/bluebutton-web-deployment

Ansible Configuration and Playbooks

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bluebutton-web-deployment

Ansible Configuration and Playbooks for Blue Button API.

Keeping variables safe

Configuration variables and sensitive values are stored in AWS Parameter Store and AWS Secrets Manager. hhs_Ansible uses a cascading set of variable files:

  • ./vars/envs/common.yaml: For frequently used variables across all environments.
  • ./vars/all-var.yml: All variables used across any platform. Environment specific variables are embedded inside the variable defined in this file. Environment specific variables are prefixed with "env_".
  • ./vars/env/{environment_name}/env.yml: A mix of Sensitive and Non-sensitive environment specific variables are stored in this file. With use of the Ansible "lookup" plugin, values are pulled from aws_secret during CI/CD.

Variable files can't embed other variable files as includes. Therefore the playbook must load the variables files as includes. A typical include section in a playbook would be:

Where the playbook is found in: ./playbook/{role}/playbook.yml

```
vars_files:
  - "./../../vars/common.yml"
  - "./../../vars/env/{{ env }}/env.yml"
  - "./../../vars/all_var.yml"

```

{env} is a variable passed at run time to the playbook using --extra-vars env=dev | test | impl | prod

for example: In all_var.yml: db_name: "{{ env_db_name }}"

In ./vars/env/{{ env }}/env.yml: env_db_name: "{{ lookup('aws_secret', '/bb2/impl/app/db_name', region='us-east-1') }}"

Installation (Redhat / Centos / Fedora)

To enable ec2 support you must install python-boto:

sudo yum install -y python-pip
sudo pip install --upgrade pip
sudo yum -y install git
sudo yum -y install ansible
sudo yum -y install python-boto

NOTE: if FIPS is enabled add an additional parameter to pip command: -i https://pypi.org/simple/

Install hhs_ansible:

mkdir /hhs_ansible
cd /hhs_ansible
git clone https://github.com/CMSGov/bluebutton-web-deployment.git

Updating the Application Load Balancers requires a newer version of awscli. Install updated version as follows:

sudo /bin/bash
cd /root
pip install --upgrade --user awscli -i https://pypi.org/simple/

this will install the updated version to

/root/.local/bin

Then add your hosts to

/etc/ansible/hosts

Edit the config file:

/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

The public keys from ec2-user (id_rsa.pub and id_ecdsa.pub) need to be generated on the Management Server so that they can be copied to the remote machines in the base_patch role. As the ec2-user on the Management Server generate two sets of keys with no passphrase:

ssh-keygen -t rsa
ssh-keygen -t ecdsa
  • Do not enter a passphrase. Hit enter to step pass the prompt
  • Do not change the default filenames id_rsa and id_ecdsa.

As a minimum, if you are using AWS you will probably want to change: ' #remote_user = root'

to the remote user account used to connect to a server.

Host Configuration

Hosts fall into the following groups:

  • mgmtservers (The ansible management server)
  • appservers
  • dbservers

When creating a MGMT server instance in ec2 to run ansible add the following tags to the instance:

  • Managed = "BB-MANAGED-{{ env|upper }}"
  • Environment = {{ env|upper }} eg. DEV | TEST | IMPL | PROD
  • Layer = "MGMT"

These fields are added to each ec2 instance to be managed. These instances will automatically be grouped in to the relevant group in /etc/anasible/hosts based upon their Layer setting (MGMT | APP | DATA)

more information about hhs_ansible is here: [./documentation.md]