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Building a new machine on AWS with Ansible

Note: ansible-vault password and all current AWS keys are in shared network drive  Othmer Library\Digital Collections - Internal Access\Authentication - Confidential
If you do not have access,

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you will need to be added to the allowed group.

This assumes you have the main Ansible password inside a plain Ascii file at /your/ansible_password.txt .

1. Check ansible variables in the encrypted file
   

   1. $ ansible-vault edit --vault-password-file /your/ansible_password.txt group_vars/all

      (will need password)

   2. Look for # Use these temporarily for new instances
      1. RIght now certain values such as fedora_ip, solr_ip, and the rest will need to be determined once the box has been built and a valid IP exists.
      2. Generally speaking the best way to build boxes to minimize needing to go back and edit IPs is
         1. Fedora
         2. Solr
         3. Sufia machines (riiif, app)
   3. ensure your ssh key is listed under keys_to_add, this is needed for capistrano deploys and ssh access with your personal account.
2. run the ansible playbook
   
   1. $ ansible-playbook create_ec2.yml --ask-vault-pass --private-key=/PATH/TO/KEY --extra-vars "role=ROLE tier=SERVICE_LEVEL" --extra-vars "@group_vars/ROLE_SERVICE_LEVEL_override"
      
      1. Use chf_prod.pem for all production level machines
      2. Use test.pem for all other machines
      3. Select the role and service level of the machine you want to build.
   2. OR, if you're re-running scripts on an existing machine: 
      1. $ ansible-playbook -i hosts my_playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass [-e hosts=target]
         1. target can be one of the groups in the hosts file: staging, production, dev, ec2hosts
3. Assign an elastic IP to the new box if if needs one
   
4. Consider naming the aws volumes for 'root' and 'data' – this isn't done in the scripts (but probably could be!)
5. Set up to use capistrano (below) or just deploy with capistrano (above)
6. Run configure_prod.yml if on production to set up e-mail password resets, ssl, and backup procedures.
   

Updating boxes with Ansible

Creating a test box using Ansible

Scenario: You've changed the Ansible scripts that affect the build process for the jobs server. To make sure everything looks right, you want to spin up a new jobs2-stage on EC2 without disturbing the functioning of jobs1-stage.

Procedure:

Make sure the main Ansible password is available inside a plain text file at, e.g.,  /your/ansible_password.txt .

Change the "iteration" so your box has a different label from the existing jobs1-stage. (Use whichever editor you want, but some work better than others.)

EDITOR=emacs ansible-vault edit --vault-password-file /your/ansible_password.txt . group_vars/all

Find the line that mentions "iteration" and set it to an unused number.

iteration: 2

This will result in your new jobs box being labeled jobs2-stage.

List the tasks you'll be performing. This is helpful to make sure everything looks good before actually running the script.

ansible-playbook --vault-password-file /your/ansible_password.txt --list-tasks --extra-vars "role=jobs tier=stage" create_ec2.yml

Now actually create the box:

ansible-playbook --vault-password-file /your/ansible_password.txt --extra-vars "role=jobs tier=stage" create_ec2.yml

Note: this will modify your "hosts" file in the root directory of ansible-inventory by adding the new box's IP address to it.

In the EC2 dashboard, you'll see a new EC2 instance called jobs2-stage. You can log into it as you would any ec2 server.

Meanwhile, you want to monitor Ansible's logs while it builds the box:

Connect to the manage-prod server, using a variation on:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/chf_prod.pem ubuntu@ec2-xx-xxx-xx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com

You'll find the  Ansible logs in /var/log/ansible/.

When you're done, you can get rid of the box in the EC2 console (but don't get rid of the wrong box!) by selecting it, then choosing Actions > Instance State > Terminate.

New AWS Key

1. Generate a new ssh key on AWS (EC2 > Keypairs)
   1. place it in ~/.ssh
   2. chmod 0600.
   1. useful command if you're having problems with the key: $ openssl rsa -in chf_prod.pem -check

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