Configuring Hosts using Ansible

The Ansible role below configures hosts to run an nginx server with a static web page that shows different system information about the server by rendering a Jinja template. The following code block displays the Ansible role structure:

Tip: You can find the Ansible role example on the ATIX github page.

$ tree nginx_sysinfo
nginx_sysinfo
├── defaults
│   └── main.yaml
├── files
│   └── stylesheet.css
├── handlers
│   └── main.yaml
├── tasks
│   └── main.yaml
├── templates
│   └── index.html.j2
└── vars
    └── main.yaml

6 directories, 6 files

IMPORTANT: This Ansible role structure has to be available on the orcharhino or orcharhino proxy in /etc/ansible/roles/ as described in Step 1 below.

The following code block displays the content of the defaults/main.yaml file:

---
full_info: false
...

It shows one variable called full_info, which is set to false.

The following code block displays the content of the files/stylesheet.css file. This CSS file styles the web page:

body {
    width: 100%;
    font-family:Arial,Verdana,Calibri,sans-serif;
    font-size:11pt;
    margin-top:0px;
    margin-left:0px;
    margin-right:250px;
    margin-left:200px;
    text-align:left;
    padding-left: 0px;
}

a:link, a:visited {
      color: inherit;
  text-decoration:none;
  }

a:active, a:hover {
  color:#000;
  text-decoration:underline;
        background-color:lightblue;
        text-decoration:none;
  }

h1 {
    font-family:Calibri,Arial,Verdana,sans-serif;
    font-size:30pt;
    text-align:left;
    font-weight:bold;
}

h2 {
    font-family:Calibri,Arial,Verdana,sans-serif;
    clear:both;
    font-size:25pt;
    font-weight:bold;
    margin-top:2em;
}

br {
    clear:both;
}

td {
  padding:5px;
  padding-right:30px;
}

table {
    padding:0px;
    empty-cells:show;
    border-spacing:0px;
    margin-top:50px;
    max-width:50%;
}

th {
    text-align:left;
    border-bottom: solid 1px black;
}

tr:nth-child(even)  {
    background-color: lightblue;
}

tr:nth-child(odd)  {
    background-color: white;
}

The following code block displays the content of the handlers/main.yaml file:

---
- name: Restart nginx
  become: true
  service:
    name: "{{ nginx_service_name }}"
    state: restarted
...

It contains one task called Restart nginx, which is only executed once at the end of the playbook if the handler is triggered one or more times.

The following code block displays the content of the tasks/main.yaml file:

---
- name: Add epel-repository for CentOS
  become: true
  yum:
    name: epel-release
    state: present
  when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS'

- name: Install required packages
  become: true
  package:
    name: "{{ packages }}"
    state: present

- name: Start nginx service and make it persistent
  become: true
  service:
    name: "{{ nginx_service_name }}"
    state: started
    enabled: true

- name: Set www root for nginx
  set_fact:
    nginx_www_root: "{{ nginx_www_root[ansible_os_family] }}"

- name: Create default page
  become: true
  template:
    src: index.html.j2
    dest: "{{ nginx_www_root }}/index.html"
    validate: tidy %s
  notify: restart nginx

- name: Copy css
  become: true
  copy:
    src: stylesheet.css
    dest: "{{ nginx_www_root }}/stylesheet.css"
  notify: restart nginx

- name: Stop firewall
  become: true
  service:
    name: firewalld
    state: stopped
...