Overview

Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates. Ansible can be used to provision Azure resources.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 18.04
• Ansible has been installed. See here on how to install.
• Python has been installed. By default Python 2.x is installed on Ubuntu 18.04.
• (Optional) Azure account for verification and testing.

Installation

01. Install the pip library for Ansible-Azure

$ pip install ansible[azure]

02. Install the Azure Preview Module

$ ansible-galaxy install azure.azure_preview_modules

03. Install the Azure Preview Module dependencies

$ pip install -r ~/.ansible/roles/azure.azure_preview_modules/files/requirements-azure.txt

Configuration

04. Update the Azure credentials on the OS user level. Create the directory for the credentials if not yet existing.

$ mkdir ~/.azure

05. Create the credentials file/configuration.

$ nano ~/.azure/credentials

06. Set the content as follows. To retrieve the Subscription ID, Client ID, Secret Key and Tenant ID, refer to this guide.

[default]

subscription_id=xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

client_id=xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

secret=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

tenant=xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

Testing

07. Create a sample Ansible Playbook that creates a new Resource Group.

$ nano resource_group_create.yml

08. Set the content as follows

---
- name: Azure - Resource Group - Create
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  vars:
    resource_group: "rg-geek"
    location: southeastasia
  tasks:
  - name: Create a resource group
    azure_rm_resourcegroup:
      name: "{{ resource_group }}"
      location: "{{ location }}"
...

09. Run the Playbook

$ ansible-playbook resource_group_create.yml

10. Wait until the Playbook has completed its execution. The “Play Recap” section contains a summary of the resources created and updated.