100-Days-Of-DevOps-Challenge-KodeKloud

Create Ansible Inventory for App Server Testing

The Nautilus DevOps team is testing Ansible playbooks on various servers within their stack. They’ve placed some playbooks under /home/thor/playbook/ directory on the jump host and now intend to test them on app server 1 in Stratos DC. However, an inventory file needs creation for Ansible to connect to the respective app. Here are the requirements:

a. Create an ini type Ansible inventory file /home/thor/playbook/inventory on jump host.

b. Include App Server 1 in this inventory along with necessary variables for proper functionality.

c. Ensure the inventory hostname corresponds to the server name as per the wiki, for example stapp01 for app server 1 in Stratos DC.

Note: Validation will execute the playbook using the command ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml. Ensure the playbook functions properly without any extra arguments.

Steps

1. Create an inventory file:
   • Move into directory and create the file

    cd playbook
    vi inventory
   

   • copy-paste contents into inventory file

    [app]
    stapp01
   
    [app:vars]
    ansible_user=tony
    ansible_ssh_password=Ir0nM@n
    ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'
   

2. Run the ansible playbook command:

    ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml
   

Good to Know?

Ansible Inventory

• Purpose: Define managed nodes and their properties
• Formats: INI, YAML, JSON formats supported
• Groups: Organize hosts into logical groups
• Variables: Define host and group variables

Inventory Structure

• Hosts: Individual server definitions
• Groups: Collections of related hosts
• Group Variables: Variables applied to all group members
• Host Variables: Variables specific to individual hosts

Connection Variables

• ansible_user: SSH username for connection
• ansible_ssh_password: SSH password (use vault for security)
• ansible_host: Target hostname or IP address
• ansible_port: SSH port (default 22)
• ansible_ssh_common_args: Additional SSH arguments

Best Practices

• Group Organization: Group hosts by function, environment
• Variable Hierarchy: Use group_vars and host_vars directories
• Security: Use Ansible Vault for sensitive data
• Documentation: Comment inventory files for clarity

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