TheSlateGray / fedora-server-practice

Fedora Server Practice

Kickstart and Ansible setup of a Fedora Server install.

Motivation

My home server has grown and expanded over the last few years from Ubuntu to Debian and then stablizing with OMV last year. OMV is a good home server OS, however I would like to standardize my configuration with code rather than rely on remembering changes made in the GUI. I found the great blog series published by while-true-do and decided to adapt it to my needs.

Description

OS Installation

Kickstart is for the initial deployment of my homeserver. Kickstart automates all the steps needed in the installer and you can also provide additional packages, scripts and files.

• kickstart.cfg is the base configuration for the server. At this time it is only customized for use in a VM before I commit to moving away from OMV.

Starting an installation via Kickstart is pretty easy:

1. Boot from USB media
2. At the below screenshot, interrupt the boot sequence by hitting a key and editing the first entry.
3. Add inst.ks=https://your.kickstart.url/path/to/ks.cfg
4. Continue and the installer will do its work.
5. Wait until the system is rebooted and login with the preconfigured credentials.

Kickstart testing

For testing a kickstart file it can be hosted quickly locally and pulled from the VM Host:

cp -r ./kickstart/kickstart.cfg /tmp/kickstart/kickstart.cfg
python -m http.server --directory /tmp/kickstart/

Then use inst.ks=http://HOST_IP:8000/kickstart.cfg

Customization

Instead of providing and maintaining an inventory, this uses a manifest.yml. In the future this will could be changed to run from an inventory file.

Configuration

Before configuring with Ansible ssh keys need to be copied to the new server.

# Copy public rsa key to created admin account.
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub admin@IP_ADDRESS
# The server will promt for the preconfigured password.
# Verify key copy worked.
ssh admin@IP_ADDRESS
exit

The Ansible Playbook "configure.yml" will:

• Configure the hostname and timezone
• Install and configure chrony (NTP)
• Install and configure some CLI tools
• Install and configure tuned (power profiles)
• Install and configure Avahi (mDNS provider)
• Install and configure Cockpit (Admin Web UI)
• Install and configure Performance Co-Pilot (performance metrics system)
• Install and configure KVM and libvirt
• Configure a bridge network for the virtual machines

To apply the playbook:

# Run the playbook (dry-run)
$ ansible-playbook -u admin -K -i IP_ADDRESS, --check --diff ansible/playbooks/configure.yml

# Run the playbook (for real)
$ ansible-playbook -u admin -K -i IP_ADDRESS, ansible/playbooks/configure.yml

Update

The Ansible Playbook "update.yml" will:

• Update the system
• Reboot if necessary

To apply the playbook:

# Run the playbook (dry-run)
$ ansible-playbook -u admin -K -i IP_ADDRESS, --check ansible/playbooks/update.yml

# Run the playbook (for real)
$ ansible-playbook -u admin -K -i IP_ADDRESS, ansible/playbooks/update.yml

VM Creation

In case you are using the virtualization, I have provided a playbook to create Virtual Maschines. It will prompt you for some information and create the VM.

# Create a VM
$ ansible-playbook -u admin -K -i IP_ADDRESS, ansible/playbooks/create_vm.yml

Afterwards, you will be able to log in to the new machine.

License

This project is modified from the fedora-homeserver. Except otherwise noted, all work is licensed under a BSD-3-Clause License.