2.1.1. Deploy Web Applications¶

You will create a playbook to deploy applications to previously provisioned webservers.

As a reminder, the following assumes that you are using RDP to access the Jump host provided for this lab, that you are SSH’d into the “Ansible” host and that the current working directory in that session is /root/f5-ansible-workshop.

Examine ansible inventory file

Ansible works against multiple systems in your infrastructure at the same time. It does this by selecting portions of systems listed in Ansible’s inventory. For this lab, the ansible inventory file is inventory/hosts.

Edit ansible inventory file and ensure it has the entries listed below. This lab is written for use with nano editor but you may substitute with vi or vim.
- Type nano inventory/hosts and modify if necessary
- Type the following into the inventory/hosts file
```
[bigips]
10.1.1.245

[appservers]
10.1.20.17 ansible_user=root
10.1.20.20 ansible_user=root

[webservers]
10.1.20.15 ansible_user=root
10.1.20.16 ansible_user=root
```
- Type ctrl x then press enter to save file.

Create Playbook to deploy web application

Create a playbook newapp.yaml.

Type nano playbooks/newapp.yaml
Type the following into the playbooks/newapp.yaml file.

---

- name: Deploy newapp
  hosts: webservers
  vars:
    valid_certs: no

  tasks:
    - name: deploy to server5
      copy:
        src: ../files/f5-hello-world-develop/customizations/blue.css
        dest: /var/www/server/5/css/custom.css
      tags: serv5

    - name: deploy to server6
      copy:
        src: ../files/f5-hello-world-develop/customizations/green.css
        dest: /var/www/server/6/css/custom.css
      tags: serv6

Type ctrl x and save file.

Run this playbook to copy files from ansible host to destination webservers.
- Type ansible-playbook playbooks/newapp.yaml
If successful, you should see similar results
Verify results by browsing to websites.
- Type curl http://10.1.20.15 --silent | grep SERVER_NAME
- Type curl http://10.1.20.16 --silent | grep SERVER_NAME
Note

The hosts: webservers referenced in the playbook are defined in the inventory/hosts file. These webservers are on an internal vlan and not typically accessible by external users. Upon successful deployment of the applications, app owners typically submit request for NetOps to configure app services such as dns, load balancing and firewall, before these applications can be accessed externally.

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