Ansible Provisioner

Packer has a lot of provisioner available! Your favorite server provisioner is probably supported.

This video will show an example of using Ansible ("local") to provision a server as well.

Here's what we're doing in a nutshell:

1. The base shell script installs Ansible
2. The ansible builder uploads the Ansible files to the server and runs them on the server

Ansible-local runs them locally within the server. Ansible-remote would run them on the host server via SSH. You can do either!

 1{
 2  "min_packer_version":"1.0.0",
 3  "variables":{
 4    "infra_name": "cloudcasts",
 5    "infra_env": "",
 6    "aws_region": "us-east-2",
 7    "aws_instance": "t3.small",
 +    "vault_pass": "" 
 9  },
10  "builders":[
11    { Click to show }
12      "type":"amazon-ebs",
13      "ami_name":"{{user `infra_name`}}-{{user `infra_env`}}-{{timestamp}}-app",
14      "instance_type":"{{user `aws_instance`}}",
15      "region":"{{user `aws_region`}}",
16      "profile": "cloudcasts",
17 
18      "source_ami_filter": {
19        "filters": {
20          "architecture": "x86_64",
21          "name": "ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-20.04-amd64-server-*",
22          "root-device-type": "ebs",
23          "virtualization-type": "hvm"
24        },
25        "most_recent": true,
26        "owners": [
27          "099720109477"
28        ]
29      },
30      "ssh_username":"ubuntu",
31      "launch_block_device_mappings":[
32        {
33          "device_name":"/dev/sda1",
34          "volume_size":8,
35          "delete_on_termination":true,
36          "encrypted":false,
37          "volume_type":"gp3",
38          "throughput": 125,
39          "iops": 3000
40        }
41      ],
42      "tags":{
43        "Name":"{{user `infra_name`}}-{{user `infra_env`}}-{{timestamp}}-app",
44        "Project":"{{user `infra_name`}}",
45        "Environment":"{{user `infra_env`}}",
46        "Role":"baked-ami",
47        "Unique":"baked-ami-{{timestamp}}",
48        "ManagedBy":"packer",
49        "Component":"app"
50      }
51    } 
52  ],
53  "provisioners":[
54    {
55      "script": "{{template_dir}}/scripts/base.sh",
56      "type": "shell"
 -    } 
 +    }, 
 +    {
 +      "type": "ansible-local",
 +      "playbook_file": "ansible/app.yml",
 +      "command": "echo '{{user `vault_pass`}}' | ansible-playbook",
 +      "role_paths": [
 +        "ansible/roles/base",
 +        "ansible/roles/php",
 +        "ansible/roles/nginx",
 +        "ansible/roles/app"
 +      ],
 +      "extra_arguments": ["--vault-password-file=/bin/cat", "--extra-vars \"infra_env={{user `infra_env`}}\""],
 +      "group_vars": "ansible/group_vars"
 +    } 
72  ]
73}

And we need the file ansible/app.yml:

 1---
 2- hosts: all
 3  user: ubuntu
 4  become: yes
 5  become_user: root
 6  become_method: sudo
 7  roles:
 8    - base # Install basic utilities like jq
 9    - php # Install & Configure PHP
10    - nginx # Install & Configure Nginx
11    - app # Get the server ready to serve an app

We can run the above Ansible provisioner in Packer with a little helper script (or just this command directly):

1ANSIBLEPW=`cat .vault`
2 
3packer build \
4    -var "infra_env=staging" \
5    -var "vault_pass=$ANSIBLEPW" \
6    cloudcasts-app.json