Ansible is a multipurpose automation tool that can be used for workflow automation or configuration management. The infrastructure as a coding method of configuration management codifies things like the packages and versions that should be installed on a system and the daemons that should be operating. Automating workflows could involve anything from deploying software to setting up cloud infrastructure.

Ansible is a Python application that uses SSH to run commands on many devices. Ansible is agentless, which makes learning how to use it much simpler. SSH access and Python installed on the essential machines are all that is required. Ansible maps a collection of hosts (from “inventory”) to clearly defined roles using declarative YML “playbooks.” 

What is Ansible Semaphore? Uses, Features and Limitations

A contemporary UI for Ansible is called Semaphore. We can limit access to the deployment system, run Ansible playbooks with ease, and receive notifications when something goes wrong. Semaphore is a responsive web interface for executing Ansible playbooks. Semaphore is written entirely in Go and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux (x64, ARM, ARM64). Semaphore is an open-source project with clean, well-written code.

The following databases are supported by Semaphore:

1. MySQL

2. BoltDB 

3. PostgreSQL

We can use Semaphore for the following

1. Create, release, and rollback

2. Access keys, environments, inventories, and repositories can all be managed.

3. Run playbooks according to the schedule

4. Playbooks for group projects

5. Use the browser to execute playbooks. Semaphore can be used on mobile devices thanks to responsive UI.

6. Receive alerts when a playbook is run

7. View complete run logs at any moment.

Features of  Ansible Semaphore

• Clean and simple UX

• Free and open source.

• Simple to install:

Limitations of  Ansible Semaphore

• The UI allows for the storage and editing of inventories, environment variables, and ssh keys.

• Absence of premium features ( Although Semaphore provides all the tools required to build a user interface for your Ansible playbooks.)
  
• A consistent team and user management service.

• Offering git-based Playbook repositories

Installation steps for Ansible Semaphore

To install semaphore, we need to install MySQL on the server. Use the below command to install Mysql

$ sudo apt-get -y update

$ sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server

Secure the installation. You will be prompted for the root password when you run this command.

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

The initializing step is not required if MySQL 5.7 is being used, and it will raise an error that you can ignore.$ sudo mysqld –initialize. Then check if MySQL is running use the below command

$ service mysql status

If not, start the service.

$ sudo service mysql start

Install Semaphore for Ubuntu server  use the below command

Ubuntu uses semaphore_linux_amd64

$ sudo apt-get install -y wget git

$ wget https://github.com/ansible-semaphore/semaphore/releases/download/v2.8.53/semaphore_2.8.53_linux_amd64.rpm

$ sudo mv semaphore_linux_amd64 /usr/bin/semaphore

$ chmod +x /usr/bin/semaphore

$ sudo mkdir -p /opt/data/semaphore

$ sudo chown $(whoami): /opt/data/semaphore

For the first time, initialize the semaphore.

$ semaphore -setup

You must enter the following configurations.

Run by the following command

$ semaphore -config /opt/data/semaphore/semaphore_config.json

Start managing by pointing your browser to port 3000. You can now use Semaphore to write Ansible tasks and roles and deploy them to your servers.

AWS Organizations help you to centrally manage, grow and scale your AWS resources. Using AWS organization allows programmatically creating new AWS accounts, allocating resources, group accounts to organize your workflows, and simplifying billing by using a single payment method for all of your accounts.

* AWS Organizations integrated with other AWS services so you can setup central configuration, security mechanism, and resource sharing across accounts in your organization

* It is available for all AWS customers without any additional charges.

AWS Organization Benefits

1. Scale your workloads quickly: It helps you to quickly scale your environment by allowing you to create a new AWS account. It gives you built-in security boundaries by using multiple accounts.
2. Provide a custom environment for different workloads: You can apply policies that give your teams the freedom to build with the resources they need while staying within the safe boundaries you set.
3. Easily managing permission and access control: Using AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) simply manages the user-based permission for everyone in the organization.
4. Efficient in resource provision across accounts: It allows reducing resource duplication by sharing critical resources within your organization using the AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM).

AWS Organization Use Cases

1. Creation of AWS accounts and categorize workloads using groups: Automate the creation of new AWS accounts, when you need to quickly launch a new work environment, auditing and touchless infrastructure deployments.

For example, Easy to create separate groups to categorize development and production accounts, use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to provision services and permissions to each group.

2. Share Common resources across accounts: It makes it easy for you to share critical central resources across your accounts.

For example, you can easily share your central AWS Directory Service Managed Microsoft Active Directory so that applications can access your central identity store.

AWS Config

AWS Config is a service that provides you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. It continuously monitors and records the configuration of your AWS resources and enables you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.

1.  Amazon S3 Bucket:

It tracks the changes in your AWS resource configurations, and it sends updated configuration details to an Amazon S3 bucket. For each Config record, it sends a configuration history file in every six hours. The configuration history file contains details of the resources that changed in that six-hour period.

2. Amazon SNS(Amazon Simple Notification Service) Topic :

It is a communication channel that Amazon SNS uses to deliver messages to subscribing endpoints.

Benefits:

1. Continuous monitoring

2. Continuous assessment

3. Support for third-party resources

Use Cases:

1. Discovery:
It will easily discover the resources that exist in your account, record their current configuration, and capture any changes to these configurations.

2. Change management:
When your resources are created, updated, or deleted, AWS config stream these changes to the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), so that you will be notified of all the configuration changes.

Terraform

Terraform is an infrastructure as code. That allows managing to build, change, and version infrastructure efficiently. It includes low-level components like computing instances, storage, and networking, as well as high-level components like DNS entries and SaaS features.

Basic Terraform commands.

1. terraform init - To initialize the terraform working directory.

2. terraform get - To download and update modules mentioned in the root module.

3. terraform plan - To create an execution plan.

It reads the current state of the already existing remote objects to make sure that the terraform state is up to date.

Compare the current state to a previous state and note the changes.

4. terraform apply - To execute the actions mentioned in the Terraform plan.

5. terraform import - To import the existing resources in to Terraform.

6. terraform state list - Used to list resources with in a terraform state.

7. terraform graph - It gives the visual execution graph of terraform resource configuration.

8. terraform workspace list - List the all existing workspces.

9. terraform workspace select - used to choose the defferent workspace to use for further operations.

10. terraform workspace show - to show the current workspace

Use cases:

1. Multi cloud deployment.

2. PaaS Application setup

3. Kubernetes

Looking for help with your server management?