How to Configure Apache web server on Linux using Ansible

In this blog post, we will configure an Apache web server on a Linux Machine (Azure Virtual Machine) using Ansible. Apache web server is a free and open-source software that allows users to deploy their websites on the internet.

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with the concept of Infrastructure-as-Code (I.a.C) is helpful, but isn't necessary.
• A Linux VM: Although this action is performed on an Azure virtual machine, similar steps could be performed on any Linux distribution. You can follow this link to automate creation of virtual machines on Azure.

So, let's dive in.

What is Ansible, and why use it?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that can be used to automate the configuration of servers and systems. It is a command-line IT automation software application that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, and many other IT needs. Read more about Ansible here: Get Started with Ansible.

Let's connect to our virtual machine via SSH. If you have not already created a vm, you can follow this link to automate creation of virtual machines on Microsoft Azure with Terraform. Connect to the virtual machine

ssh linuxuser@ip_address

Make a directory/folder for this Ansible project and change directory to this folder.

mkdir ansible
cd ansible

Install Ansible

Make a file for the installation of Ansible. We will call this file installations.sh.

nano installation.sh

Copy the code below into the file installation.sh Note that python is required to perform Ansible operations, hence it needs to be installed also.

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3-pip

pip install boto3 botocore

pip install boto

sudo apt install ansible

Run the command to change the permission of the file and make it executable.

chmod +x ./installation.sh

Run the command to install Ansible and the above requirements

./installation.sh

We can test if Ansible is properly configured by running the command below. This should print the version of Ansible installed.

ansible --version

Create an Ansible playbook

An Ansible playbook is a YAML file with list of instructions that executes against the hosts. It is an organized and systematic unit of scripts which defines work for a server configuration executed by the automation tool Ansible.

Create a file named ansible-playbook.yml and paste the code below. In this playbook, we are specifying two tasks (namely installing apache2 and starting apache2) to be performed on the localhost.

---
- name: installing and starting apache2
  hosts: localhost
  become: yes

  tasks: 
    - name: installing apache2
      apt: 
        name: apache2 
        state: present

    - name: start nginx
      service: 
        name: apache2
        state: started
        enabled: yes

Notice that we are running the playbook against localhost. This is because we are successfully logged into the host server. However, it is possible to run a playbook against multiple hosts. This is done with the use of an inventory file. Read more: Ansible Inventory.

Test and deploy the Ansible Playbook configuration

To test the configuration and check for errors, run the command below. This would check the correctness of the playbook.

ansible-playbook ansible-playbook.yml --ask-become-pass --check

Deploy the configuration.

Run the Ansible playbook below to provision and start the Apache2 web server.

ansible-playbook ansible-playbook.yml --ask-become-pass

Once the playbook has finished running, Apache will be configured on the Virtual Machine. You can test the configuration by opening a web browser and navigating to the public IP address of the VM. You should see the Apache web server homepage.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you found this helpful. You are welcome to follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter @Paschal_ik.

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Coming Up Next:
Install LAMP STACK on an Azure Virtual machine
Enable SSL on a Custom Domain on an azure Virtual Machine

References:

Installing Ansible — Ansible Documentation

Installing Packages — Python Packaging User Guide