dynamic inventory with DigitalOcean
			DigitalOcean account prerequisites
			Connecting to your DigitalOcean account
			Creating a droplet with Ansible
			DigitalOcean dynamic inventory with digital_ocean.py
		Dynamic inventory with AWS
		Inventory on-the-fly: add_host and group_by
		Multiple inventory sources - mixing static and dynamic inventories
		Creating custom dynamic inventories
			Building a Custom Dynamic Inventory in Python
			Building a Custom Dynamic Inventory in PHP
			Managing a PaaS with a Custom Dynamic Inventory
	Summary
Chapter 8 - Ansible Cookbooks
	Highly-Available Infrastructure with Ansible
		Directory Structure
		Individual Server Playbooks
		Main Playbook for Configuring All Servers
		Getting the required roles
		Vagrantfile for Local Infrastructure via VirtualBox
		Provisioner Configuration: DigitalOcean
		Provisioner Configuration: Amazon Web Services (EC2)
		Summary
	ELK Logging with Ansible
		ELK Playbook
		Forwarding Logs from Other Servers
		Summary
	GlusterFS Distributed File System Configuration with Ansible
		Configuring Gluster - Basic Overview
		Configuring Gluster with Ansible
		Summary
	Mac Provisioning with Ansible and Homebrew
		Running Ansible playbooks locally
		Automating Homebrew package and app management
		Configuring Mac OS X through dotfiles
		Summary
Chapter 9 - Deployments with Ansible
	Deployment strategies
	Simple single-server deployments
		Provisioning a Ruby on Rails server
		Deploying a Rails app to the server
		Provisioning and Deploying the Rails App
		Deploying application updates
	Zero-downtime multi-server deployments
		Ensuring zero downtime with serial and integration tests
		Deploying to app servers behind a load balancer
	Capistrano-style and blue-green deployments
	Additional Deployment Features
	Summary
Chapter 10 - Server Security and Ansible
	A brief history of SSH and remote access
		Telnet
		rlogin, rsh and rcp
		SSH
		The evolution of SSH and the future of remote access
	Use secure and encrypted communication
	Disable root login and use sudo
	Remove unused software, open only required ports
	Use the principle of least privilege
		User account configuration
		File permissions
	Update the OS and installed software
		Automating updates
		Automating updates for RHEL systems
		Automating updates for Debian-based systems
	Use a properly-configured firewall
		Configuring a firewall with ufw on Debian or Ubuntu
		Configuring a firewall with firewalld on RHEL, Fedora, or CentOS
	Make sure log files are populated and rotated
	Monitor logins and block suspect IP addresses
	Use SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) or AppArmor
	Summary and further reading
Chapter 11 - Automating Your Automation - Ansible Tower and CI/CD
	Ansible Tower
		Getting and Installing Ansible Tower
		Using Ansible Tower
		Other Tower Features of Note
		Tower Alternatives
	Jenkins CI
		Build a local Jenkins server with Ansible
		Create an Ansible playbook on the Jenkins server
		Create a Jenkins job to run an Ansible Playbook
	Unit, Integration, and Functional Testing
		Debugging and Asserting
			The debug module
			The fail and assert modules
		Checking syntax and performing dry runs
	Automated testing on GitHub using Travis CI
		Testing on multiple OSes with Docker
		Setting up the test
		Building Docker containers in Travis
		Testing the role's syntax
		Role success - first run
		Role idempotence
		Role success - final result
		Some notes about Travis CI
		Real-world examples
	Functional testing using serverspec
		Other server and role testing tools
	Summary
Chapter 12 - Automating HTTPS and TLS Certificates
	Generating Self-Signed Certificates with Ansible
		Idempotent Nginx HTTPS playbook with a self-signed cert
	Automating Let's Encrypt with Ansible for free Certs
		Use Galaxy roles to get things done faster
		Create the playbook
		Create a server and configure DNS
		Point the playbook inventory at the server
		Access your server over HTTPS!
	Configuring Nginx to proxy HTTP traffic and serve it over HTTPS
		Modify the Nginx configuration to proxy traffic
	Summary
Chapter 13 - Docker and Ansible
	A brief introduction to Docker containers
	Using Ansible to build and manage containers
	Building a Flask app with Ansible and Docker
		Data storage container
		Flask container
		MySQL container
		Ship it!
	Building containers with Ansible from the outside
		Build a Hubot Slack bot container with ansible_connection: docker
			Hubot and Slack
			Building a Docker container with Ansible
			Building the hubot-slack role
			Building and running the Hubot Slack bot container
		Summary
	Summary
Chapter 14 - Kubernetes and Ansible
	A bit of Kubernetes history
	Evaluating the need for Kubernetes
	Building a Kubernetes cluster with Ansible
	Managing Kubernetes with Ansible
		Ansible's k8s module
		Managing Kubernetes Applications with Helm
		Interacting with Pods using the kubectl connection plugin
	Summary
Afterword
Appendix A - Using Ansible on Windows workstations
	Method 1 - Use the Windows Subsystem for Linux / Bash on Ubuntu
		Installing Ansible inside Bash on Ubuntu
	Method 2 - When WSL is not an option
		Prerequisites
		Set up an Ubuntu Linux Virtual Machine
		Log into the Virtual Machine
		Install Ansible
	Summary
Appendix B - Ansible Best Practices and Conventions
	Playbook Organization
		Write comments and use name liberally
		Include related variables and tasks
		Use Roles to bundle logical groupings of configuration
		Use role defaults and vars correctly
	YAML Conventions and Best Practices
		YAML for Ansible tasks
		Three ways to format Ansible tasks
			Shorthand/one-line (key=value)
			Structured map/multi-line (key:value)
			Folded scalars/multi-line (>)
		Using | to format multiline variables
	Using ansible-playbook
	Use Ansible Tower
	Specify –forks for playbooks running on > 5 servers
	Use Ansible's Configuration file
	Summary