Using Ansible to configure Load-Balancer on AWS using Dynamic Inventory!

This article will explain the process of provisioning a HaProxy load-balancer with the 3 webservers on AWS cloud using Ansible.

Steps to achieve our goal:

1. Provision 4 ec2-instances using Ansible on AWS.
2. Configure 3 of the ec2-instances as a webserver on the AWS & the remaining one to be Load Balancer.

Provisioning the EC2-Instances!

Run the below-given code to provision the ec2-instances using ansible.

- name: Ansible-Playbook to provision AWS EC2-Instance
  hosts: localhost
  vars_files:
  # Name of the file which contains the access & secret key for AWS!
    - password.yaml
  tasks:
    - name: Launching an AWS Instance
      ec2:
      # Write the name of your key which has to be used for SSH
        key_name: MyKeyFinal
        instance_type: t2.micro
        image: "ami-08706cb5f68222d09"
        wait: yes
        group_id: "sg-0202966a4cb160463"
        count: 3
        vpc_subnet_id: subnet-44e49308
        assign_public_ip: yes
        state: present
        region: ap-south-1
        zone: ap-south-1b
        aws_access_key: "{{ accessKey }}"
        aws_secret_key: "{{ secretKey }}"
        instance_tags: 
          Name: "Webserver"
      # Registering all the details of the provisioned Instance in a variable to retrieve Public IP
      register: EC2_Instance

    - name: Print the Information about EC2 Instance
      debug:
        var: EC2_Instance.instances[0].public_ip

Run the below-given code to provision the load balancer on the AWS.

- name: Ansible-Playbook to provision AWS EC2-Instance
  hosts: localhost
  vars_files:
    - password.yaml
  tasks:
    - name: Launching an AWS Instance
      ec2:
        key_name: MyKeyFinal
        instance_type: t2.micro
        image: "ami-08706cb5f68222d09"
        wait: yes
        group_id: "sg-0202966a4cb160463"
        count: 1
        vpc_subnet_id: subnet-44e49308
        assign_public_ip: yes
        state: present
        region: ap-south-1
        zone: ap-south-1b
        aws_access_key: "{{ accessKey }}"
        aws_secret_key: "{{ secretKey }}"
        instance_tags: 
          Name: "Load-Balancer"
      # Registering all the details of the provisioned Instance in a variable to retrieve Public IP
      register: EC2_Instance

    - name: Print the Information about EC2 Instance
      debug:
        var: EC2_Instance.instances[0].public_ip

Now, all the 4 ec2-instances have been configured, to retrieve the IP of all the instances, run the command "ansible all --list-hosts" on the controller node.

The above-shown image has the public IP of all the instances provisioned using Ansible. Verify the IP of the load-balancer EC2 Instance from the aws console. Your AWS Console will look like:

Step 1 is successfully completed now. Let's process to the final step of configuring the web server and load balancer on the provisioned instances.

Configuring the Load-Balancer & the Webserver!

Create 2 ansible playbooks for executing the ansible webserver role & HaProxy role. The link to both roles is mentioned below.

Download the roles from the link mentioned above, & save them to a folder, after that add that path as a roles path in the inventory.

To Execute the webserver role, create an Ansible playbook using the code given below.

- name: Playbook to Configure the Apache Webserver using the Role!
# Add the host name corresponding the group created in the Ansible Inventpry for the webservers.

  hosts: ec2
  roles:
    - role: Apache-Webserver

To Execute the HaProxy role, create an Ansible playbook using the code given below.

- name: PlayBook to configure the HAProxy Load Balancer Setup
# Add the host name corresponding the group created in the Ansible Inventpry for the Load Balancer.

  hosts: HAProxy-LB
  roles:
     - role: HAProxy-Load-Balancer

Note: In the HaProxy Role, add your own configuration HaProxy file(according to your requirement) which will be copied using the ansible role.

The project has been concluded now.

Happy Learning!