This project is intended to act as a simple example of spinning up an AWS instance, in preparation for additional automation, for example to deploy Satellite, Openshift, Pacemaker or similar.

The instructions and playbooks in this repository:

• Configure some AWS credentials in the Ansible Vault
• Prepare the shell environment for the AWS dynamic inventory script
• Create a default VPC if one does not already exist (examples for specific VPC creation are included too where explicitly defined subnets, security groups, internet gateways, routing tables or similar are required.)
• Create an appropriately sized instance (the file system layout is kept deliberately simple, for production deployments refer to the corresponding documentation)

.
├── ansible.cfg
├── inventories
│   ├── aws
│   ├── ec2.ini
│   └── group_vars
│       └── all
│           ├── vars
│           │   └── all.yml
│           └── vault
│               └── all.yml
├── playbooks
│   ├── create-arm-ec2-instances.yml
│   ├── create-default-infrastructure.yml
│   ├── create-ec2-instances.yml
│   ├── create-specific-infrastructure.yml
│   ├── create-x86-ec2-instances.yml
│   ├── debug-infrastructure.yml
│   ├── destroy-ec2-instances.yml
│   └── templates
│       ├── config.j2
│       └── credentials.j2
└── README.md

• inventories/aws: AWS dynamic inventory script
• inventories/group_vars/all/vars/all.yml: inventory group vars for AWS and RHSM
• inventories/group_vars/all/vault/all.yml: sensitive inventory group vars for AWS and RHSM
• playbooks/create-default-infrastructure.yml: idempotently create a default AWS VPC
• playbooks/create-specific-infrastructure.yml: idempotently create specific VPN with explicit subnets, security groups, internet gateways and routing tables
• playbooks/create-x86-ec2-instances.yml: create x86_64 EC2 instance(s)
• playbooks/create-arm-ec2-instances.yml: create arm EC2 instance(s)
• playbooks/destroy-ec2-instances.yml: destroy the EC2 instance(s)
• playbooks/debug-infrastructure.yml: debug output from VPC facts

• ec2_x86_image: AMI image ID to provision EC2 instances from (default ami-0e12cbde3e77cbb98)
• ec2_region: AWS region to create VPC/provision instances (default: eu-west-1)
• vaulted_aws_access_key: AWS Access key ID (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-sec-cred-types.html#access-keys-and-secret-access-keys)
• vaulted_aws_secret_key: AWS Secret Access Key (as above)
• vaulted_ec2_keypair: AWS EC2 keypair (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html)

1. Clone the repository

$ git clone [email protected]:wmcdonald404/quick-ec2-instance.git ~/quick-ec2-instance/

2. Define your AWS access_key, secret_key and keypair variables in a vault file

Note: vault/all.yml will contain the vaulted/encrypted values. vars/all.yml is effectively a layer of redirection so that there is a plain-text copy of the variable name to aid troubleshooting/tracing.

$ mkdir -p ~/quick-ec2-instance/inventories/group_vars/all/{vars,vault}

$ ansible-vault create ~/quick-ec2-instance/inventories/group_vars/all/vault/all.yml
$ ansible-vault edit ~/quick-ec2-instance/inventories/group_vars/all/vault/all.yml

vaulted_aws_access_key: <access_key>
vaulted_aws_secret_key: <secret_key>
vaulted_ec2_keypair: <key_pair_name>

3. Optionally, create a vault-pass file (nb: never check this into SCM)

vi ~/.vault-pass

4. Export environment variables required for the AWS dynamic inventory script

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<access_key_id>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<secret_access_key>

5. Set appropriate variables for instance_count and instance_tag:

$ vi ~/quick-ec2-instance/inventories/group_vars/all/vars/all.yml 

ec2_instance_count: 1
ec2_instance_tag:
  name: satellite

6. Create AWS default VPC infrastructure

$ cd ~/quick-ec2-instance
$ ansible-playbook ~/quick-ec2-instance/playbooks/create-default-infrastructure.yml

7. Refresh the inventory cache (just in case this is an iteration run and a previous instance has been cached)

$ ~/quick-ec2-instance/inventories/aws --refresh-cache

8. Create EC2 instance

$ cd ~/quick-ec2-instance
$ ansible-playbook ~/quick-ec2-instance/playbooks/create-x86-ec2-instances.yml

9. Note the item.dns_name value

The instance tag name can be defined on-the-fly on the command line using JSON-formatted extra variables to override inventory variables as illustrated below:

$ ansible-playbook ~/quick-ec2-instance/playbooks/create-x86-ec2-instances.yml -e '{ "ec2_instance_tag": { "name": "mytagname" } }'

Similarly, the number of instances to be provisioned can be altered on-the-fly as shown here:

$ ansible-playbook ~/quick-ec2-instance/playbooks/create-x86-ec2-instances.yml -e 'ec2_instance_count=4'