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Install Ansible on Red Hat Linux | How to setup Ansible on Red Hat Linux VM | Ansible install on Azure Linux Virtual Machine | Ansible Azure Integration

How to setup Ansible on Red Hat Linux VM and Integrate with Azure Cloud?

Ansible is #1 configuration management tool. It can also be used for infrastructure provisioning as well. or You can use Ansible in combination of Terraform which can take care of infra automation and Ansible can do configuration management. We will be setting up Ansible on Red Hat VM in Azure cloud And create some resources in Azure Cloud by using Ansible playbooks.

 

Ansible Architecture:

 

The best way to install Ansible in Linux is to use PIP, a package manager for Python.

Pre-requisites:

• Create new Red Hat VM in Azure Cloud for setting up Ansible, just open port 22 in firewall rule.
• Install Azure CLI on Red Hat Linus VM
• Service principal to create any resources in Azure cloud using Azure CLI

How to setup Ansible on Red Hat Linux VM

Watch Steps in YouTube channel:

Change host name to AnsibleMgmtNode
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname AnsibleMgmtNode

Update Repository
sudo yum update -y

Install Python-pip3

sudo yum install python3-pip -y

Upgrade pip3 sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip

# Install Ansible pip3 install "ansible==2.9.17"

check Ansible version

ansible --version

# Install Ansible azure_rm module for interacting with Azure.

pip3 install ansible[azure]

Authenticate with Azure

To configure Azure credentials, you need the following information:

• Your Azure subscription ID and tenant ID
• The service principal application ID and secret

Create an Azure Service Principal

Login to Azure first

az login

Enter Microsoft credentials

Run the following commands to create an Azure Service Principal:

az ad sp create-for-rbac --name <service-principal-name> \ 

--role Contributor \ 

--scopes /subscriptions/<subscription_id>

Save the above output in a file as you will not be able retrieve later.
Configure the Ansible credentials using one of the following techniques:

• Option 1: Create an Ansible credentials file

• Option 2: Define Ansible environment variables

Option 1: Create Ansible credentials file

In this section, you create a local credentials file to provide credentials to Ansible. For security reasons, credential files should only be used in development environments.

mkdir ~/.azure 

vi ~/.azure/credentials

Insert the following lines into the file. Replace the placeholders with the service principal values.

[default] subscription_id=<subscription_id> client_id=<service_principal_app_id> secret=<service_principal_password> tenant=<service_principal_tenant_id>

Option 2: Define Ansible environment variables

On the host virtual machine, export the service principal values to configure your Ansible credentials.

export AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID=<subscription_id> export AZURE_CLIENT_ID=<service_principal_app_id> export AZURE_SECRET=<service_principal_password> export AZURE_TENANT=<service_principal_tenant_id>

Test Ansible installation

You now have a virtual machine with Ansible installed and configured!

This section shows how to create a test resource group within your new Ansible configuration. If you don't need to do that, you can skip this section.

• Option 1: Use an ad-hoc ansible command
• Option 2: Write and run an Ansible playbook

Option 1: Use an ad-hoc ansible command

Run the following ad-hoc Ansible command to create a resource group:

ansible localhost -m azure_rm_resourcegroup -a "name=my-rg123 location=eastus"

Option 2: Write and run an Ansible playbook

Create a simple playbook to create resource group in Azure.

sudo vi create-rg.yml

---

- hosts: localhost

  connection: local

  tasks:

    - name: Creating resource group

      azure_rm_resourcegroup:

        name: "myResourceGroup"

        location: "eastus"

Execute the playbook using ansible-playbook command.

ansible-playbook create-rg.yml

Now Login to Azure cloud to see if the resource group have been created.

Clean up Resources

Save the following code as delete-rg.yml

sudo vi delete-rg.yml

--- - hosts: localhost tasks: - name: Deleting resource group - "{{ name }}" azure_rm_resourcegroup: name: "{{ name }}" state: absent register: rg - debug: var: rg

ansible-playbook delete-rg.yml --extra-vars "name=myResourceGroup"

check in Azure cloud to see if the resource group have been deleted.

Automate Azure cloud infrastructure setup using Ansible and Azure DevOps pipeline | How to integrate Ansible with Azure DevOps | Integrating Ansible with Azure DevOps Pipelines |

Ansible is an open-source configuration management tool that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, and application deployments. Using Ansible you can provision virtual machines, containers, network, and complete cloud infrastructures. 

Automate Azure cloud infrastructure setup using Ansible and Azure pipeline

Integrate Ansible with Azure Cloud

Integrating Ansible with Microsoft Azure allows you to automate and manage your Azure infrastructure using Ansible playbooks and modules. Ansible provides a collection of Azure-specific modules that enable you to provision and configure resources in Azure.

To configure Azure credentials, you need the following information:

• Your Azure subscription ID and tenant ID
• The service principal application ID and secret

Pre-requisites:

• Azure account subscription, click here if you don't have one.
• Azure CLI needs to be installed.
• Service principal to create any resources in Azure cloud using Azure cloud shell or Azure CLI

Login to Azure

az login

Enter Microsoft credentials

Create Azure Service Principal

Run the following commands to create an Azure Service Principal:

az ad sp create-for-rbac --name <service-principal-name> \ 

--role Contributor \ 

--scopes /subscriptions/<subscription_id>

Save the above output in a file as you will not be able retrieve later.

Create an Ansible playbook

Create a simple playbook to create a resource group in Azure. Make sure you modify the name of the resource group and location below.

---

- hosts: localhost

  connection: local

  tasks:

    - name: Creating resource group

      azure_rm_resourcegroup:

        name: "my-rg12"

        location: "eastus"

Create Azure YAML build pipeline:

Login to Azure Devops --> https://dev.azure.com

Select project dashboard.

Go to Pipelines -> New pipeline --> Click on Azure Repos Git or any SCM where you have playbooks stored. Select repo, click on Starter pipeline.

Add below four pipeline variables with value received from service principal creation.

AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID

AZURE_CLIENT_ID

AZURE_SECRET

AZURE_TENANT

Add below tasks:

• Install Ansible on build agent
• Install Ansible rm module on build agent
• Execute Ansible playbook for creating resource group in Azure cloud.

trigger:

- main

pr: none # Disable PR triggers, can be adjusted as needed

pool:

vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

steps:

- script: |

# Install Ansible

pip3 install "ansible==2.9.17"

displayName: 'Install Ansible'

- script: |

# Install Ansible rm module

pip3 install ansible[azure]

displayName: 'Install Ansible rm module'

- script: |

# Run Ansible playbook to create resource group

ansible-playbook create-rg.yml

displayName: 'Run Ansible Playbook'

env:

AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID: $(AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID)

AZURE_CLIENT_ID: $(AZURE_CLIENT_ID)

AZURE_SECRET: $(AZURE_SECRET)

AZURE_TENANT: $(AZURE_TENANT)

Save the pipeline and run it.

Now Login to Azure cloud to see if the resource group have been created.

Watch Steps in YouTube channel:

Install Azure CLI in Red Hat Linux | How to setup Azure CLI in Linux | How to Install Azure CLI in Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The Azure command-line interface (Azure CLI) is a set of commands used to create and manage Azure resources. The Azure CLI is available across Azure services and is designed to get you working quickly with Azure, with an emphasis on automation. Azure CLI is Microsoft's cross-platform command-line experience for managing Azure resources.

Azure CLI can be installed by following below steps:

Import the Microsoft repository key

sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc

For RHEL 8 or CentOS Stream 8, add packages-microsoft-com-prod repository:

sudo dnf install -y https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/8/packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

Install with the dnf install command

sudo dnf install azure-cli -y

Check the version of Azure CLI

az version

Run the Azure CLI with the az command. To sign in, use the az login command.

az login

How to create Red Hat Linux Virtual Machine (VM) in Azure? | Create Red Hat Linux VM in Azure | How to connect to Azure VM from your local machine

How to Create Red Hat Linux Virtual Machines(VM) in Azure Cloud? 

Creating Virtual Machine is easy and straight forward in Azure Cloud. Let us see how to do that in Azure portal. 

Watch Steps in YouTube channel:

Pre-requisites:

• Azure account subscription, click here if you don't have one.
• SSH client such as Git bash, putty or iTerm(mac os)

Steps to create Red Hat Linux Virtual Machine in Azure
 

1. Login to Azure portal, go to https://portal.azure.com/
2. Click on Virtual Machines.

3. Click on Add/Create virtual machine. 

 

Enter resource group name, select region.

4. Select security type as Standard

5. Now enter the details as below or give values per your subscription and requirements. Select Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x VM from the drop down.

6. choose authentication type as SSH public key, enter azureuser as user name, enter key pair name.

This step will eventually create SSH keys and allow you to download in your machine.

7. Under Networking

Go with Allow selected ports - SSH port 22

And also select Delete public IP and NIC when VM is deleted option

8. Under Monitoring, disable Boot diagnostics

9. Click on Review, it may take a few mins to finish the validations. If all good, it should pass the validations. Click on Create.

10.  Now download the SSH keys and save it locally.

 

11. Once created, Click on virtual machines.

12. You should see the new VM is running like below:

How to connect to Azure VM from your local machine?

1. Now select that instance, click on connect

2.Then choose SSH 

3. Enter ssh key name in private key path 

4. Copy the value as it shows below in your local terminal(iTerm for Apple laptop) or Git bash for Windows laptop.

 

5. Make sure your SSH keys is not accessible by others, by executing the below command:

chmod 400 myUbuntuVM_key.pem

6. Now ssh into VM from your local machine using the key

ssh -i myUbuntuVM_key.pem azureuser@your_ip_address

Now it should show you that you are connected to Azure.

Install Ansible on Ubuntu | How to setup Ansible on Azure Ubuntu 22.0.4 instance | Ansible install on Azure Ubuntu Virtual Machine

Ansible is #1 configuration management tool. It can also be used for infrastructure provisioning as well. or You can use Ansible in combination of Terraform which can take care of infra automation and Ansible can do configuration management. We will be setting up Ansible on Azure Ubuntu VM.

 

Ansible Architecture:

 

The best way to install Ansible for Ubuntu is to add the project's PPA (personal package archive) to your system.

Pre-requisites:

Create new Ubuntu VM in Azure Cloud for installing Ansible, just open port 22.

Change host name to AnsibleMgmtNode
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname AnsibleMgmtNode

Update Repository
sudo apt-get update

Install Python-pip3

sudo apt install python3-pip -y

Upgrade pip3 sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip

# Install Ansible. pip3 install "ansible==2.9.17"

# Install Ansible azure_rm module for interacting with Azure.

pip3 install ansible[azure]

# Install Ansible.

sudo apt install ansible -y

How to connect to Azure Virtual Machine from your local machine? | Connect to Azure VM from your local machine | Connect to Azure VM from your local machine

Let's learn how to connect to a Virtual machine running in Azure cloud from your local machine. Your local machine can be a Windows laptop or MacBook laptop.

Pre-requisites:

1. Keys(for e.g., yourkey.pem) already downloaded in your local machine, preferably in downloads folder.
2. Azure VM is up and running
3. SSH client - for Windows laptop, you need to install an SSH client such as Git bash or putty. You can download Git from this URL - https://git-scm.com/downloads. For Apple laptop you need to download iTerm from here.

Steps to connect to your Azure VM instance:

1. Go to Azure console --> https://portal.azure.com

2. Click on Virtual machines, click on VM

3. Click on connect

Choose Native SSH

Enter SSH key name in step # 3 in the screen

4. copy the values from step # 4

 

Copy the url from SSH which looks like below:

For e.g.

ssh -i myAzVMKey.pem azureuser@104.43.214.12

Watch steps in YouTube channel:

Windows Laptop instructions
5. Go to your local machine, Open Git Bash in Windows

make sure you are in downloads directory where your keys got downloaded. Type the below commands:

type below commands: 

pwd

this should tell you which directory you are and then navigate to downloads dir.

cd  ~/downloads 

Now copy the value from Example in the above screen

ssh -i myAzVMKey.pem azureuser@104.43.214.12

and then type enter, say yes and enter

now you should be in Azure cloud, screen should show something like this, It means you are successfully connected to VM instance running on Azure cloud. 

Mac Book Laptop or iMac Instructions

Open iTerm window, type the below command to go to downloads directory.

cd downloads

For few Mac laptops, it may add .txt in the end of pem file. in that case you need to remove .txt in the end

ssh -i myAzVMKey.pem azureuser@104.43.214.12

pwd
and then execute below command to make sure the keys have only read permissions.

chmod 400 *.pem

6. Paste the url from example highlighted above in step # 4.

ssh -i myAzVMKey.pem azureuser@104.43.214.12

7. type yes when it is asking to connect.

8. now you should be in Azure cloud, screen should show something like this, It means you are successfully connected to VM instance running on Azure cloud.