Quick and dirty Ansible playbook and files for deploying to AWS EC2 Instance

• Using the AWS console, build a tiny instance in the sandbox
• Using that hosts IP, deploy Nginx using Ansible

Create AWS account
Create instance using Amazon’s guide using an AMI Save PEM file
Since I'm on Windows, seperately provision VM (Centos 7) and install Ansible
Add 2 x security rules (1 for my Windows PC, 1 for Centos VM)
Transfer PEM file to VM
Create inventory config (inventory.cfg)
Create nginx_install.yml (remembering to become AWS user). Note - original YAML file used apt-get
Run ansible-playbook -i inventory.cfg nginx_install.yml -b
Result:

PLAY [all] ********************************************************************* ASK [Gathering Facts] ********************************************************* fatal: [$servername]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: ssh: connect to host $servername port 22: Connection timed out\r\n", "unreachable": true} to retry, use: --limit @/usr/bin/nginx_install.retry PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************* $servername : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=1 failed=0

After some googling, I think I need to "Use the chmod command (in bold below) to make sure your private key file isn’t publicly viewable. Please see commonly asked questions section below if you have issues and are using windows."
chmod 400 /path_to_key/my_key.pem
Now that's done, try Ansible Playbook again. Now we fail with the Python module:

TASK [Gathering Facts] ********************************************************* fatal: [$servername]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "module_stderr": "Shared connection to $servername closed.\r\n", "module_stdout": "/bin/sh: /usr/bin/python3: No such file or directory\r\n", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE", "rc": 127} to retry, use: --limit @/usr/bin/nginx_install.retry PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************* $servername : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1

OK, been a bit naughty here – after this failure, I installed Python 3 by manually going to AWS box and installing it
Still failing after this
After some Googling – realise, no ‘apt-get’ on Amazon Linux! Added this line to the YAML file:

shell: sudo amazon-linux-extras install nginx1.12

(Which is also a bit naughty) SUCCESS:

PLAY [all] *********************************************************************************************** TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************************************** ok: [$servername] TASK [ensure nginx is at the latest version] ************************************************************* [WARNING]: Consider using 'become', 'become_method', and 'become_user' rather than running sudo changed: [$servername] TASK [start nginx] *************************************************************************************** changed: [$servername] PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************************************** $servername : ok=3 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0

However, when trying to access $servername:80, could not
Had to add a new security rule to allow http traffic on port 80
SUCCESS!!!

Refactor YAML file to use yum instead of the hacky 'shell' - tested as working fine, and code added to repo

Learn how to also install Python automatically instead of manually - This is now done - can be found in bootstrap.yml, which is called by nginx_install.yml

Fails with following error on - Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type - ami-0ebbf2179e615c338 (64-bit x86) : fatal: [ec2-3-16-218-241.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "No package matching 'nginx' found available, installed or updated", "rc": 126, "results": ["No package matching 'nginx' found available, installed or updated"]}

I think this is because it's missing the correct repo for that AMI

Tested and working fine on - Amazon Linux AMI 2018.03.0 (HVM), SSD Volume Type - ami-04768381bf606e2b3

Am now trying to also provision the infra, before installing...