Build an EC2 using Ansible Step By Step

This article explains step by step how to create (spin up) an EC2 instance within AWS using Ansible and a few extras. Unlike 100% of other articles out there, this one actually demonstrates how to do it. Pay attention to the date of this article because things DO change over time.

We’re using CentOS 7 as the Ansible host.

Run the following commands to install the required dependencies for Ansible and AWS. I’m running this as a normal user with SUDO access, not the root user.

sudo pip install --upgrade pip
sudo pip install boto
sudo yum install ansible

Log into your AWS account to get your “AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID” and “AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY”. Go to “Identity and Access Management”. Create a new user or select an exiting one. Go to “Security Credentials” and click “Create Access Key”. Here’s an example of what you’ll end up with:

Access Key ID: NUHKOIJFOJF9GFJDO
Secret Access Key: LSDJKFODSJF9SDJF8UH3U3HFKW

Keep those safe – download when asked. Use the above values to create environment variables. Copy and paste the following (with your values replacing mine) into your shell:

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="NUHKOIJFOJF9GFJDO" 
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="LSDJKFODSJF9SDJF8UH3U3HFKW"

Create the “~/hosts” file with the following contents:

[local]
localhost

[webserver]

Now we build our YML file for Ansible to run through. Here’s a sample that will create a basic EC2 with a public IP address and your public SSH key. Put the following into the file “~/ec2-basic.yml”

---
  - name: Provision an EC2 Instance
    hosts: local
    connection: local
    gather_facts: False
    tags: provisioning
    # Necessary Variables for creating/provisioning the EC2 Instance
    vars:
      instance_type: t2.micro
      security_group: ansible-webserver # Change the security group name here
      image: ami-719fb712 # This is an AMI i created myself
      keypair: agix-key # This is one of my keys that i already have in AWS
      region: ap-southeast-2 # Change the Region
      count: 1

    # Task that will be used to Launch/Create an EC2 Instance
    tasks:

      - name: Create a security group
        local_action: 
          module: ec2_group
          name: "{{ security_group }}"
          description: Security Group for webserver Servers
          region: "{{ region }}"
          rules:
            - proto: tcp
              from_port: 22
              to_port: 22
              cidr_ip: 0.0.0.0/0
            - proto: tcp
              from_port: 80
              to_port: 80
              cidr_ip: 0.0.0.0/0
            - proto: tcp
              from_port: 443
              to_port: 443
              cidr_ip: 0.0.0.0/0
          rules_egress:
            - proto: all
              cidr_ip: 0.0.0.0/0
        register: basic_firewall

      - name: Launch the new EC2 Instance
        local_action: ec2 
                      group={{ security_group }} 
                      instance_type={{ instance_type}} 
                      image={{ image }} 
                      wait=true 
                      region={{ region }} 
                      keypair={{ keypair }}
                      count={{count}}
        register: ec2

      - name: Add the newly created EC2 instance(s) to the local host group (located inside the directory)
        local_action: lineinfile 
                      dest="./hosts" 
                      regexp={{ item.public_ip }} 
                      insertafter="[webserver]" line={{ item.public_ip }}
        with_items: ec2.instances


      - name: Wait for SSH to come up
        local_action: wait_for 
                      host={{ item.public_ip }} 
                      port=22 
                      state=started
        with_items: ec2.instances

      - name: Add tag to Instance(s)
        local_action: ec2_tag resource={{ item.id }} region={{ region }} state=present
        with_items: ec2.instances
        args:
          tags:
            Name: webserver

Being the provisioning (spin it up):

ansible-playbook -i ./hosts ec2-basic.yml

And finally log into your new ec2 instance:

ssh -l centos 54.1.2.3 -i Downloads/agix-key.pem

Resources:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/boto#downloads
http://www.tivix.com/blog/using-ansible-create-aws-instances/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30227140/best-way-to-launch-aws-ec2-instances-with-ansible