Here are some tips for making the most of Ansible.
You can find some example playbooks illustrating these best practices in our ansible-examples repository.
Contents
The following section shows one of many possible ways to organize content. Your usage of Ansible should fit your needs, so feel free to modify this approach and organize as you see fit.
The top level of the directory would contain files and directories like so:
production # inventory file for production servers
stage # inventory file for stage environment
group_vars/
group1 # here we assign variables to particular groups
group2 # ""
host_vars/
hostname1 # if systems need specific variables, put them here
hostname2 # ""
site.yml # master playbook
webservers.yml # playbook for webserver tier
dbservers.yml # playbook for dbserver tier
common/ # this hierarchy represents a "role"
tasks/ #
main.yml # <-- tasks file can include smaller files if warranted
handlers/ #
main.yml # <-- handlers file
templates/ # <-- files for use with the template resource
ntp.conf.j2 # <------- templates end in .j2
files/ #
bar.txt # <-- files for use with the copy resource
webtier/ # same kind of structure as "common" was above, done for the webtier role
monitoring/ # ""
fooapp/ # ""
In this example, the production file contains the inventory of all of your production hosts. Of course you can pull inventory from an external data source as well, but this is just a basic example. Define groups based on purpose of the host (roles) and also geography or datacenter location:
# file: production
[atlanta-webservers]
www-atl-1.example.com
www-atl-2.example.com
[boston-webservers]
www-bos-1.example.com
www-bos-2.example.com
[atlanta-dbservers]
db-atl-1.example.com
db-atl-2.example.com
[boston-dbservers]
db-bos-1.example.com
# webservers in all geos
[webservers:children]
atlanta-webservers
boston-webservers
# dbservers in all geos
[dbservers:children]
atlanta-dbservers
boston-dbservers
# everything in the atlanta geo
[atlanta:children]
atlanta-webservers
atlanta-dbservers
# everything in the boston geo
[boston:children]
boston-webservers
boston-dbservers
Now, groups are nice for organization, but that’s not all groups are good for. You can also assign variables to them! For instance, atlanta has it’s own NTP servers, so when settings up ntp.conf, we should use them. Let’s set those now:
---
# file: group_vars/atlanta
ntp: ntp-atlanta.example.com
backup: backup-atlanta.example.com
Variables aren’t just for geographic information either! Maybe the webservers have some configuration that doesn’t make sense for the database servers:
---
# file: group_vars/webservers
apacheMaxRequestsPerChild: 3000
apacheMaxClients: 900
If we had any default values, or values that were universally true, we would put them in a file called group_vars/all:
---
# file: group_vars/all
ntp: ntp-boston.example.com
backup: backup-boston.example.com
We can define specific hardware variance in systems in a host_vars file, but avoid doing this unless you need to:
---
# file: host_vars/db-bos-1.example.com
foo_agent_port: 86
bar_agent_port: 99
In site.yml, we include a playbook that defines our entire infrastructure. Note this is SUPER short, because it’s just including some other playbooks. Remember playbooks are nothing more than lists of plays:
---
# file: site.yml
- include: webservers.yml
- include: dbservers.yml
In a file like webservers.yml (also at the top level), we simply map the configuration of the webservers group to the roles performed by the webservers group. Also notice this is incredibly short. For example:
---
# file: webservers.yml
- hosts: webservers
tasks:
- include: common/tasks/main.yml tags=common
- include: webtier/tasks/main.yml tags=webtier
handlers:
- include: common/handlers/main.yml
- include: webtier/handlers/main.yml
This file is just mapping hosts to the roles they fulfill. Now, below is an example tasks file, that explains how a role works. Our common role here just sets up NTP, but it could do more if we wanted:
---
# file: common/tasks/main.yml
- name: be sure ntp is installed
yum: pkg=ntp state=installed
tags: ntp
- name: be sure ntp is configured
template: src=common/templates/ntp.conf.j2 dest=/etc/ntp.conf
notify:
- restart ntpd
tags: ntp
- name: be sure ntpd is running and enabled
service: name=ntpd state=running enabled=yes
tags: ntp
Here is an example handlers file. As a review, handlers are only fired when certain tasks report changes, and are run at the end of each play:
---
# file: common/handlers/main.yml
- name: restart ntpd
service: name=ntpd state=restarted
So that’s our basic organizational structure.
Now what sort of use cases does this layout enable? Lots! If I want to reconfigure my whole infrastructure, it’s just:
ansible-playbook -i production site.yml
What about just reconfiguring NTP on everything? Easy.:
ansible-playbook -i production site.yml --tags ntp
What about just reconfiguring my webservers?:
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml
What about just my webservers in Boston?:
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml --limit boston
What about just the first 10, and then the next 10?:
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml --limit boston[0-10]
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml --limit boston[10-20]
And of course just basic ad-hoc stuff is also possible.:
ansible -i production -m ping
ansible -i production -m command -a '/sbin/reboot' --limit boston
And there are some useful commands (at least in 1.1 to know):
# confirm what task names would be run if I ran this command and said "just ntp tasks"
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml --tags ntp --list-tasks
# confirm what hostnames might be communicated with if I said "limit to boston"
ansible-playbook -i production webservers.yml --limit boston --list-hosts
The above setup models a typical OS configuration topology. When doing multi-tier deployments, there are going to be some additional playbooks that hop between tiers to roll out an application. In this case, ‘site.yml’ may be augmented by playbooks like ‘deploy_exampledotcom.yml’ but the general concepts can still apply.
Ansible allows you to deploy and configure using the same tool, so you would likely reuse groups and just keep the OS configuration in seperate playbooks from the app deployment.
As also mentioned above, a good way to keep your stage (or testing) and production environments seperate is to use a seperate inventory file for stage and production. This way you pick with -i what you are targetting. Keeping them all in one file can lead to surprises!
Testing things in a stage environment before trying in production is always a great idea. Your environments need not be the same size and you can use group variables to control the differences between those environments.
Understand the ‘serial’ keyword. If updating a webserver farm you really want to use it to control how many machines you are updating at once in the batch.
The ‘state’ parameter is optional to a lot of modules. Whether ‘state=present’ or ‘state=absent’, it’s always best to leave that parameter in your playbooks to make it clear, especially as some modules support additional states.
A system can be in multiple groups. See Inventory & Patterns. Having groups named after things like webservers and dbservers is repeated in the examples because it’s a very powerful concept.
This allows playbooks to target machines based on role, as well as to assign role specific variables using the group variable system.
When dealing with a parameter that is different between two different operating systems, the best way to handle this is by using the group_by module.
This makes a dynamic group of hosts matching certain criteria, even if that group is not defined in the inventory file:
---
# talk to all hosts just so we can learn about them
- hosts: all
tasks:
- group_by: key=${ansible_distribution}
# now just on the CentOS hosts...
- hosts: CentOS
gather_facts: False
tasks:
- # tasks that only happen on CentOS go here
If group specific settings are needed, this can also be done, for example:
---
# file: group_vars/all
asdf: 10
---
# file: group_vars/CentOS
asdf: 42
In the above example, CentOS machines get the value of ‘42’ for asdf, but other machines get 10.
New in version 0.5.
If a playbook has a ”./library” directory relative to it’s YAML file, this directory can be used to add ansible modules that will automatically be in the ansible module path. This is a great way to keep modules that go with a playbook together.
Generous use of whitespace to break things up, and use of comments (which start with ‘#’), is encouraged.
It is possible to leave off the ‘name’ for a given task, though it is recommended to provide a description about why something is being done instead. This name is shown when the playbook is run.
When you can do something simply, do something simply. Do not reach to use every feature of Ansible together, all at once. Use what works for you. For example, you should probably not need ‘vars’, ‘vars_files’, ‘vars_prompt’ and ‘–extra-vars’ all at once, while also using an external inventory file.
Use version control. Keep your playbooks and inventory file in git (or another version control system), and commit when you make changes to them. This way you have an audit trail describing when and why you changed the rules automating your infrastructure.
See also