Ansible-LinuxCommon

Ansible-LinuxCommon is an Ansible role for configuring shell environment and installing some very basic utilities on a new Linux system. It does the following on a default install:

• Change hostname.
• Replace the host file according to the hostname.
• Replace a pre-modified /etc/bash.bashrc, .profile and .bashrc files for root and ansible_ssh_user.
• Replace default sources.list to include all official repositories e.g. main, contrib, non-free (in case of Debian) and main, restricted, universe, multiverse, partner (in case of Ubuntu).
• Install updates.
• Install 3rd party repositories.
• Installs htop, iotop, iftop, ncdu, ntp, ntpdate, curl, bash-completion, vim, mtr-tiny, git and unzip.
• Purges exim.
• configures vim editor.
• Install sudo.
• Configure password-less sudo for sudo group users.
• Add ansible_ssh_user to sudo group.
• Installs libpam-systemd (only for Debian Jessie. See this thread)

bash.bashrc is a modified version of the default file that comes with Debian.

Bits for sudo are added incase you have installed Debian via CD/DVD.

Requirements

At the moment this role is being written for Debian based distributions e.g. Debian/Ubuntu. It will evolve to include other major distributions.

Role Variables

The variable LC_CHANGE_HOSTNAME in defaults/main.yml based on which the role decides wether to change the hostname or not. By default it is set to True. If you don't want to change change hostname, you can set it to False. See the example below. The role sets inventory_hostname_short as the hostname.

Based on LC_SETUP_SUDO variable in defaults/main.yml, the role can decide if sudo related actions should be performed. By defaults its set to True. You can change it to False if you don't want the role to perform sudo actions. See the example below.

To modify shell environment set appropriate value for LC_MODIFY_SYSTEM_SHELL_ENV, LC_MODIFY_SKEL, LC_MODIFY_ROOT_SHELL_ENV and LC_MODIFY_USER_SHELL_ENV.

LC_ENABLE_SRC_REPOS controls if source repositories should be enabled or not. By default it is set to False.

Variables:

• LC_DEBIAN_MIRROR
• LC_DEBIAN_SECURITY_MIRROR
• LC_UBUNTU_MIRROR
• LC_UBUNTU_CANONICAL_PARTNER_MIRROR

Can be used to change mirrors for package repositories. See defaults/main.yml for their default values.

By default, variables:

• LC_DEBIAN_REPOS
• LC_UBUNTU_REPOS

Are used to enable repositories main, contrib, non-free (in case of Debian) and main, restricted, universe, multiverse, partner (in case of Ubuntu).

By default, the value of LC_REBOOT is True. The remote machine will reboot after performing all operations and wait for it to come back for LC_REBOOT_TIMEOUT which is 120 seconds. The reboot task pings SSH port defined in LC_SSH_PORT which defaults to 22.

You can add 3rd party package repositories to the system by using the following variables:

• LC_SETUP_THIRD_PARTY_REPOS (by default set to False).
• LC_THIRD_PARTY_REPOS_KEYS.
• LC_THIRD_PARTY_REPOS.

See example below on how to add 3rd party repositories.

To install default (as defined in vars/main.yml) and extra packages set LC_INSTALL_PACKAGES to true. You may provide a list of extra packages that you want to install via LC_EXTRA_PACKAGES. See example below.

To change the timezone of the system, set LC_CHANGE_TIMEZONE to True and give LC_TIMEZONE a value e.g. "Asia/Karachi".

You can setup system locales. To do that, use the variables LC_SET_LOCALES, LC_LOCALES and LC_DEFAULT_LOCALE as shown in the example below.

Set kernel parameters in sysctl.conf by setting variable LC_SET_KERNEL_PARAMETERS to True and setting values in LC_KERNEL_PARAMETERS.

Dependencies

This role doesn't depends on any other role for execution. The role is written to support both CD/DVD installs and pre-installed images (e.g. Amazon Machine Images) where sudo is already installed and configured. You can also use su method to become root if you don't have sudo installed.

Example Playbook

Facts gathering must be enabled.

An example of running the role is as follows:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
      - Ansible-LinuxCommon

If you don't want to change hostname:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
      - { role: Ansible-LinuxCommon, LC_CHANGE_HOSTNAME: False }

If you don't want to add the user to password-less sudo or if its already there:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
      - { role: Ansible-LinuxCommon, LC_SETUP_SUDO: False }

Add 3rd party repositories like Ondřej Surý's PHP repository and Syncthing:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
    - role: Ansible-LinuxCommon
      LC_SETUP_3RD_PARTY_REPOS: True
      LC_THIRD_PARTY_REPOS_KEYS:
        - "https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg"
        - "https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt"
      LC_THIRD_PARTY_REPOS:
        - NAME: "php"
          SCHEME: "https"
          URI: "packages.sury.org/php"
          RELEASE: "stretch"
          REPOS: "main"
        - NAME: "syncthing"
          SCHEME: "https"
          URI: "apt.syncthing.net"
          RELEASE: "syncthing"
          REPOS: "stable"

Setup locales:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
    - role: Ansible-LinuxCommon
      LC_SET_LOCALES: True
      LC_LOCALES:
        - "en_US ISO-8859-1"
        - "en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15"
        - "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8"
      LC_DEFAULT_LOCALE: "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8"

Install extra packages:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
      - role: Ansible-LinuxCommon
        LC_SETUP_SUDO: False
        LC_CHANGE_HOSTNAME: False
        LC_EXTRA_PACKAGES:
          - iptstate
          - iptables-persistent

Modify kernel parameters:

- hosts: servers
  gather_facts: True
  roles:
      - role: Ansible-LinuxCommon
        LC_SET_KERNEL_PARAMETERS: True
        LC_KERNEL_PARAMETERS:
          - { name: "vm.swappiness", value: 10, state: present }
          - { name: "net.core.somaxconn", value: 65535, state: present }

License

This playbook is licensed under MIT License (See the LICENSE file).

Author

Saad Ali