archf / ansible-accounts

Ansible role to install and configure accounts on a host

ansible-accounts

A role to create and configure user accounts and groups on a host.

Ansible requirements

Ansible version

Minimum required ansible version is 2.5.

Ansible role dependencies

None.

Installation

Install with Ansible Galaxy

ansible-galaxy install archf.accounts

Basic usage is:

- hosts: all
  roles:
    - role: archf.accounts

Install with git

If you do not want a global installation, clone it into your roles_path.

git clone [e-mail]:archf/ansible-accounts.git /path/to/roles_path

But I often add it as a submdule in a given playbook_dir repository.

git submodule add [e-mail]:archf/ansible-accounts.git <playbook_dir>/roles/accounts

As the role is not managed by Ansible Galaxy, you do not have to specify the github user account.

Basic usage is:

- hosts: all
  roles:
  - role: accounts

User guide

Requirements

This roles contains tasks relying on the synchronize module (rsync) and therefore it requires the openssh daemon to be running.

However, if no underlying connection is not ssh, it will fall back to the copy module.

Introduction

Usergroups

This role works in a usergroups paradigm. As your coworkers also needs to login on the same servers, user accounts are configured by adding one or multiple usergroups composed of one or more individual users that will end up attached to the unix group named after the usergroup name. Phew!

There is also noadmin mode for when you have no control over the remote machine. You can use this on the restricted machines to deploy your public ssh keys and your dotfiles. You will be touching only your account

SSH keys management

Private ssh keys are only managed on specified hosts. Agent-fowarding should be considered when using a jumphost or hopping through a bastion host. To make things manageable and flexible, following logic is used to allow a user to have have multiple ssh keys.

• default keyname id_rsa and id_rsa.pub are not use for complexity reasons
• default keys give access to an internal domain (i.e. company domain)
• other keys might optionaly exist and give access to other external domains
• keynames follow a <user>.<domain>

The domain part is important as it hints you what it gives access to. As such, this is the role behavior regarding your keyring management.

• default keys are deployed as . and ..pub on workstations
• public keys will be deployed exclusively on target where ansible_fqdn == .
• ssh keys can be rotated, this behavior is disabled by default
• keypairs are created on specified hosts at user account creations
• all public keys of configured keypairs are fetched back to usergroup keyring
• private keys are never fetched to the usergroup keyring
• other keys can be requested to be generated at user account creation
• every public key is deployed in an exclusive fashion
• other keys are not deployed in the internal domain (keys are exclusive)
• to make use of other keys, the user must configure his ssh_config properly

Usage

Usergroup directory scaffolding

To add users, you need to configure usergroups inside group_vars or host_vars.

usergroups:
  - name: vendorgroup
    # gid is optional
    gid: 1001
    # create vendorgroup sudoers file inside /etc/sudoers.d
    sudos:
      - ALL=(ALL) ALL

  - name: customergroup

You can also tweak the behavior on a per group or per machine basis. See variables in 'Default vars' .

Then at the path defined by groups_dir variable ({{ playbook_dir }}/private/groups) create a folder by the usergroup name with content such as

$ > tree
.
├── customergroup
│   └── users.yml
└── vendorgroup
     └── users.yml

for each of the groups you declared in usergroups. Other missing directories inside the group directory will be created by the play.

Usergroup members configuration

In each group you will have a file where you define and configure the unix group members. See the Role Variablessection for more information on ways to personalise a user account. Most settings inusers_defaults` can be overridden.

$ > cat vendorgroup/users.yml
---

users:

  - name: foo
    comments: 'foo account'
    groups:
      - adm
      - lp
      - users
    shell: "/bin/zsh"

    # optional
    ssh_domains:
      - company.domain

    # optional
    dotfiles_dir: dotfiles
    vim_dir: .vim

    # optional
    dotfiles_symlinks:
      - vimrc
      - bashrc
      - zshrc
      - gitconfig
      - git_template
      - profile
      - zprofile
      - tmux.conf
      - ansible.cfg
      - ctags
      - pypirc

  - name: bar
    comments: 'bar user'
    ssh_domains:
      - lan
      - example.com

  - name: baz
    comments: 'baz user'
    groups:
      - users
    ssh_domains:
      - lan
      - example.org

**When remote_user is different than local_user **

see users_usermap in defaults/main.yml

User ssh_configuration

Each user can optionaly manage their ssh_config with ansible. For that to happen, you have to create a `_ssh_config.yml file inside the group directory.

For example for the foo user above, the statements below will be transmuted into a ~/.ssh/config Parameters from users_defaults['ssh_config'] are also considered. This file is totaly optional. The playbook will not fail if it is missing for any given user.

$ > cat vendorgroup/foo_ssh_config.yml
---

ssh_config:
  - Host: bitbucket.org
    User: git
    ForwardX11: no
    PreferredAuthentications: publickey
    ControlMaster: no

  - Host: github.com
    User: git
    ForwardX11: no
    PreferredAuthentications: publickey
    ControlMaster: no

  - Host: "*lb-*"
    User: archambf
    Hostname: "%h.lb.labfqdn"
    ForwardAgent: yes
    StrictHostKeyChecking: yes
    ProxyCommand: ssh -W %h:%p jumphost

As you might notice,

• Every key must be a valid ssh_config option.
• Match statements are supported.
• Quote strings with special chars else yaml parsing will fail

Using the 'noadmin' mode

For this restricted mode, just set the users_noadmin' boolean to yes|True either on the cli (-e users_noadmin=True`) or in your playbook variables.

Role Variables

Variables are divided in three types.

The default vars section shows you which variables you may override in your ansible inventory. As a matter of fact, all variables should be defined there for explicitness, ease of documentation as well as overall role manageability.

The mandatory variables section contains variables that for several reasons do not fit into the default variables. As name implies, they must absolutely be defined in the inventory or else the role will fail. It is a good thing to avoid reach for these as much as possible and/or design the role with clear behavior when they're undefined.

The context variables are shown in section below hint you on how runtime context may affects role execution.

Default vars

Role default variables from defaults/main.yml.

# Debug output.
debug: false

# An external directory containing sensitive data (group profiles, public ssh
# keys, users's ssh_config, ...etc.
groups_dir: "{{inventory_dir}}/extra_vars/usergroups"

users_usergroups: []

# Avoid trying to install packages. Useful if you know you don't have access to
# repositories.
users_nopkgs: no

# Ignore erros when using users modules on LDAP controlled server.
users_usermod_ignore_errors: false

# Force expiration of new user's so they are prompted to change it on first
# login.
users_expire_passwords: no

# Don't generate private ssh key in user accounts on every machine, consider
# agent forwarding instead. Use this in group_vars to toggle ssh_key creation
# in a group of hosts.
users_generate_ssh_keys: no

# SSH key rotation is disabled by default. Enabling this implicitly enables
# users_generate_ssh_keys.
users_rotate_ssh_keys: no

# Exclusive ssh keys on remote accounts. This is fed to the authorized_key
# module.
users_exclusive_ssh_keys: no

# Max age of keys for ssh_rotation. This is a time specification that must be
# compatbile with the find module.
users_ssh_key_max_age: 60d

# Default ssh key domain. Default key name is the concatenation of the username
# and this value. For public key to be propagated to the right machines, it
# should match the 'ansible_domain' fact and thus hint wich realm the key gives
# access to.
users_default_domain: null

# Configure '/etc/skel' facility. Useful prior accounts creation. Doing it on
# lot of user home directory after they created is costly. This will add
# directories as defined in users_defaults['skel'].
users_gen_skel: no

# Enable this to ensure already created home matches de /etc/skel structure.
# This task can be somewhat slow when managing lots of users on a large
# inventory. This behavior is rather invasive and probably more suitable for
# personal usage and/or when you have no control over /etc/skel.
users_skel_homedir: no

# If yes, 'usergroups' are exclusive. That means that all unstated unix
# usergroups in play variable will be deleted along with all it's members at
# the exception of group `nogroup`.
users_exclusive_usergroups: no

# List of 'usergroups' that will never be removed.
users_exclusive_usergroups_exceptions:
  - vagrant
  - nogroup

# If yes, group members are exclusive. That means that all unstated group
# members in play variables will deleted at the exception of user `nobody`.
users_exclusive_groupmembers: no

# Default args for the user module and sensible defaults for other role
# features on a per user accounts basis. Override these on a per user basis
# inside the 'users.yml' file of the usergroup.
users_defaults:
  state: present
  # FIXME: task should generate something random per user, register it, and send to user by mail.
  shell: "/bin/bash"
  system: no

  groups: omit
  append: yes         # Append to group

  # Default to 'on_create' (will change passwd if they differ). Could also be
  # set to 'always'.
  update_password: 'on_create'

  # Path prefix to the directory that will contain a user account. If you work
  # on Solaris you could set this to '/export/home'. Not to be confused with
  # 'homedir'
  homedir_root: '/home'

  # Module defaults
  createhome: yes     # Defaults to yes
  move_home: no       # Defaults to no
  non_unique: no      # Defaults to no

  # Set the amount of days a password can remain inactive after expiration.
  # This is passed to the 'inactive' options of 'passwd' command.
  inactive: 365

  # SSH configuration defaults.
  # fixme: task should generate something random, register it, and send to user by mail.
  ssh_key_passphrase: q1w2e3
  ssh_key_type: rsa
  ssh_key_bits: 2048

  # Homedir skeleton.
  skel:
    - '.ssh/controlmasters'
    - 'bin'
    - 'tmp'

  # Values for ~/.ssh/config. Those are for a "Host *" clause at the top and
  # will be applied to every users. This doesn't prevent you from having
  # multiple "Host *" statements under it that will supersede this one. I think
  # those are acceptable sane defaults.

  ssh_config:
    ServerAliveInterval: 41
    ControlPersist: 120s
    ControlMaster: auto
    ControlPath: '~/.ssh/controlmasters/%r@%h:%p'

  # This is the list of files in your dotfiles_dir you do not want to rsync
  # to the remote host.
  dotfiles_rsync_exclude:
    - americano
    - i3
    - zsh-autosuggestion
    - debug-refs
    - gnupg
    - hexchat
    - win*
    - wireshark
    - _vimrc

    # directories for building tmux, vim, openssh from source
    - tmux/tmux-?.?
    - vim.d/vim
    - openssh

# Sometimes, remote user account doesn't match the local one. That happens for
# instance when host is 'mostly' controlled by your customer. Fill this dict
# with keys such as { '<remote_username>' : '<local userneame>'}.
users_usermap: {}

# Disabling this for now.
# # You can have shared by multiple users. Define this variable in `users.yml`
# # to have usergroup defaults different than `users_defaults`.
# usergroup_defaults:
#   passwd: ''

### omited parameters

# By default, the first make target is ran but you way want to override. Could
# be useful to if hosts have no www access. This is fed to the make module
# target argument.
# users_dotfiles_makefile_target:

# Include debugging tasks that prints variable information when adding and
# removing unix groups.
groupadd_debug: no
groupdel_debug: no

Mandatory variables

None.

Context variables

None.

Todo

You want to contribute? Here's a wishlist:

• generate random passwords using passlib and mail'em to user

Consider opening an issue to share your intent and avoid work duplication!

License

BSD.

Author Information

Felix Archambault.

---

Please do not edit this file. This role README.md was generated using the 'ansidoc' python tool available on pypi!

Installation:

pip3 install ansidoc

Basic usage:

Validate output by running a dry-run (will output result to stdout)

ansidoc --dry-run <rolepath>

Generate you role readme file. Will write a README.md file under <rolepath>/README.md.

ansidoc <rolepath>

Also usable programatically from Sphinx.