- What's ansibleEPS?
- What can I do with AnsibleEPS?
- How does it work?
- Installation & Configuration
- Does it work for all Operating System?
- Copyright & License
AnsibleEPS is a collection of Ansible playbooks to manage Linux/Unix hosts of your network.
Management permits in a centralized way: software management (install, update, delete), services (start, stop, configure), users (add, modify, delete), security, and much more.
Especifically, ansibleEPS does the following tasks:
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Common management for all hosts (installation, configuration and checking) | ● Locales ● Groups and users ● Repositories ● Concurrency ● Services to disable ● /etc/resolv.conf file ● Nscd service ● Securetty ● Global profile variables ● Nvi editor ● Utilities (extra software) ● Munin-node client ● Nrpe client ● Ldap Authentication with PAM ● Syslog service ● Sshd service ● Ntp service ● Bacula client ● Ossec client |
| Hosts file (/etc/hosts) management for all hosts (configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| Sudo file (/etc/sudoers) management for all hosts (installation, configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| TCP Wrappers (/etc/hosts.allow & /etc/hosts.deny files) management for all hosts (configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| PAM Access (/etc/security/access.conf file) management for all hosts (installation, configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| NRPE management for all hosts (installation, configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| IPTables management for all hosts (configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| Crontab managemenet for all hosts (configuration and checking) | Three level configuration: ● Global, to apply on all hosts ● Group, to apply on all hosts belonging to group selected ● Host, to apply on host selected |
| Proxmox servers management (configuration and checking) | Configuration of Proxmox servers |
| Bacula servers management (configuration and checking) | Configuration of Bacula servers |
| DHCP servers management (configuration and checking) | Configuration of DHCP servers |
| Munin servers management (configuration and checking) | Configuration of Munin servers |
| Nagios servers management (configuration and checking) | Configuration of Nagios servers |
| Email addresses list of QMail server | Addresss list generation of Qmail server |
Management can be done in two ways (we can use both):
(A) Direct Mode, using the Admin Menu, and selecting preferred option and arguments as: host to be managed, group of hosts to be managed, or any other argument required.
This way, we can manage anything for a host, a group or all hosts, just selecting option and arguments.
(B) Scheduled Mode, we can select time (usually at night) to execute all managements for all hosts. This way we'll be sure that next morning every feature of every host will be correctly configured.
All changes made and errors produced will be saved in log files to be watched next morning.
We have to install and prepare system to be ready for management. There are some step to do:
-
Copy tgz package 'ansibleEPS.tgz' and installation script 'install.py' (located in install directory) in a directory on a CentOS 6 host (this will be our 'Ansible Server').
-
Execute 'install.py' script to install 'AnsibleEPS'.
- First of all, we have to configure a host as node. What's a node?
A node is a host directly SSH accessed by Ansible server (host where Ansible was installed) with a predefined user and no password.
By default, user predefined connecting to nodes is 'ansible', but we can change it modifying 'ansible_ssh_user' variable in '/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars/all/all' main configuration file.
To convert a host as node, simply select 'add node' option in admin menu '/etc/ansibleEPS/menu.py'. Select 'user to connect' and hostname or IP. The script will try to connect by SSH to host as 'root' (we have to type password), then it will create 'user to connect' and 'authorized_keys' file with 'Ansible server' public key, also it will install 'sudo' package and configure 'sudoers' file permitting execute everything to 'user to connect'.
-
Second step: add nodes to inventory
Inventory file is '/etc/ansibleEPS/eps'. Nodes are introduced to inventory inside groups.
Ansible Documentation at: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_inventory.html#inventory
-
Modify Admin variables. Every data we need to manage nodes are located at:
-
'/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars/all' directory, with global data to manage nodes
-
'/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars' directory, with group-level data to manage nodes
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'/etc/ansibleEPS/host_vars' directory, with host-level data to manage nodes
Example: In 'all' configuration file exists a variable 'nameserver' with IPs of DNS servers for all nodes. It can be different for a group of hosts (a group called 'remote', defined at inventory with nodes inside), then DNS server has to change, so we have to create a file '/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars/remote' and define 'nameserver' variable inside with different values. The same way, DNS servers can be different for a specific node (called 'special'), so we have to create a file '/etc/ansibleEPS/host_vars/special' and define 'nameserver' variable inside with other values.
-
-
Execute playbooks from Admin menu '/etc/ansibleEPS/menu.py'
Most playbooks need to install specific software on nodes. By default playbooks work with 'yum' and 'apt' package managers. To add new package managers, it's necessary to modify playbooks code.
System is ready to work with the following Operating Systems (all of them with 'yum' or 'apt' package manager):
-
CentOS 6
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CentOS 7
-
Debian 4
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Debian 6
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Debian 7
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Debian 8
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Ubuntu 14
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Ubuntu 16
There’s a specific file for every Operating System and version in '/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars' directory. They include variables and specific values. For example: specific users, repositories, software, configuration files, etc.
Adding a new Operating System and Version (based on 'yum' or 'apt' package manager) is very simple: just create a new file in '/etc/ansibleEPS/group_vars' directory with name 'OperatingSystem-Version' and fill it with variables and specific values (easier copying other similar file and modifying values).
Example: To prepare system for RedHat 7 nodes, we can copy 'CentOS-6' file (the most similar) to 'RedHat-7', verifying values and changing if necessary.
The source code packaged with this file is Free Software, Copyright (C) 2016 by Unidad de Laboratorios, Escuela Politecnica Superior, Universidad de Alicante :: <aeps at eps.ua.es>.
It's licensed under the AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE unless stated otherwise. You can get copies of the licenses here: http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE is also included in the file called "LICENSE".
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.