Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible

Procedure 10.2. Instructions

1. As the student user on workstation, create the inventory file /home/student/review-playbooks/inventory, containing serverc.lab.example.com in the ftpclients group, and serverb.lab.example.com and serverd.lab.example.com in the ftpservers group.

   1. Change directory into the Ansible project directory, /home/student/review-playbooks, created by the setup script.

      [student@workstation ~]$ cd ~/review-playbooks

   2. Populate the inventory file with the following entries, and then save and exit.

      [ftpservers]
      serverb.lab.example.com
      serverd.lab.example.com
      
      [ftpclients]
      serverc.lab.example.com

   Hide Solution

2. Create the Ansible configuration file, /home/student/review-playbooks/ansible.cfg, and populate it with the necessary entries to meet these requirements:

   • Configure the Ansible project to use the newly created inventory

   • Connect to managed hosts as the devops user

   • Utilize privilege escalation using sudo as the root user

   • Escalate privileges for each task by default

   [defaults]
   remote_user = devops
   inventory = ./inventory
   
   [privilege_escalation]
   become_user = root
   become_method = sudo
   become = true

   Hide Solution

3. Create the playbook, /home/student/review-playbooks/ftpclients.yml, containing a play that targets hosts in the ftpclients inventory group and ensures that the lftp package is installed.

   ---
   - name: Ensure FTP Client Configuration
     hosts: ftpclients
   
     tasks:
       - name: latest version of lftp is installed
         yum:
           name: lftp
           state: latest

   Hide Solution

4. Place the provided vsftpd configuration file, vsftpd.conf.j2, in the templates subdirectory.

   1. Create the templates subdirectory.

      [student@workstation review-playbooks]$ mkdir -v templates
      mkdir: created directory 'templates'

   2. Move the vsftpd.conf.j2 file to the newly created templates subdirectory.

      [student@workstation review-playbooks]$ mv -v vsftpd.conf.j2 templates/
      renamed 'vsftpd.conf.j2' -> 'templates/vsftpd.conf.j2'

   Hide Solution

5. Place the provided defaults-template.yml file in the vars subdirectory.

   1. Create the vars subdirectory.

      [student@workstation review-playbooks]$ mkdir -v vars
      mkdir: created directory 'vars'

   2. Move the defaults-template.yml file to the newly created vars subdirectory.

      [student@workstation review-playbooks]$ mv -v defaults-template.yml vars/
      renamed 'defaults-template.yml' -> 'vars/defaults-template.yml'

   Hide Solution

6. Create a vars.yml variable definition file in the vars subdirectory to define the following three variables and their values:

   Variable	Value
   vsftpd_package	vsftpd
   vsftpd_service	vsftpd
   vsftpd_config_file	/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

   vsftpd_package: vsftpd
   vsftpd_service: vsftpd
   vsftpd_config_file: /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

   Hide Solution

7. Using the previously created Jinja2 template and variable definition files, create a second playbook, /home/student/review-playbooks/ansible-vsftpd.yml, to configure the vsftpd service on the hosts in the ftpservers inventory group.

   ---
   - name: FTP server is installed
     hosts:
       - ftpservers
     vars_files:
       - vars/defaults-template.yml
       - vars/vars.yml
   
     tasks:
       - name: Packages are installed
         yum:
           name: "{{ vsftpd_package }}"
           state: present
   
       - name: Ensure service is started
         service:
           name: "{{ vsftpd_service }}"
           state: started
           enabled: true
   
       - name: Configuration file is installed
         template:
           src: templates/vsftpd.conf.j2
           dest: "{{ vsftpd_config_file }}"
           owner: root
           group: root
           mode: 0600
           setype: etc_t
         notify: restart vsftpd
   
       - name: firewalld is installed
         yum:
           name: firewalld
           state: present
   
       - name: firewalld is started and enabled
         service:
           name: firewalld
           state: started
           enabled: yes
   
       - name: FTP port is open
         firewalld:
           service: ftp
           permanent: true
           state: enabled
           immediate: yes
   
       - name: FTP passive data ports are open
         firewalld:
           port: 21000-21020/tcp
           permanent: yes
           state: enabled
           immediate: yes
   
     handlers:
       - name: restart vsftpd
         service:
           name: "{{ vsftpd_service }}"
           state: restarted

   Hide Solution

8. Create a third playbook, /home/student/review-playbooks/site.yml, and include the plays from the two playbooks created previously, ftpclients.yml and ansible-vsftpd.yml.

   ---
   # FTP Servers playbook
   - import_playbook: ansible-vsftpd.yml
   
   # FTP Clients playbook
   - import_playbook: ftpclients.yml

   Hide Solution

9. Execute the /home/student/review-playbooks/site.yml playbook to verify that it performs the desired tasks on the managed hosts.

   [student@workstation review-playbooks]$ ansible-playbook site.yml

   Hide Solution