Category: Ansible

admin | April 25, 2022

How to call a json rest API using Ansible

So a very useful thing to understand is rest api’s and how to call them as a lot of organisations have these and want to integrate them into automation, a popular method is the http method

They are very simple calls { GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH }

For the sake of this post. Im going to use commvault public api’s https://api.commvault.com/

You will need to two things.

The api endpoint which is usually an http url

Example:

http://WebConsoleHostName/webconsole/api/CommServ/Failover

The raw json body of the of the api

Example:

{

    "csFailoverConfigInfo": {

        "configStatus": 0,

        "isAutomaticFailoverEnabled": false

    }

}

Now keep in mind if you are using an api that requires a login. In order for it to work, you will need to store the auth token to pass later to the last task later for the api call to work as intended. You can look at one of my other posts under vmware, where i used a http login to handle the tasks later, as a reference.

You can call these preliminary task as includes to store the token.

It will look something like this before it gets to the api task. You can also just do it all one on book if you wanted to. But for the purposes of this post. Im just giving ya highlevel.

- name: Login task

  include_role:

    name: commvault_login

    tasks_from: login.yml

- name: Setfact for authtoke

  set_fact:

    authtoken: "{{ login_authtoken }}"

  delegate_to: localhost

Now in order for you to pass json api to ansible. You will need to convert the json raw body into yaml format. You can use visual studio code plugins or a site like https://json2yaml.com/

So if we are to use the above raw json example it would look like this

csFailoverConfigInfo:

configStatus: 0

isAutomaticFailoverEnabled: false

So now we want to pass this information to the task in the form of a variable. A really cool thing with ansible and this type of action. Is you can create a variable name and simply pass the new yaml converted body right below the varible. You can pass this as extra-vars or create a group variable with the same name and use that.

For those you who use tower passing them as extra-vars to test something can be a pain, since it doesn’t allow you to change the passed vars and rerun the previous run just used, you have to start all over. So I prefer the command line way as its easier to be agile

disable_api_body:

csFailoverConfigInfo:

configStatus: 0

isAutomaticFailoverEnabled: false

So now we ansible to use the rest api with ansible. You create a task that after the login is run and the token is stored inside as a fact. It run the following task, in our case this call will be a POST. It will post the headers to the url which will disabled commvault live_sync which is essentially commvault failover redundancy for the backup server itself.

- name: Disable Commvault livesync 

  uri:

    url: http://{{ commvault_primary }}/webconsole/api/v2/CommServ/Failover

    method: POST

    body_format: json

    body: "{{ disable_api_body }}"

    return_content: true

    headers:

      Accept: application/json

      Content-Type: application/json

      Authtoken: "{{ login_authtoken }}"

    status_code: 200

    validate_certs: false

  register: disable_livesync

  retries: "4"

  delay: "10"

  delegate_to: localhost

- debug: 
    var: disable_livesync

When you run the book and your have an active failover setup correctly with commvault. In the command center under the control panel you should see livesync. If you click on this you should see either it is checked or unchecked.

admin April 25, 2022 Ansible, API's, LinuxNo Comments »

admin | February 28, 2022

How to Deploy LVM’s with Ansible

Provisioning-LVM-Filesystems:

This role is designed to use ansible-merge-vars module. An Ansible plugin to merge all variables in context with a certain suffix (lists or dicts only) and create a new variable that contains the result of this merge. This is an Ansible action plugin, which is basically an Ansible module that runs on the machine running Ansible rather than on the host that Ansible is provisioning.

Benefits: Configuring disks into LVM

• Adds Physical Disk to Volume to Volume Group

• Creates Logical Volume assigned to Volume Group

• Creates the size of the disk to full or whatever you wish to set

• It will format the LVM to whatever file format you wish

• It will then create the mount point and mount the lvm

• It will also add the lvm to fstab upon mounting

Note: This post assumes you have already ansible installed and running.

Install ansible-merge-vars module:

1. root@KVM-test-box:~# pip install ansible_merge_vars
Requirement already satisfied: ansible_merge_vars in
/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages (5.0.0)

2.Create an action_plugins directory in the directory in which you run Ansible.

By default, Ansible will look for action plugins in an action_plugins folder adjacent to the running playbook. For more information on this, or to change the location where ansible looks for action plugin.

3.Create a file called merge_vars.py (or whatever name you picked) in the action_plugins directory, with one line:

from ansible_merge_vars import ActionModule

4.Save the file

Role Setup:

Once the plugin has been setup, you now you will want to setup a role.

1.Move inside the ansible/roles directory

a.cd ansible/roles/

2.Create a directory for the role provision-fs

b.mkdir -p provision-fs/tasks

3.Move inside the tasks directory

c.cd ansible/roles/provision-fs/tasks

Now we will create a task that will merge variable names associated with a list and then itemise the list for variables we will pass to provision the filesystem via the inventory/host_var or group_var

4.Create a file called main.yml inside provision-fs/tasks/main.yml

– name: Merge VG variables

merge_vars:

suffix_to_merge: vgs__to_merge

merged_var_name: merged_vgs

expected_type: ‘list’

– name: Merge LV variables

merge_vars:

suffix_to_merge: lvs__to_merge

merged_var_name: merged_lvs

expected_type: ‘list’

– name: Merge FS variables

merge_vars:

suffix_to_merge: fs__to_merge

merged_var_name: merged_fs

expected_type: ‘list’

– name: Merge MOUNT variables

merge_vars:

suffix_to_merge: mnt__to_merge

merged_var_name: merged_mnt

expected_type: ‘list’

– name: Create VGs

lvg:

vg: “{{ item.vg }}”

pvs: “{{ item.pvs }}”

with_items: “{{ merged_vgs }}”

– name: Create LVs

lvol:

vg: “{{ item.vg }}”

lv: “{{ item.lv }}”

size: “{{ item.size }}”

pvs: “{{ item.pvs | default(omit) }}”

shrink: no

with_items: “{{ merged_lvs }}”

– name: Create FSs

filesystem:

dev: “{{ item.dev }}”

fstype: “{{ item.fstype }}”

with_items: “{{ merged_fs }}”

– name: Mount FSs

mount:

path: “{{ item.path }}”

src: “{{ item.src }}”

state: mounted

fstype: “{{ item.fstype }}”

opts: “{{ item.opts | default(‘defaults’) }}”

dump: “{{ item.dump | default(‘1’) }}”

passno: “{{ item.passno | default(‘2’) }}”

with_items: “{{ merged_mnt }}”

5.Save the file

Note: Now this currently task has no safe guards for /dev/sda or checks to ensure the disk is wiped properly in order for the disks to be added to the volume group. I have created such safe guards for others. But for the purposes of this blog post this is basics. If you want to my help you can contact me via email or the ticketing system.

Now what we are going to do is define our inventory file with what file lvm we want to crave out.

Setup inventory:
1.Go inside your inventory/host_var or group_var file and create a file for testserver1

.nano inventory/host_var/testserver1

vgs__to_merge:

– vg: vg_vmguest

pvs: /dev/sdb

– vg: vg_sl_storage

pvs: /dev/sdc

lvs__to_merge:

– vg: vg_vmguest

lv: lv_vg_vmguest

size: 100%FREE

shrink: no

– vg: vg_sl_storage

lv: lv_vg_sl_storage

size: 100%FREE

shrink: no

fs__to_merge:

– dev: /dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest

fstype: ext4

– dev: /dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage

fstype: ext4

mnt__to_merge:

– path: /vmguests

src: /dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest

fstype: ext4

– path: /sl_storage

src: /dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage

fstype: ext4

2. save the file.

Definitions of the variables above:

vgs__to_merge: This section is the creation volume/physical groups

– vg: vg_vmguest (this is the volume group name)

pvs: /dev/sdb (this is the physical assigned to the above volume group

– vg: vg_sl_storage (This the second volume name)

pvs: /dev/sdc (This is the second physical disk assigned to the above

volume
*You can add as many as you like*

lvs__to_merge: This section is the logical Volume creations

– vg: vg_vmguest (this is the volume group created)

lv: lv_vg_vmguest (this is the logical volume that is attached to above vg

size: 100%FREE (this says please use the whole disk)

shrink: no (this is needed to so the disk space is used correctly)

– vg: vg_sl_storage (this is the second volume created)

lv: lv_vg_sl_storage (this is the second lvm created attached to above vg)

size: 100%FREE (this is use the whole disk)

shrink: no (this is needed so the disk space is properly used)

fs__to_merge: This section formats the lvm

– dev: /dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest (lvm name)

fstype: ext4 (file system you want to format with)

– dev: /dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage (2^nd lvm name)

fstype: ext4 (file system you want to format with)

mnt__to_merge: This section will create the path,mount, and add to fstab

– path: /vmguests (path you want created for mount)

src: /dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest (lvm you want to mount)

fstype: ext4 (this is for fstab adding)

– path: /sl_storage (this is second path to create)

src: /dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage (second lvm you want to mount)

fstype: ext4 (to add to fstab)

Running your playbook:

1.Go inside your ansible home directory

cd ansible/

2.Create a file called justdofs.yml and save it

Example: of justdofs.yml

– hosts: all

gather_facts: yes

any_errors_fatal: true

roles:

– role: provision-fs

3.Ensure the testervernick1 is listed under inventory/hosts

a.Testservernick1 ansible_host=192.168.80.200

Command:

ansible/$ ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts justdofs.yml -u root -k –limit=’testservernick1′

Example of successful play:

ntailor@test-box:~/ansible/computelab$ ansible-playbook –i inventory/hosts justdofs.yml -u root -k –limit=’testservernick1‘

SSH password:

PLAY [all] *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [provision-fs : Merge VG variables] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1]

TASK [provision-fs : Merge LV variables] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1]

TASK [provision-fs : Merge FS variables] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1]

TASK [provision-fs : Merge MOUNT variables] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1]

TASK [provision-fs : Create VGs] *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘vg’: ‘vg_vmguest‘, ‘pvs‘: ‘/dev/sdb‘})

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘vg’: ‘vg_sl_storage‘, ‘pvs‘: ‘/dev/sdc‘})

TASK [provision-fs : Create LVs] *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘vg’: ‘vg_vmguest‘, ‘lv’: ‘lv_vg_vmguest‘, ‘size’: ‘100%FREE’, ‘shrink’: False})

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘vg’: ‘vg_sl_storage‘, ‘lv’: ‘lv_vg_sl_storage‘, ‘size’: ‘100%FREE’, ‘shrink’: False})

TASK [provision-fs : Create FSs] *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘dev’: ‘/dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest‘, ‘fstype‘: ‘ext4’})

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘dev’: ‘/dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage‘, ‘fstype‘: ‘ext4’})

TASK [provision-fs : Mount FSs] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘path’: ‘/vmguests‘, ‘src‘: ‘/dev/vg_vmguest/lv_vg_vmguest‘, ‘fstype‘: ‘ext4’})

ok: [testservernick1] => (item={‘path’: ‘/sl_storage‘, ‘src‘: ‘/dev/vg_sl_storage/lv_vg_sl_storage‘, ‘fstype‘: ‘ext4’})

PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

testservernick1 : ok=8 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

admin February 28, 2022 Ansible, Diskstuff, Linux, Logical VolumesNo Comments »

admin | May 26, 2021

How to add VM-Tags and Custom attributes with Anisble(VMware)

So whether your using cloud or doing in house deploys. Tagging is a used a lot especially in cloud type environments. Which we will cover in later posts.

So a common reason to tag your vm is wanting to have the creation date and the type of server or environment its using, handy for backup solutions & other auditables.

Pre-requisites: Assumed.

• Ansible 2.9 installed and configured –

• Vmware Community modules configured

• Vmware group variables previously defined for vmware deployments(Is helpful)

Step by Step:

1.Create a roles directory inside /etc/ansible/roles

a.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/custom-tags-attributes-vmware/tasks

b.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/ custom-tags-attributes-vmware/defaults

2.Now you want to create a task for the snapshots.

c.Inside /etc/ansible/roles/custom-tags-attributes-vmware/tasks/

d.Create a file called main.yml

3.Add the following code and save the file

Note: Okay for the custom attributes to work you need to get the MOID, UUID & Folder of the vm by using the vm name. So we need to gather facts about the vm and the set those facts as variables that we can pass to the next tasks.

– name: get list of facts

vmware_guest_facts:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

datacenter: “{{ vcenter_dc }}”

validate_certs: False

delegate_to: localhost

ignore_errors: true

register: vm_facts

Note: So when we use the vmware_guest_facts module to gather the facts about the vm by register the facts to a variable “vm_facts”, which when you run the playbook with –vvvv will spit out the facst you can pass as indicated below..

“hw_folder“: “/SysUnix/Testing“,

“hw_guest_full_name“: “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)”,

“hw_guest_ha_state“: true,

“hw_guest_id“: “rhel7_64Guest”,

“hw_interfaces“: [

“eth0”

“hw_is_template“: false,

“hw_memtotal_mb“: 2048,

“hw_name“: “v-sits-test4”,

“hw_power_status“: “poweredOn“,

“hw_processor_count“: 2,

“hw_product_uuid“: “4226d4e1-6be8-9447-5ced-b037075e2ffd”,

“hw_version“: “vmx-11”,

“instance_uuid“: “50263518-c95b-c3be-5c77-4e1ea69ec295”,

“ipv4”: “192.168.1.29“,

“ipv6”: null,

“module_hw“: true,

“moid“: “vm-296678”,

“snapshots”: [],

“vimref“: “vim.VirtualMachine:vm-296678”,

“vnc“: {}

.Note: Now that we have the UUID, MOID, & Folder. We now want to create static variables for UUID, MOID, & folder by using the previous variable we registered as “vm_facts”, and we want to set them as static variables by setting them as facts we can past to the tasks after. As indicated below. Again setting facts is the same as defining variables in bash. Just ansible way to do it.

– set_fact:

vm_uuid: “{{ vm_facts.instance.instance_uuid }}”

– set_fact:

moid: “{{ vm_facts.instance.moid }}”

– set_fact:

vm_folder: “{{ vm_facts.instance.hw_folder }}”

Note: Now want to use the ansible server date and pass that as a variable so you don’t have to input the date as manual value each time you deploy a new host. So we want to grab the date and setup a static fact and then pass it as its own variable. Like we did above…

– name: Get Date

shell: date +%Y-%m-%d

register: date

delegate_to: localhost

Note: We use shell module to get the date in the format we want, then register the result as the variable {{ date }}. We then set a static fact of the result and create another variable called date with using the result from the above.

– set_fact:

date: “{{ date.stdout }}”

Note: We now want to pass all the fact to the “vmware_guest_custom_attributes” module UUID, MOID, DATE, and Folder indicated as below.

– name: Add multiple virtual machine custom attributes

vmware_guest_custom_attributes:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

datacenter: “{{ vcenter_dc }}”

folder: “{{ vm_folder }}”

uuid: “{{ vm_facts.instance.instance_uuid }}”

moid: “{{ vm_facts.instance.moid }}”

state: present

validate_certs: False

use_instance_uuid: True

attributes:

– name: Creation Date

value: “{{ date }}”

# – name: MyAttribute2 – Note: You can add additional attributes if you wish

# value: test2 – Note: You can add additional attributes if you wish

delegate_to: localhost

register: attributes

Note: Okay so depending on which module you use, some require you to gather facts about the vmware categories. This is just incase you need the cateogory_id which is usually derived from using a REST API in json or other method. The “community.vmware.vmware_category_facts”will be able to pull the info and then you can pass it as a variable or a static value. IF YOU NEED, however this is NOT needed. If you use the “vmware_tag_manager” module”

– name: Gather facts about tag categories

community.vmware.vmware_category_facts:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

validate_certs: no

delegate_to: localhost

register: all_tag_category_facts

ok: [v-sits-test4] => {

“changed”: false,

“invocation”: {

“module_args“: {

“hostname”: “vmware.nicktailor.com“,

“password”: “VALUE_SPECIFIED_IN_NO_LOG_PARAMETER”,

“port”: 443,

“protocol”: “https”,

“username”: “admin“,

“validate_certs“: false

}

“tag_category_facts“: [

{

“category_associable_types“: [

“VirtualMachine“

“category_cardinality“: “SINGLE”,

“category_description“: “VM Type – Clone, Decomm, Dev, Prod, SRM, SLM, Template or Test”,

“category_id“: “urn:vmomi:InventoryServiceCategory:f1024eb4-d7d4-49fe-9725-4dcba39fbe3b:GLOBAL”,

“category_name“: “VMType“,

“category_used_by“: []

{

“category_associable_types“: [

“VirtualMachine“

“category_cardinality“: “SINGLE”,

“category_description“: “Team or Department”,

“category_id“: “urn:vmomi:InventoryServiceCategory:888a0877-5335-4477-9347-6d8de5b3e60e:GLOBAL”,

“category_name“: “Team/Dept”,

“category_used_by“: []

}

]

}

Note: Now that we want to create the tag for the vm using the ““vmware_tag_manager” module. The only variable that is passed from outside the defaults at the inventory_hostname level “host_var/nicktest1” is the {{ vm_tag }} Make sure you have this defined for the role to work properly.

– name: Add tags to a virtual machine

vmware_tag_manager:

hostname: ‘{{ vcenter_host }}’

username: ‘{{ vcenter_username }}’

password: ‘{{ vcenter_password }}’

validate_certs: no

tag_names:

– “{{ vm_tag }}” – passed at the host_var/nicktest1

object_name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

object_type: VirtualMachine

state: present

delegate_to: localhost

4.Save the file

5.You can either have group_vars set up for individual datacenters, but for now just define the variables under /etc/ansible/roles/custom-tags-attributes-vmware/defaults

Note: You will likely have a group_var from you vmdeploy role that you can use for here.

e.Create a file called main.yml and the following variables

vcenter_username: admin

vcenter_password: should be vault encrypted variable

vcenter_host: vmware.nicktailor.com

vcenter_dc: London

f.Save the file

• Note: Ensure your host “nicktest1” is listed in your inventory host file.
/etc/ansible/inventory/TEST/hosts

• Note: Make sure your “host_var/nicktest1″ has the “vm_tag: {{ value }}” defined

Run your playbook: from /etc/ansible

1.ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justremovevmsnap.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’nicktest1′

Playbook log:

[root@ansible-server]# ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justcustomattrib.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’v-sits-test4′

Vault password:

PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : get list of facts] ************************************************************************************

[DEPRECATION WARNING]: The ‘vmware_guest_facts‘ module has been renamed to ‘vmware_guest_info‘. This feature will be removed in version

2.13. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : set_fact] *********************************************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : set_fact] *********************************************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : set_fact] *********************************************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : Get Date] *********************************************************************************************

changed: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : set_fact] *********************************************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : Add multiple virtual machine custom attributes] *******************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : Gather facts about tag categories] ********************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

TASK [custom-tags-attributes-vmware : Add tags to a virtual machine] ************************************************************************

ok: [v-sits-test4]

PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************************************************************

v-sits-test4 : ok=9 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

admin May 26, 2021 Ansible, vmwareNo Comments »

admin | May 26, 2021

How to remove snapshots with Ansible(VMware)

Okay, so lots of folks ask me about this, and there are a number of ways you can do this.

But if you’re using vmware and redhat satellite for central patch management for your redhat environment.

Then depending on how you patch your systems. If you snapshot every group prior to patching. Then this post will be perfect for you.

Process:

1.Remove snapshot once patching is all done and servers are confirmed OKAY

Pre-requisites: Assumed.

• Ansible 2.9 installed and configured –

• Vmware Community modules configured

• Vmware group variables previously defined for vmware deployments(Is helpful)

• Vmware user/password configure with being able to remove snaphots in either datacenters you have

Step by Step:

1.Create a roles directory inside /etc/ansible/roles

a.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/remove-snapshot/tasks

b.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/remove-snapshot/defaults

2.Now you want to create a task for the snapshots.

c.Inside /etc/ansible/roles/remove-snapshot/tasks/

d.Create a file called main.yml

3.Add the following code and save the file

– name: Login into vCenter and get cookies

delegate_to: localhost

uri:

url: https://{{ vcenter_host }}/rest/com/vmware/cis/session

force_basic_auth: yes

validate_certs: no

method: POST

user: ‘{{ vcenter_username }}’

password: ‘{{ vcenter_password }}’

register: login

Note: Okay so what we want to do is find the virtual machine in vsphere by name and then grab its folder value and pass it as a variable so you don’t need to define it statically in your host_var. The main reason is, say you deployed a vm and months later moved it to another folder, your code will likely have the origin folder which would be annoying, and the ansible documentation doesn’t really cover this approach, you basically figure it out as you do it. So im going to save you all time. Here is how you do it. The below will gather vm_facts based on the inventory_hostname

– name: Find Guest’s Folder using name

vmware_guest_find:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

validate_certs: no

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

delegate_to: localhost

ignore_errors: true

register: vm_facts

Note: It will than gather those facts and find the folder value. You then register the facts to a variable “vm_facts” Now it will spit out what it finds when you do –vvvv when you do your play. From there you can see the folder setting. You now want to set that that folder setting as its own variable that you can pass to another task as indicated below.

ok: [ansible-server] => {

“changed”: false,

“folders”: [

“/SysUnix/Teststuff“

“invocation”: {

“module_args“: {

“datacenter“: null,

“hostname”: “vmware.nicktailor.com“,

“name”: ” ansible-server“,

“password”: “VALUE_SPECIFIED_IN_NO_LOG_PARAMETER”,

“port”: 443,

“proxy_host“: null,

“proxy_port“: null,

“use_instance_uuid“: false,

“username”: “svc_ans“,

“uuid“: null,

“validate_certs“: false

}

– name: “vm_folder – setting folder value”

set_fact:

folder : “{{ vm_facts.folders }}”

Note: So you can see that the facts has a sub fact called “folders”. We want to pass that by setting that value as its own variable by making it a fact. Ansible way to set variables is setting facts. So we make that value above into a variable “vm_facts.folders” and then pass that into the next task where it asks for folders. This will get around the having to provide the exact folder the vm_resides to create snapshotting for an array of hosts. This section is basically identical to create except the “state” is set to absent

– name: Remove Snapshot

vmware_guest_snapshot:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

datacenter: “{{ vcenter_dc }}”

validate_certs: no

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

state: absent

snapshot_name: “Ansible Managed Snapshot”

folder: “‘{{ vm_facts.folders }}'”

description: “This snapshot is created by Ansible Playbook”

delegate_to: localhost

4.Save the file

5.You can either have group_vars set up for individual datacenters, but for now just define the variables under /etc/ansible/roles/remove-snapshot/defaults

Note: You will likely have a group_var from you vmdeploy role that you can use for here.

e.Create a file called main.yml and the following variables

vcenter_username: admin

vcenter_password: should be vault encrypted variable

vcenter_host: vmware.nicktailor.com

vcenter_dc: London

f.Save the file

• Note: Ensure your host “nicktest1” is listed in your inventory host file.
/etc/ansible/inventory/TEST/hosts

Run your playbook: from /etc/ansible

1.ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justremovevmsnap.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’nicktest1‘

Playbook log:

[root@ansible-server]# ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justremovevmsnap.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’nicktest1‘

Vault password:

PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [remove_snapshot : Login into vCenter and get cookies] *********************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [remove_snapshot : Find Guest’s Folder using name] *************************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [remove_snapshot : vm_folder – setting folder value] ***********************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [remove_snapshot : remove Snapshot] ****************************************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************************************************************

nicktest1 : ok=4 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

2.Go log into vsphere and check to see the vm no longer has the snapshot name listed.

Note: This uses the snapshot name to remove as the one you used to create. If another snapshot exists with a different name it will ignore it entirely. If you pass snapshot variable with another name and run the book again, it will remove another snapshot. The same applies to removing snapshots, it will remove based on the name.

admin May 26, 2021 Ansible, Snapshots, vmwareNo Comments »

admin | May 25, 2021

How to create snapshots with Ansible (VMware)

Okay, so lots of folks ask me about this, and there are a number of ways you can do this.

But if you’re using vmware and redhat satellite for central patch management for your redhat environment.

Then depending on how you patch your systems. If you snapshot every group prior to patching. Then this post will be perfect for you.

Patching Processes:

1.Snapshot every vm in your group using ansible

2. Update your host content-views in satellite and clear yum caches –
– (these are not in this post) part 2

3.Patch all your servers using ansible – (these are not in this post) part 3

4..Reboot all your servers (these are not in this post) – part 4

5..Test to ensure they all came back up (these not in this post for now) part 5

Note: There is a step to change the content view of all your hosts and cleaning your yum repos on all the hosts. I have not written a post on this step yet, but you should obviously automate that. I will eventually get around to including it, when I have some time.

Pre-requisites: Assumed.

• Ansible 2.9 installed and configured with python3

• VMware Community modules configured

• VMware group variables previously defined for VMware deployments(Is helpful)

• VMware user/password configure with being able to create snaphots in either datacenters you have

Step by Step:

1.Create a roles directory inside /etc/ansible/roles

a.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/create-snapshot/tasks

b.mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/create-snapshot/defaults

2.Now you want to create a task for the snapshots.

c.Inside /etc/ansible/roles/create-snapshot/tasks/

d.Create a file called main.yml

3.Add the following code and save the file

– name: Login into vCenter and get cookies

delegate_to: localhost

uri:

url: https://{{ vcenter_host }}/rest/com/vmware/cis/session

force_basic_auth: yes

validate_certs: no

method: POST

user: ‘{{ vcenter_username }}’

password: ‘{{ vcenter_password }}’

register: login

– name: Find Guest’s Folder using name

vmware_guest_find:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

validate_certs: no

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

delegate_to: localhost

ignore_errors: true

register: vm_facts

ok: [ansible-server] => {

“changed”: false,

“folders”: [

“/SysUnix/Teststuff“

“invocation”: {

“module_args“: {

“datacenter“: null,

“hostname”: “vmware.nicktailor.com“,

“name”: “ ansible-server“,

“password”: “VALUE_SPECIFIED_IN_NO_LOG_PARAMETER”,

“port”: 443,

“proxy_host“: null,

“proxy_port“: null,

“use_instance_uuid“: false,

“username”: “admin“,

“uuid“: null,

“validate_certs“: false

}

– name: “vm_folder – setting folder value”

set_fact:

folder : “{{ vm_facts.folders }}”

– name: Create Snapshot

vmware_guest_snapshot:

hostname: “{{ vcenter_host }}”

username: “{{ vcenter_username }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

datacenter: “{{ vcenter_dc }}”

validate_certs: no

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

state: present

snapshot_name: “Ansible Managed Snapshot”

folder: “‘{{ vm_facts.folders }}'”

description: “This snapshot is created by Ansible Playbook”

delegate_to: localhost

4.Save the file

5.You can either have group_vars set up for individual datacenters, but for now just define the variables under /etc/ansible/roles/create-snapshot/defaults

Note: You will likely have a group_var from you vmdeploy role that you can use for here.

e.Create a file called main.yml and the following variables

vcenter_username: admin

vcenter_password: should be vault encrypted variable

vcenter_host: vmware.nicktailor.com

vcenter_dc: London

f.Save the file

• Note: Ensure your host “nicktest1” is listed in your inventory host file.
/etc/ansible/inventory/TEST/hosts

Run your playbook: from /etc/ansible

1.ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justcreatevmsnap.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’nicktest1‘

Playbook log:

[root@ansible–server]# ansible-playbook –i inventory/TEST/hosts justcreatevmsnap.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit=’nicktest1‘

Vault password:

PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [create_snapshot : Login into vCenter and get cookies] *********************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [create_snapshot : Find Guest’s Folder using name] *************************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [create_snapshot : vm_folder – setting folder value] ***********************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

TASK [create_snapshot : Create Snapshot] ****************************************************************************************************

ok: [nicktest1]

PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************************************************************

nicktest1 : ok=4 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

2.Go log into vsphere and check to see the vm has a snapshot name “ansible created snapshot” if it does it worked.

Note: This uses the snapshot name to create. If another snapshot exists with a different name it will ignore it entirely. If you pass snapshot variable with another name and run the book again, it will create another snapshot. The same applies to removing snapshots, it will remove based on the name. We will cover that in my post to remove snapshots.

admin May 25, 2021 Ansible, Snapshots, vmwareNo Comments »

admin | May 9, 2021

How to Create a New Host in Foreman with Ansible

Okay…this one was quite difficult to find online. Seems like the ansible documentation for the foreman module was seriously lacking or not kept up to date by anyone. I searched for awhile to see if anyone had an actual working model of it.
Not even in the ansible chat rooms did anyone know….which was weak.

So I spent some time getting this to work smoothly, and you will probably not find anywhere else on the web on how to do this. If you do show me….so I can kick myself.

Lets get dangerous then. 😊

Step by step:

Foreman – Already setup and your “computer resource” is hooked in (VMware)
Note: The compute profile(vmware) when hooked in, will also trigger a new vm creation in vsphere prepped to do DHCP. You can combine variables from vmware_guest module and this module as they require similar variables to be passed. To setup a one stop shop to deploy in foreman and vmware with just using ansible. Iv done this already…..

Special notes: The foreman I had setup did not have organisation or location configured. This caused the module to not function properly and I had to contact one of the developers who helped me patch the code so I didn’t require them to be configured or defined. Which I will show you all how to do.

Ansible – Assuming you have it setup and working with python 2.7 not sure this module will work with python 3. Havent tried that yet…..

Module – TheForeman Collection

1.To install it

a.ansible-galaxy collection install theforeman.foreman

b.edit ansible.cfg file and add the following lines.

Note: You can find the locations of these certs on foreman server. You will to copy them over to ansible for the callback to work properly. However, it is not needed to complete the host creation, you likely just see an error at the end of the play.

[callback_foreman]

url = ‘http://foreman-1.tdr.corp-apps.com’

ssl_cert = /etc/foreman-proxy/ssl-cert.pem

ssl_key = /etc/foreman-proxy/ssl-pvt.pem

verify_certs = /etc/foreman-proxy/ssl-ca

Okay once installed you. If you look at the ansible documentation on how to manage hosts using this module…from redhat.

It utterly useless…and will not work if you try to use the examples below.

https://people.redhat.com/evgeni/fam-antsibull/plugins/host_module.html

– name: “Create a host”

host:

username: “admin”

password: “changeme“

server_url: “https://foreman.example.com”

name: “new_host“

hostgroup: my_hostgroup

state: present

2.Okay now since my foreman is not configured with Organisation and Locations. I had to patch the python code with the help of one of contributing authors of the module.

3.Apply the following patch.

.The fix was to avoid trying to touch a specific resource that is only available when you have Org/Loc enabled.

diff –git plugins/module_utils/foreman_helper.py plugins/module_utils/foreman_helper.py

index 432c76df..c9a3abda 100644

— plugins/module_utils/foreman_helper.py

+++ plugins/module_utils/foreman_helper.py

@@ -396,8 +396,9 @@ class ForemanAnsibleModule(AnsibleModule):

_host_update = next(x for x in _host_methods if x[‘name’] == ‘update’)

for param in [‘location_id‘, ‘organization_id‘]:

– _host_update_taxonomy_param = next(x for x in _host_update[‘params’] if x[‘name’] == param)

– _host_update[‘params’].remove(_host_update_taxonomy_param)

+ _host_update_taxonomy_param = next((x for x in _host_update[‘params’] if x[‘name’] == param), None)

+ if _host_update_taxonomy_param is not None:

+ _host_update[‘params’].remove(_host_update_taxonomy_param)

@_check_patch_needed(fixed_version=’2.0.0′)

def _patch_templates_resource_name(self):

4.Once this patch is implemented. You will need a role that has all the correct variables to pass to your foreman in order for it to be able create a host without erroring.

Trick: with ansible you can write some of the code and run the playbook and if there are missing variables it will tell you what they are.

fatal: [testnick1]: FAILED! => {

“changed”: false,

“invocation”: {

“module_args“: {

“activation_keys“: null,

“architecture”: null,

“build”: null,

“comment”: null,

“compute_attributes“: null,

“compute_profile“: null,

“compute_resource“: null,

“config_groups“: null,

“content_source“: null,

“content_view“: null,

“domain”: null,

“enabled”: null,

“environment”: null,

“hostgroup“: “my_hostgroup“,

“image”: null,

“interfaces_attributes“: null,

“ip“: null,

“kickstart_repository“: null,

“lifecycle_environment“: null,

“location”: null,

“mac”: null,

“managed”: null,

“medium”: null,

“name”: “testnick1”,

“openscap_proxy“: null,

“operatingsystem“: null,

“organization”: null,

“owner”: null,

“owner_group“: null,

“parameters”: null,

“password”: “VALUE_SPECIFIED_IN_NO_LOG_PARAMETER”,

“provision_method“: null,

“ptable“: null,

“puppet_ca_proxy“: null,

“puppet_proxy“: null,

“puppetclasses“: null,

“pxe_loader“: null,

“realm”: null,

“root_pass“: null,

“server_url“: “http://foreman-1.nictailor.com/”,

“state”: “present”,

“subnet”: null,

“subnet6”: null,

“username”: “ntailor“,

“validate_certs“: true

}

“msg“: “The hostname must be FQDN”

}

PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

testnick1 : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

5.Okay so once you get all the variables. Its just a matter of playing around until you’re able to get to work.

c.Mkdir a directory inside /etc/ansible/roles

i.mkdir ansible-provision-foreman

d.Inside the directory create two directories (defaults & tasks)

ii.Mkdir defaults && mkdir tasks

6.Now inside the tasks directory, create a file called main.yml and insert the code below

e.vi main.yml

Create a Host: This code is what you need for this module to work.

– name: “Create a host”

theforeman.foreman.host:

username: “{{ foreman_user }}”

password: “{{ vcenter_password }}”

server_url: “{{ server_url }}”

name: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

hostgroup: “{{ host_group }}”

managed: no

build: no

compute_profile: “{{ compute_profile }}”

compute_resource: “{{ computer_resource }}”

compute_attributes:

cpus: “{{ vm_cpu_count }}”

memory_mb: “{{ vm_memory }}”

interfaces_attributes:

– type: “interface”

primary: true

compute_attributes:

name: nic1

network: “{{ vm_vlan_name }}”

interface: “{{ vm_interface }}”

subnet: “{{ vm_subnet }}”

ip: “{{ vm_ip }}”

domain: “{{ domain }}”

provision: yes

operatingsystem: “{{ operating_system }}”

medium: “{{ medium }}”

architecture: x86_64

pxe_loader: PXELinux BIOS

puppet_ca_proxy: “{{ puppet_ca_proxy }}”

puppet_proxy: “{{ puppet_proxy }}”

root_pass: “{{ root_pass }}”

environment: tdr

# ptable: Centos – LVM – / , swap

ptable: “{{ ptable }}”

# owner: unix

state: present

validate_certs: false

delegate_to: localhost

– name: “Switch host on”

theforeman.foreman.host_power:

username: “{{ foreman_user }}”

password: “{{ foreman_password }}”

server_url: “{{ server_url }}”

hostname: “{{ inventory_hostname }}”

state: on

validate_certs: false

delegate_to: localhost

f.save file.

7.Okay so next want now want to pass the basic defaults for new host creating. How we do that is define what those are under defaults. These variables wont change

g.Cd ../defaults

h.Vi main.yml

Note: You can find all these variables inside foreman GUI with a bit of digging.

foreman_user: Reptilianfilth
foreman_password: { generally want a ansible vault password }
compute_profile: vmware
computer_resource: vcenter.nic.internal
domain: nic.internal
medium: 7.8-CentOS
puppet_ca_proxy: puppet-2.nic.internal
puppet_proxy: puppet-2.nic.internal

i.Save file

8.Okay now we want to pass the host specific variables for new host creations and or vm deployments.

j.Move into to your /etc/ansible/inventory/{{environment}}/host_vars directory

iii.CD /etc/ansible/inventory/{{environment}}/host_vars

iv.Create a file called testserver

v.Vi testserver

#VM creation variables

vm_network: niccorp-192.168.65_corp

vm_interface: VMXNET3

vm_subnet: 192.168.65.0

vm_ip: 192.168.65.103

domain: nic.internal

managed: no

host_group: Base-Server/Centos-7.8.2003

operating_system: Centos 7.8.2003

ptable: Centos – LVM – / , swap

root_pass: changemetwiceaday

medium: 7.8-CentOS

k.Past the above and save the file

Special Note: Now if you wanted to have it so you can use foreman module or vmware_guest module combining the variables names between the modules.

You can do as below. You will need to ensure the variables match but it works. You can get around having to rely on DHCP with this.

#VM creation variables foreman and vmware together

vm_vlan_name: nic_192.168.44_db_stor2

vm_datastore: esx_nicrcorp

vm_dvswitch: VDS-nic-Corporate

vm_interface: VMXNET3

vm_subnet: 192.1268.44.0

vm_ip: 192.168.44.14

vm_netmask: 255.255.255.0

vm_gateway: 192.168.44.254

vm_dns_servers: [192.168.1.1]

vm_dns_suffix: nic.internal

vm_cpu_count: 4

vm_memory: 16384

vm_state: poweredon

vm_connected: true

domain: tdr.internal

managed: no

host_group: Base-Server/Centos-7.8.2003

operating_system: Centos 7.8.2003

ptable: Centos – LVM – / , swap

root_pass: changemetwiceaday

medium: 7.8-CentOS

9.Next you need to ensure your host are listed in your inventory host file

l.vi ../hosts

m.testnick3.nic.internal

10.save file

Before you to start one last thing. If you remember in the defaults we outlined

compute_profile: vmware
(this is the foreman profile it will use, so whatever defaults you have set for network and disksize here is what will be used to trigger foreman to create a host in vcenter, so it good to go check this in foreman first.)

.Run playbook: from /etc/ansible

[root@nick ansible]# ansible-playbook –i inventory/TDR/hosts foremancreatehost.yml –ask-vault-pass –limit ‘testnick3.tdr.internal’

Vault password:

PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [ansible-provision-foreman : Create a host] ********************************************************************************************************

changed: [testnick3.tdr.internal]

PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

testnick3.tdr.internal : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

403 Client Error: Forbidden for url: http://foreman-1.nic.corp.com/api/v2/reports (if you see this, just ignore it) Its just callback report.

admin May 9, 2021 Ansible, Red Hat SatelliteNo Comments »

admin | December 25, 2020

How to add a custom tomcat installation to SystemD with ansible.

Okay so say you have a custom install of tomcat and java, which is what a lot of people do because java update and tomcat updates can bring things down. So things need to be tested before updates and standard patch cycles can end up affecting the environment.

But you want to handle the startup and stopping via systemd to be able to get status outputs and let system handle the service on reboots. This is how to do it slick.

Ansible Setup:

• This post assumes you have ansible setup and running. If you don’t search through my blog and you should find a post on how to setup.

Role:

• We are going to setup a custom role to add your custom tomcat install system

Setup the new role:

• Create a new directory in /etc/ansible/role for your new role

◦ mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/AddtomcatSystemD/tasks/

• Now create a yaml file that will run a set of tasks to set this up for ya.

◦ vi main.yml

Main.yml

===========================================

Note: this will install the redhat tomcat version of tomcat. Do not worry we are not going to be using this tomcat. This is just so redhat automatically setups all the needed services and locations. We will then update the SystemD config for tomcat to use the custom version.

– name: Install the latest version of tomcat

package:

state: latest

Note: This symlink is important as tomcat default install by redhat is inside /opt/tomcat. Update the src to the custom location of your tomcat

– name: Create symbolic link for “tomcat” in /opt

file:

src: /custom/install/tomcat

path: /opt/tomcat

force: yes

state: link

Note: This will enable tomcat to start up on reboot

– name: Enable tomcat service on startup

shell: systemctl enable tomcat

Note: This is the tomcat systemd service file that systemd uses for the default install. We are going to empty.

– name: Null tomcat.service file

shell: “>/etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service“

Note: We are now going to add our custom block for tomcat into the tomcat.service file we just emptied above using the blockinfle module. This means that this whole section will also be managed by ansible as well. Make sure you adjust the java_home if your java isn’t location inside tomcat. Along with the user,group,umask for to your custom tomcat.

– name: Edit tomcat.service for systemd

blockinfile:

dest: /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

insertafter:

block: |

[Unit]

Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container

After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]

Type=forking

Environment=JAVA_HOME=/opt/tomcat

Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid

Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat

Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat

Environment=’CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512M -Xmx1024M -server –XX:+UseParallelGC‘

Environment=’JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true –Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom‘

ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh

ExecStop=/bin/kill -15 $MAINPID

User=tomcat

Group=tomcat

UMask=

RestartSec=10

Restart=always

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: This will then reload the custom tomcat via systemd

– name: Start tomcat service with Systemd

systemd:

daemon_reload: yes

Note: This will then check to see if the new tomcat is service running and out to the ansible playbook log.

– name: get service facts

service_facts:

– name: Check to see if tomcat is running

debug:

var: ansible_facts.services[“tomcat.service“]

Ansibe playbook log:

[root@nickansible]# ansible-playbook –i inventory/DEV/hosts justtomcatrole.yml –limit ‘nicktestvm‘ -k

SSH password:

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Create symbolic link for “tomcat” in /opt] ***************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Enable tomcat service on startup] ************************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Null tomcat.service file] ********************************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Edit tomcat.service for systemd] *************************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Start tomcat service with Systemd] ***********************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : get service facts] ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: nicktestvm]

TASK [AddTomCatSystemD : Check to see if tomcat is running] ***********************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: nicktestvm] => {

“ansible_facts.services[\”tomcat.service\”]”: {

“name”: “tomcat.service“,

“source”: “systemd“,

“state”: “running”,

“status”: “enabled”

}

nicktestvm : ok=7 changed=4 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

==========================

[root@nicktestvm ~]# cat /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK

[Unit]

Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container

After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]

Type=forking

Environment=JAVA_HOME=/opt/tomcat

Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid

Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat

Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat

Environment=’CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512M -Xmx1024M -server -XX:+UseParallelGC’

Environment=’JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom’

ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh

ExecStop=/bin/kill -15 $MAINPID

User=tomcat

Group=tomcat

UMask=0028

RestartSec=10

Restart=always

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK

SystemD Status:

root@nicktestvm ~]# systemctl status tomcat

● tomcat.service – Apache Tomcat Web Application Container

Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)

Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-12-24 05:11:21 GMT; 21h ago

Process: 6333 ExecStop=/bin/kill -15 $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Process: 6353 ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Main PID: 6363 (java)

CGroup: /system.slice/tomcat.service

└─6363 /usr/local/java/java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/opt/tomcat/conf/logging.properties -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -server -Xms1…

Dec 24 05:11:21 nicktestvm systemd[1]: Starting Apache Tomcat Web Application Container…

Dec 24 05:11:21 nicktestvm startup.sh[6353]: Existing PID file found during start.

Dec 24 05:11:21 nicktestvm startup.sh[6353]: Removing/clearing stale PID file.

Dec 24 05:11:21 nicktestvm systemd[1]: Started Apache Tomcat Web Application Container.

admin December 25, 2020 Ansible, Centos, LinuxNo Comments »

admin | December 21, 2020

How to generate new Network UUID’s with Ansible

Okay some of you might have deployed linux vm’s from clone templates using ansible by way of the vmware_guest module.

Now everybody goes about it differently, and from what I read online…. It would seem that lots of people over complicate the generation of the UUID with over complicated code to generate the UUID.

At the end of the day all a UUID is….is JUST A “UNIQUE IDENTIFIER”. It serves no other function other than being another form of labelling the network interface on the vm. There is no need to over complicate the creation of a UUID. This is also provided you defined UUID’s on your deployments.

Why…would you want to do this? Well if you cloned from a template. The new clone with have the same network UUID on every new machine you create. Now this wont impact your infrastructure in anyway, other than you *might* get duplicate UUID warning at some point. However, it can be problematic when doing backups, restores, migrations, and monitoring in some cases.

Ansible Setup:

• This post assumes that you have ansible setup and running

Role :

• Create a role called CreateNewNetworkUUID in /etc/ansible/roles

mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/CreateNewNetworkUUID/tasks

• Create a main.yml inside /etc/ansible/roles/CreateNewNetworkUUID/tasks/

vi /etc/ansible/roles/CreateNewNetworkUUID/tasks/main.yml

• Now add the following yaml code.

–

Note: This just runs the ‘uuidgen’ command on the linux vm and then registers the result into a variable that is passed to the next task.

– name: Generate new UUID

shell: uuidgen

– debug:

var: new_uuid_result

Note: This updates the network file on redhat and adds the UUID line with the newly generated UUID and shows a log of the new UUID that was added. This section will also be outlined in the file as managed by ansible

– name: Add New UUID to network config

blockinfile:

dest: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens192

insertafter: NAME=”ens192″

block: |

UUID=”{{ new_uuid_result[‘stdout‘] }}”

– debug: msg=”{{ filecontents }}”

• Save the file

Ansible playbook run:

• From inside /etc/ansible directory call your role inside your playbook or create a new playbook calling the role

 vi createnewUUID.yml

• Add the following to your playbook.

– hosts: all

gather_facts: no

roles:

– role: CreateNewNetworkUUID

• Save the file

Ansible playbook run:

• Run your new role against your hosts

Note: this run the role against all your hosts defined in inventory/DEV/hosts via ssh. You will need to know the root/pass for your ssh connection to be able to carry out the tasks.

ansible-playbook –i inventory/DEV/hosts createnewUUID.yml -k

Ansible playbook log:

SSH password:

TASK [CreateNewUUID : Generate new UUID] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: [nicktestvm]

TASK [CreateNewUUID : debug] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ok: [nicktestvm] => {

“new_uuid_result“: {

“ansible_facts“: {

“discovered_interpreter_python“: “/usr/bin/python”

“changed”: true,

“cmd“: “uuidgen“,

“delta”: “0:00:00.010810”,

“end”: “2020-12-21 20:13:36.614154”,

“failed”: false,

“rc“: 0,

“start”: “2020-12-21 20:13:36.603344”,

“stderr”: “”,

“stderr_lines“: [],

“stdout“: “49242349-5168-4713-bcb6-a53840b2e1d6”,

“stdout_lines“: [

“49242349-5168-4713-bcb6-a53840b2e1d6”

]

}

TASK [CreateNewUUID : Add New UUID to network config] *********************************************************************************************************************************************************

changed: [nicktestvm]

ok: [nicktestvm] => {

“new_uuid_result.stdout“: “49242349-5168-4713-bcb6-a53840b2e1d6”

}

nicktestvm : ok=4 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

Nicktestvm:

[root@nicktestvm ~]$ cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens192

TYPE=”Ethernet”

PROXY_METHOD=”none”

BROWSER_ONLY=”no”

BOOTPROTO=”none”

DEFROUTE=”yes”

IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=”no”

IPV6INIT=”yes”

IPV6_AUTOCONF=”yes”

IPV6_DEFROUTE=”yes”

IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL=”no”

IPV6_ADDR_GEN_MODE=”stable-privacy”

NAME=”ens192″

# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK

UUID=”49242349-5168-4713-bcb6-a53840b2e1d6″

# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK

DEVICE=”ens192″

ONBOOT=”yes”

IPADDR=”192.168.1.69″

PREFIX=”24″

GATEWAY=”192.168.1.254″

DNS1=”8.8.8.1″

DNS2=”8.8.8.2″

DOMAIN=”nicktailor.co.uk”

IPV6_PRIVACY=”no”

admin December 21, 2020 Ansible, Network StuffNo Comments »

admin | December 19, 2020

How to deploy Vmware VM’s using Ansible from Cloned Templates

QUICK OVERVIEW OF WHAT ANSIBLE IS..

Ansible is a radically simple IT automation engine that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, intra-service orchestration, and many other IT needs.

Designed for multi-tier deployments since day one, Ansible models your IT infrastructure by describing how all of your systems inter-relate, rather than just managing one system at a time.

It uses no agents and no additional custom security infrastructure, so it’s easy to deploy – and most importantly, it uses a very simple language (YAML, in the form of Ansible Playbooks) that allow you to describe your automation jobs in a way that approaches plain English.

On this page, we’ll give you a really quick overview so you can see things in context. For more detail, hop over to docs.ansible.com.

EFFICIENT ARCHITECTURE

Ansible works by connecting to your nodes and pushing out small programs, called “Ansible modules” to them. These programs are written to be resource models of the desired state of the system. Ansible then executes these modules (over SSH by default), and removes them when finished.

Your library of modules can reside on any machine, and there are no servers, daemons, or databases required. Typically you’ll work with your favorite terminal program, a text editor, and probably a version control system to keep track of changes to your content.

• Okay so what that actually is saying is. Ansible has a whole library of python modules that come out of the box coupled with a huge community of open source python modules to do all sorts of tasks to automate infrastructure.

• You can call these modules by writing yaml code, inside your yaml code when you call a specific module, you can the pass specific variables to that module to do specific things defined by the python module.
Example power on and off a vm, or connect or disconnect network, etc.

For the purposes of this post we are are going to dive into using “vmware_guest” module by way of using http api authentication session & cookies. There are many other python modules which you can search in the ansible documentation and or ansible-galaxy

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/vmware/index.html

Now it definitely helps to be able to code in python or at least be able to read python code, however completely not necessary. Anyone with basic understanding of bash scripting can learn ansible. I could teach a newbie ansible in a couple days. Sharing is caring.

Anyone who says otherwise……don’t hire them.

Ansible Setup:

• Now this post assumes you already have ansible setup and are running a newer version. If not you will need to review post on how to setup ansible before you can proceed with this.

Pre-Module install Steps:

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

• python >= 2.6

• PyVmomi

• PIP

• Community.vmware library of python modules

1.Okay so you if your on our ansible machine as root

• Run the following this should install the modules you need

ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware

• Note: Depending on where you ran this from. If you ran this from /home/root. You can find all your python modules in ‘root/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/community/vmware/plugins/modules’

• You will probably need to install python 2.6 or greater

Redhat : Yum install python (should get you the latest version)

• Okay you may also neeed to install pip

Note: Now on centos its not available out of the box

.Centos 7 PIP install:

1.sudo yum install epel-release

2.sudo yum install python-pip

3.pip –version (verify its installed)

4.sudo yum install python-devel (these are for building python modules)

5.sudo yum groupinstall ‘development tools’ (these are for building python modules(

.Install PyVmomi:

1.pip install –upgrade pyvmomi

It will look like…..

[root@nick roles]# pip install –upgrade pyvmomi

Collecting pyvmomi

Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/ba/69/4e8bfd6b0aae49382e1ab9e3ce7de9ea6318eac007b3076e6006dbe5a7cd/pyvmomi-7.0.1.tar.gz (584kB)

100% |████████████████████████████████| 593kB 861kB/s