Ansbile EC2 - setting up Nginx, MySQL, php, git

In this post, we will write a playbook that's going to set up a EC2 machine for a fully workable php environment.

Starting from a fresh machine with an attached ebs volume, we will do the following:

1. Format the new ebs volume with XFS and mount it as /vol
2. Install php, mysql and nginx
3. Create a mysql user and create a database
4. Copy the public and private keys into the targeted machine
5. Checkout a project from github

Begin by spinning a fresh EC2 AMI and attach a ebs volume to it. Read Ansible - how to launch EC2 instances and setup the php environment.


Format the new ebs volume with XFS and mount it as /vol

We will mount the new ebs volume /dev/xvdf as /vol and format it with XFS

    - name: update machine with latest packages
      action: command yum -y update
    - name: install xfsprogs
      action: yum pkg=xfsprogs state=latest
    - name: format new volume
      filesystem: fstype=xfs dev=/dev/xvdf
    - name: edit fstab and mount the vol
      action: mount name={{mount_dir}} src=/dev/xvdf opts=noatime fstype=xfs state=mounted


Install php, mysql and nginx

    - name: install php
      action: yum pkg=php state=latest
    - name: install php-mysql
      action: yum pkg=php-mysql state=latest
    - name: install nginx
      action: yum pkg=nginx state=latest
    - name: ensure nginx is running
      action: service name=nginx state=started
    - name: install mysql server
      action: yum pkg=mysql-server state=latest
    - name: make sure mysql is running
      action: service name=mysqld state=started


Create a mysql user and a database

    - name: install python mysql
      action: yum pkg=MySQL-python state=latest
    - name: create database user
      action: mysql_user user=admin password=1234qwer priv=*.*:ALL state=present
    - name: create db
      action: mysql_db db=ansible state=present


Copy the public and private keys into the targeted machine

We want the target machine to be able to do a git pull without username and password prompts.

mkdir ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "you@email.com"

You will see:

Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

Just press Enter on the above prompts.

Two files will be generated: id_rsa, id_rsa.pub

Log in to Github and then Go to Account Settings -> SSH Keys

Add new key by giving it a name and pasting the content of id_rsa.pub

Test it by:

ssh -T git@github.com

Here are the Ansible tasks:

    - name: install git
      action: yum pkg=git state=latest
    - name: copy private key
      action: template src=~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub dest=~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
    - name: copy public key
      action: template src=~/.ssh/id_rsa dest=~/.ssh/id_rsa


Checkout a project from github

    - name: git checkout source
      action: git repo=ssh://git@github.com:{your_git_repo}.git dest={{work_dir}} version=unstable

Full Ansible Playbook source:

Ansible - how to launch EC2 instances and setup the php environment

In this post, we will create a script that will launch an instance in the EC2 cloud and install php and nginx (Installing httpd is going to be very similar) on it.

First you will need to set be Ansible.

If you are using ubuntu, read Install Ansible on ubuntu EC2.

If you are using a Mac, read Installing and Running Ansible on Mac OSX and pinging ec2 machines.

You must:

• have python boto installed
• set up the AWS access keys in the environment settings

Adding a host

We will use the ec2 module. It runs against localhost, so we will add a host entry.

vi /etc/ansible/hosts

Append the following:

localhost ansible_connection=local

Launching a micro instance

Label this launch_playbook.yml

Execute the script.

ansible-playbook launch_playbook.yml

In your AWS EC2 console, you will see an instance named ansible. Each task is executed in sequence.

Now add this new host in the ansible host file and label it webservers.

vi /etc/ansible/hosts

[webservers]
{the_ip_of_ec2_instance_we_just_created} ansible_connection=ssh ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user ansible_ssh_private_key_file={path_to_aws_private_key}

You don't have to do the above. In fact, you can use the group name "ec2-servers" for the following script. But the following script will need to be in the same file as the first script. I am just separating these files for easier configuration in the future.

Installing php, nginx, mysql

Label this configure_playbook.yml

Execute the script.

ansible-playbook configure_playbook.yml

Go to the public address of this instance. You should see the nginx welcoming message.

Remember to terminate the instance when you finish, else it will incur charges.

Install Ansible on ubuntu EC2

Begin by spinning a new EC2 ubuntu instance.


Install Ansible and its dependencies

sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev
sudo pip install ansible
sudo apt-get install python-boto 

Make sure boto version is larger than 2.3

To check boto version:

pip freeze | grep boto

Make the hosts file

sudo mkdir /etc/ansible
sudo touch /etc/ansible/hosts

Put the IPs of your machines in the hosts file.

Ex. [webservers] is a group name for the 2 IPs below.

[webservers]
255.255.255.255
111.111.111.111

Check the Playbook Settings

ansible playbook playbook.yml --list-hosts

You will see the servers that the Playbook will run against:

  play #1 (create instances): host count=1
    localhost

  play #2 (configure instances): host count=0


Play the Playbook

ansible-playbook playbook.yml


AWS credentials

If you are going to use the ec2 module, you will need to set up the access keys in your environment.

vi ~/.bashrc

Append the following with your keys (You need to log in to your AWS console to get the access key pairs)

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=${AWS_SECRET_KEY}

Installing and Running Ansible on Mac OSX and pinging ec2 machines

We will be installing Ansible from Git.


Install Ansible

Download ez_setup.py.

Install ez_setup, pip, jinja2 and ansible.

sudo python ez_setup.py
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install ansible
sudo pip install jinja2

Define your host file

Create the file /etc/ansible/hosts.

Put the IP of each machine you want to ping.

Example:

[appservers]
255.255.255.255 ansible_ssh_private_key_file={your_key_path}.pem  ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user

Change the IP to your EC2 instance's IP. The [appservers] is just a label for grouping. You may have servers grouped as web servers, app servers, db servers, etc.


Run Ansible

ansible all -m ping

You will see a response similar to the following if it's successful.

255.255.255.255 | success >> {
    "changed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
} 

Let's execute a command on all the machines:

ansible all -a "/bin/echo hello"

You will see:

255.255.255.255 | success | rc=0 >>
hello

Saving the key in memory

If you don't specify the ansible_ssh_private_key_file and ansible_ssh_user attributes in the inventory file above. You can either 1.) specify the key and user in the ansible command or 2.) use ssh-agent.

1.) Explicitly specifying the user and key:

ansible all -m ping -u ec2-user --private-key={your_key}.pem

2.) Using ssh-agent and ssh-add

ssh-agent bash
ssh-add ~/.ssh/{your_key}.pem

Then you can ping the ec2 server like this:

ansible all -m ping -u ec2-user