Introduction
Ansible is an open-source automation tool that simplifies the process of managing and orchestrating IT infrastructure. It provides a simple, declarative language to describe system configurations, and through its agentless architecture, it can manage a wide range of systems, including servers, network devices, and cloud resources, Ansible operates over SSH or WinRM (Windows Remote Management) connections, allowing it to manage remote systems without requiring any additional software to be installed on them. This agentless approach simplifies the setup and maintenance of Ansible, as well as reduces the overhead on managed systems.
System Requirements
Ansible has modest hardware requirements, and it can run on a wide range of systems. Here are the general hardware recommendations for running Ansible:
- Processor: A modern multi-core processor is recommended for better performance. Ansible doesn’t require a specific processor type and can work well on both Intel and AMD processors.
- Memory (RAM): The amount of memory required depends on the scale of your infrastructure and the complexity of the tasks you plan to execute. As a general guideline, having at least 2GB of RAM is recommended for running Ansible. If you are managing larger environments, more memory will be beneficial.
- Storage: Ansible itself doesn’t require significant storage space, as it is a lightweight software. However, you’ll need sufficient disk space to store your Ansible playbooks, inventory files, and any other associated files. The storage requirements largely depend on the size and number of playbooks and other artifacts you plan to manage.
- Network: Ansible primarily operates over SSH connections or WinRM for Windows systems. Therefore, a reliable network connection is essential for communication between the Ansible control node and the managed nodes.
It’s worth noting that the above requirements are for the Ansible control node, which is the system from where you manage and execute Ansible playbooks. The managed nodes, which are the systems being configured or managed by Ansible, have their own hardware requirements that depend on the specific operating systems and applications running on them.
Overall, Ansible is designed to be resource-efficient and can run on a wide range of systems, including physical servers, virtual machines, and even cloud instances.
In this post, We will show you how to deploy ansible playbook on ubuntu machine using Jenkins automation server.
To perform this tutorials, We must have the following recourses.
1.up and running Jenkins server if not use the given link to install Jenkins on ubuntu 22.04 LTS
2. GitHub repository with Ansible playbook along with GitHub account token, If not use the given link to get these.
Step 1: Installing Ansible
To install Ansible on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, you can follow these steps, We can install Ansible on Jenkins it self or we can install Jenkins slave machine and from pipeline we can call the Jenkins slave machine which has ansible.
sudo apt-get update
Install Ansible using the apt package manager:
sudo apt-get install ansible -y
After the installation is complete, you can verify the installation by checking the Ansible version:
ansible --version
Here we can see that Ansible version and other configuration path but the most important executable location = /usr/bin/ansible We will use the Ansible executable path with Jenkins’s Ansible plugin.
Step 3: Installing Ansible Plugin
To install Jenkins’s Ansible plugin we need to follow the given steps.
Go to the Jenkins Home Page
Click on Manage Jenkins button form left side.
Click on Plugins section
Click on Available plugin
Search for Ansible plugin
Select the Ansible plugin
Click on Install without restart button.
If everything is going fine So then we will get status like this.
Step 4: Configure Ansible Path
Once the Ansible plugin got installed So then we need to follow the given steps, In order to configure Ansible executable path /usr/bin/.
Go to Jenkins Home page
Click on Manage Jenkins
Click on tools
Go to Ansible sub section
Click on Add Ansible
Define the name like Ansible or Ansible-Version
Define the /usr/bin in Path to ansible executables directory
Click on apply and save button.
Step 5: Generate GitHub Token
GitHub repository with Ansible playbook along with GitHub account token, If not use the given link to get these.
Step 6: Create Credentials
We need to create 2 creds for GitHub repository cloning using Jenkins and SSH connection with our Ansible target machine like ubuntu to deploy LAMP server.
To create GitHub account creds.
Go to the Jenkins home page.
Click on Manage Jenkins.
Click on Credentials section.
Click on System.
Click on Global credentials (unrestricted).
Click on Add Credentials button.
Select Kind – username with password.
Save your username, token as a password and id.
Click on create button.
If everything is going fine So then you should get details like this.
To create SSH creds.
Go to the Jenkins home page.
Click on Manage Jenkins.
Click on Credentials section.
Click on System.
Click on Global credentials (unrestricted).
Click on Add Credentials button.
Select Kind – SSH Username with private key.
Save your ID, Username and Private key
Click on create button.
If everything is going fine So then you should get details like this.
Step 7: Update PublicIP
We need to update the PublicIP / PrivateIP in the inventory file and our inventory reside in git repository on root position, you can do that same as per your directory structure.
Step 8: Creating Jenkins Pipeline
We are good to create Jenkins pipeline using Ansible with our pipeline, We will create given stages.
State 1 Git Checkout
State 2 Deploy Ansible-playbook
Go to the Jenkins home page and click on Create a job
Now enter the suitable job name.
Select the pipeline.
Click on Ok button.
Go to the pipeline script and paste the following pipelines code.
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Checkout') {
steps {
git branch: 'main', credentialsId: 'github', url: 'https://github.com/aftab70/jenkins_ansible.git'
}
}
stage('Deploy Playbook') {
steps {
ansiblePlaybook credentialsId: 'SSH', disableHostKeyChecking: true, installation: 'Ansible', inventory: 'inventory.txt', playbook: 'apache-playbook.yml'
}
}
}
}You can update the git repository, Ansible inventory file, ansible playbook path with their creds.
Click on apply and save and click on build now button.
Click on build number to see console output.
here we can see that all the defined ansible running one by one.
After successful deployment of ansible playbook status we should get like this.
Conclusion
We have done successful created CI CD pipeline to deploy the ansible playbook using Jenkins on ubuntu 22.04 linux, Still you are having any issue, So please leave a comment below.
