Ansible Roles to configure Web-server and Haproxy

Ansible roles for haproxy and webserver configuration

In this article, we will be diminishing our dilemma while creating Ansible roles and organised way to keep our ansible code..

🎲What are Ansible ROLES ?

Roles let you automatically load related vars_files, tasks, handlers, and other Ansible artifacts based on a known file structure. Once you group your content in roles, you can easily reuse them and share them with other users.

📃Ansible role file structure :

Thus ,we would be using the concept of roles to manage our code for haproxy as well as web server configuration, lets see:

Here I have created two roles:

1️⃣One for Loadbalancer configuration (HAproxy)

#ansible-galaxy init mylb

2️⃣Second one for Apache Web Server Configuration.(HTTPD)

ansible-galaxy init myapache

Lets see ansble.cfg file first :

[defaults]
inventory = /etc/ansible/ip2.txt
host_key_checking = false
deprecation_warnings = false
ask_pass = false
roles_path = /root/myapache/
[privilege escalation]
become = true
become_method = sudo
become_user = root
become_ask_pass = false

Now the inventory file : ip2.txt

[webserver]
65.0.127.145 ansible_user=ec2-user ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/root/hadoop.pem ansible_connection=ssh
13.233.131.71 ansible_user=ec2-user ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/root/hadoop.pem ansible_connection=ssh
[LB]
65.2.40.196  ansible_user=ec2-user ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/root/hadoop.pem ansible_connection=ssh

Now lets start to write the role for web-server :

Tree

✍In tasks folder, we had main.yml , here we will be specifying the tasks to be performed by ansible:

#vim main.yml

---
# tasks file for myapache
- name : "Installing httpd package and PHP"
  yum :
    name : "{{ package }}"
    state : present
  loop : "{{ package  }}"
- name : "Copying webpages to server"
  copy :
    src : "index.php"
    dest : "{{ document_root  }}"
  notify : "web_status"
- name : "Starting httpd services"
  service :
    name : "{{ service  }}"
    state : started

✍Specifying the variables in vars folder → main.yml

#cd vars

#vim main.yml

---
# vars file for myapache
package : 
  -  "httpd"
  -  "php"  
#mount_dir : "dvd_apache"---> You can use this for VMs
#yum_repo : --> Default repos
#  - "AppStream"
#  - "BaseOS"
web_page : "/files/index.php"
document_root : "/var/www/html/"
service : "httpd"

Also we had some static files → php pages , which will we be saving in Files folder.

#cd files

#vim index.php

<pre>
 <?php
  print `/usr/sbin/ifconfig;`
 ?>
</pre>

Also we had created the handler for idempotence of webserver service:

#cd handlers

#vim main.yml

---
# handlers file for myapache
- name : web_status
  service :
    name : "{{ service }}"
    state : restarted

Now its time to include the role in setup.yml created by us for running playbook.

setup.yml

Inventory file :

/etc/ansible/ip2.txt

Lets check now:

Playbook executed fine!

Lets see the output:

Backend server 1

Backend Server 2

Thus , we have successfully created role to setup Httpd webserver

🧭Now time to create one for Haproxy too…

🏷Inventory file :

/etc/ansible/ip2.txt

🏷ansible.cfg file:

/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Lets start to write role now:

👉Creating tasks:

#cd tasks

#vim main.yml

---
# tasks file for mylb
- name : "Installing haproxy.. "
  package :
    name : "{{ package }}"
    state : present
- name : "Configuring the HAPROXY"
  template :
    src : haproxy.cfg.j2
    dest : "/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg"
  notify : haproxy
- name : "Starting haproxy server"
  service :
    name : "{{ service  }}"
    state : started

👉Creating vars:

#cd vars

#vim main.yml

# vars file for mylb
package : "haproxy"
service : "haproxy"

👉Now as we need to dynamically update the conf file of haproxy →haproxy.cfg

Lets create the template file for same in templates folder

#cd templates

#vim haproxy.cfg.j2

👉Handler for haproxy service

#cd handlers

#vim main.yml

---
# handlers file for mylb
- name : haproxy
  service :
    name : "{{ service }}"
    state : restarted

lets check the role now:

“setup.yml”

- hosts: LB
  become : true
  roles :
  - role: "mylb"

Now lets combine both the role in one playbook and check the execution:

“setup.yml”

- hosts: webserver
  become : true
  roles :
  - role: "myapache"
- hosts: LB
  become : true
  roles :
  - role: "mylb"

😍Finally by using roles , we have achieved our goal…..

To access haproxy server:

TYPE in you browser

<ip_reverse_proxy_server>:port

for e,g 65.2.40.196:8080

server 1

server 2

Thus roles had made life of devops engineer at ease by organising the whole code in oriented/managed file-structure …….

Github repo :

Hubcodee/ansible_haproxy_webserver_roles

Happy automating ……..🧱🛠🎯