ansible-azure

Purpose

Test Azure provisioning using Ansible and the web-based UI called AWX (the Open Source version of Ansible Tower):

AWX provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible. It is the upstream project for Tower, a commercial derivative of AWX.

These tools are used to build a local Ansible Control VM using a CentOS 7.6:

• VirtualBox
• Vagrant
• Docker
• Ansible
• Ansible AWX

Once the Azure CentOS Linux VM Job Template is run within AWX, these resources will be deployed to Azure:

• A resource group
• A virtual network
• A Public IP address
• A Network security group that allows SSH
• A Network interface card
• A Storage account
• A CentOS VM

Preparation

Before you can build the local Ansible Control VM, you will need to do the following steps first:

1. Open an elevated PowerShell prompt.
2. Install Chocolatey:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

3. Install VirtualBox:

   choco install -y virtualbox

4. Install Vagrant:

   choco install -y vagrant

5. Create an Azure Service Principal and note down the SUBSCRIPTION ID, CLIENT ID, CLIENT SECRET, and TENANT ID values for later use.

Build

1. Clone this repo to your local computer:

   git clone git@github.com:adamrushuk/ansible-azure.git

2. Update your Azure Service Principal credentials in azure_ansible_credentials.yml:

   # Overwrite these example values below
   subscription: "aaaa1111-bbbb-cccc-abcd-aaabbbcccddd"
   client: "abcd1234-abcd-efff-1234-abcd12345678"
   secret: "MyStrongPassw0rd!"
   tenant: "12345678-ab12-cd34-ef56-1234abcd5678"

3. Start the build from the root folder of the cloned repo:

   vagrant up

Verify AWX Build

Log in to AWX Web Interface

1. Open a browser and navigate to the AWX login page http://192.168.10.20.
2. Log in to AWX using the default username admin and default password password.

Check AWX Resources

1. Navigate to the Templates page, within the Resources menu.
2. Click on the Template called Azure CentOS Linux VM.
3. Ensure there are values entered for INVENTORY, PROJECT, PLAYBOOK, and CREDENTIAL as shown below:

Run the Azure Job Template

1. Navigate to the Templates page, within the Resources menu.
2. Click on the rocket icon to start the Azure CentOS Linux VM Job Template:
3. The JOBS screen should then automatically open, where you can monitor the job progress:

Verify Azure Build

1. Navigate to the Azure Portal.
2. Ensure you have a Resource Group called centos-rg with the following resources: