Tags: ansible roles, ansible roles example, ansible roles tutorial, ansible tutorial, ansible, devops tools, ansible playbook, create ansible roles, ansible global variable, ansible tasks, linuxtopic
Ansible Roles: Ansible Roles are independent and small function files that used in ansible playbooks. We can say that roles it is a collections of variables, tasks, modules, files and templates.
Ansible Roles help us to break or divided big playbook in to the small files.
Creating Role : By default roles directory locate in ansible configuration directory. Below default path of ansible configuration directory is /etc/anisble
Step 1:
To Create “roles” directory, we can choose any name of roles directory, here we create linuxtopic roles under the ansible configuration directory.
cd /etc/ansbile
mkdir -p /etc/ansible/roles/linuxtopic
This roles directory is set of other directories that will help us separate the different sections of the playbook.
Following default ansible roles directory structure
defaults
files
handlers
meta
tasks
templates
tests
vars
- default : used for default variable
- files & templates : it contains a files/scripts to be transferred on configuring hosts for this role.
- handlers: All handlers that were in your playbook previously can now be added into this directory.
- meta: This directory can contain files that establish role dependencies. You can list roles that must be applied before the current role can work correctly.
- templates: You can place all files that use variables to substitute information during creation in this directory.
- tasks: This directory contains all of the tasks that would normally be in a playbook. These can reference files and templates contained in their respective directories without using a path.
- vars: Variables for the roles can be specified in this directory and used in your configuration files.
To create directory structure under ansible roles directory
cd /etc/ansible/roles/linuxtopic/
mkdir tasks
To write a task in playbook
We will create a main.yml file in tasks directory, In this example we will copy file/script from source to destination using copy module and update dns entry in resolv.conf, following main.yml playbook
vi tasks/main.yml
---
# We can define all task
- name: Copy Script
copy: src=script.sh dest=/usr/local/bin/script.sh mode=755
- name: Update resolve Entry
template: src=resolv.conf.j2 dest=/tmp/resolv.conf
 |
| Ansible Roles |
How to use copy module Click Here…..
In first task We use copy module and define src=script.sh, src= is source path and script.sh is file, files/scripts read from files directory, so we will create a files directory under ansible roles/linuxtopic
mkdir files
touch files/script.sh
ll files/script.sh
In second task we use template module, so we will create a template file under templates directory, we use variables in this Jinja2 template. We will replace this template to resolv.conf of the hosts.
mkdir templates
vi templates/resolv.conf.j2
Here
resolv.conf.j2 is Jinja2 template
{{ dns }} = variable, we define in vars/main.yml
To create vars directory for variables
mkdir vars
vi vars/main.yml
---
# variables file for linuxtopic
dns: 8.8.8.8
Our basic ansible roles directory structure has been finished, following tree of linuxtopic roles
tree
Now we will create a playbook to execute roles.
How to add hosts in Ansible Inventory Click Here..
We will go to anisble configuration directory and create a yaml file to run our roles/tasks.
cd /etc/ansible
vi roles-main.yml
---
- hosts: all
gather_facts: false
roles:
- {role: 'linuxtopic', tags: 'linuxtopic'}
We define role name with tags name
To run ansible playbook
ansible-playbook -l 127.0.0.1 roles-main.yml
To run ansible playbook with --tags
ansible-playbook -l 127.0.0.1 --tags "linuxtopic" roles-main.yml
Verify :
We successfully sync script.sh and replace value in resolv.conf
