How To Install HTTPD Using Ansible Playbook ?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that improves IT orchestration, the design of the board, and application deployment. It works over SSH and requires no agent to be installed on a managed host. It is lightweight, efficient, and easy to set up, making it suitable for automating tasks on a variety of systems and environments.

HTTPD, otherwise called the Apache HTTP Server, is an open-source web server software broadly utilized for serving web content over the HTTP protocol. It is known for its dependability, scalability, and extensibility, making it a famous choice for hosting websites and applications.

Utilizing Ansible’s capabilities to automate the installation of HTTPD on target hosts is the topic of this guide. We can define the desired state of our infrastructure and carry out tasks in a repeatable and consistent manner by utilizing Ansible playbooks. This saves time and exertion, decreases the risk of manual errors, and ensures the consistency of configurations across servers.

Primary Terminologies

• Ansible: The automation tool Ansible is open-source and used for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. It works over SSH and requires any agents to be installed on the overseer. Because Ansible defines tasks using a declarative language based on YAML syntax, automation scripts are simple to read, write, and comprehend.
• Apache HTTPD: Open-source software for serving web content over the HTTP protocol is commonly referred to as HTTPD or Apache HTTP Server. It is known for its dependability, versatility, and extensibility, making it a famous decision for facilitating sites and applications. HTTPD is highly configurable and supports different modules and extensions for additional usefulness.
• Playbook for Ansible: An Ansible playbook is a YAML file that characterizes a set of undertakings to be executed on remote hosts. Playbooks take into consideration the automation of complex undertakings like software installation, configuration management, and application deployment. Tasks inside a playbook are executed successively, and Ansible ensures idempotence, implying that running the playbook multiple times has a similar result as running it once.
• Configuration Management: Configuration management refers to the most common way of managing the configurations of programming and frameworks steadily and dependably. With instruments like Ansible, configuration management tasks, for example, introducing programming packages, adjusting configuration files, and managing services, can be automated, lessening manual exertion and ensuring consistency across servers.
• Package Manager: Package Manager is a tool used to install, update, and remove packages from a system with the help of a package manager. Models incorporate yum and adept for Linux distributions like CentOS/RHEL and Ubuntu/Debian, respectively. Ansible uses package managers to automate the installation of software packages on managed servers as part of the configuration of the management tasks.

What is HTTPD?

HTTPD, short for HyperText Transfer Protocol Daemon, is a term normally used to refer to the Apache HTTP Server. It is an open-source web server software developed and maintained with by the Apache Software Foundation. HTTPD is one of the most widely used web server applications worldwide and assumes a significant part in serving web content over the internet.

HTTPD is equipped for serving different types of content, including HTML website pages, pictures, recordings, and dynamic content produced by server-side programming languages like PHP, Python, and Perl. It is adaptable to a variety of settings because it supports Linux, Unix, Windows, and macOS among other operating systems. As a web server, HTTPD listens in for incoming HTTP requests from clients (like web browsers) and responds with suitable web content. It is suitable for hosting personal blogs as well as large-scale enterprise applications due to its efficient handling of thousands of simultaneous connections. HTTPD (Apache) is equipped for serving static and dynamic web content over the HTTP and HTTPS conventions. A wide range of features are supported, including:

• Modularity: Apache HTTP Server is exceptionally measured, allowing administrators to expand its usefulness through modules. Support for SSL/TLS encryption, virtual hosting, URL rewriting, and other features can be added by these modules.
• Security: Apache HTTP Server incorporates highlights for getting web applications and information, including SSL/TLS encryption, access control in view of IP locations and validation strategies, and backing for secure correspondence conventions.
• Performance: Apache HTTP Server is intended to deal with high-traffic stacks effectively. To improve performance and scalability, it includes request pipelining, connection pooling, and caching.
• Flexibility: Apache HTTP Server is profoundly configurable, allowing managers to customize its way of behaving to suit their particular necessities. Arrangement choices are determined in text-based configuration files, making it simple to manage and version control.

Step-by-step process to install HTTPD using ansible-playbook

Step 1: Launch an instances

• Go to Amazon console management and log in with your credentials or AWS, and create a New Account.
• Now launch 2 Instances because Ansible is a master-slave configuration management tool. So We are working from the master node and installing HTTPD in the slave node.

• Now connect master node to git bash terminal by using SSH command.

Step 2: Install Ansible

• Now Install Ansible on your control node (local machine). By using following command

 sudo amazon-linux-extras install ansible2

Step 3: Create a playbook

• Now create a playbook with .yml extension

sudo vi <filename.yml>

• Here is the playbook script to install HTTPD in slave node

- name: Install HTTPD using Ansible Playbook
  hosts: slave-1 #here ensure that node instance name is correct or not 
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Install HTTPD package
      package:
        name: httpd
        state: present
    - name: Start HTTPD service
      service:
        name: httpd
        state: started
        enabled: yes

Step 4: Setting up Host Permission

• Now move to ansible directory path. In that ansible directory there is a file for HOST. Following command navigate to ansible path

cd /etc/ansible/

• Now open that Host file by using following command

sudo vi host 

• Inside this host file we giving host details that means our slave node details like Private IP Address, user name and Keyfile details

• Now execute ansible ping command to verify that our slave node connected or not

ansible ping -m all

Our slave node was successfully connected

Step 5: Running the Playbook

• Now run ansible-playbook command to run your playbook, specifying the playbook file and target hosts. By using following command

ansible-playbook <filename.yml>

• Ansible will connect to the target hosts, execute the tasks defined in the playbook, and install HTTPD.

Step 6: Verification

• Our ansible playbook was successfully executed but need to verify that our HTTPD was installed are not.
• Now go Slave Node and copy Public IP Address and browse it.

Official Page of HTTPD

Conclusion

Deploying and managing web servers like HTTPD (Apache) using Ansible Playbooks offers different benefits with respect to productivity, consistency, and dependability. By using Ansibles’ mechanization abilities, affiliations can smooth out the technique engaged with installing, configuring, and keeping aware of web servers across their infrastructure.

All through this guide, we have shown how Ansible can be used to automate the installation of HTTPD on target host. By characterizing assignments in a declarative YAML format inside Ansible Playbooks, managers can undoubtedly decide the best state of their infrastructure and execute endeavors dependably across various servers.

The usage of Ansible Playbooks for web server the executives diminish manual exertion, restricts the gamble of configuration errors, and ensure that server arrangements remain predictable after some time. This outcomes in better system dependability, quicker deployment cycles, and expanded productivity for IT teams.

Likewise, Ansible’s agent-less architecture and SSH correspondence support simplify it to coordinate into existing infrastructure without requiring the installation of extra software on managed host. This further develops flexibility and reduces above, especially in conditions with different working systems and network configurations.

Install HTTPD using ansible playbook – FAQ’s

Could Ansible be used to manage web servers other than HTTPD (Apache)?

Yes, Ansible is capable of managing a various of web servers, including Microsoft IIS, Apache Tomcat, Nginx, and others. It gives modules well defined for each web server for undertakings like installation, configuration, and service management.

Is Ansible suitable for managing infrastructure deployments of a large scale?

Yes, Ansible is intended to scale and can successfully oversee huge scope framework arrangements. It upholds highlights like equal execution of undertakings, dynamic stock administration, and measured playbook configuration, making it reasonable for conditions, all things considered.

Can SSL certificate configuration for HTTPS-enabled web servers be automated with Ansible?

Yes, you can automate the configuration of HTTPS-enabled web servers by using Ansible’s modules for managing SSL certificates. You can produce SSL endorsements, design SSL/TLS settings, and send authentications to web servers utilizing Ansible playbooks.

How does Ansible differ from other configuration management tool like Puppet and Chef ?

Ansible varies from tools like Puppet and Chef specialist in its agentless architecture, simplicity, and usability. Not at all like Puppet and chef, which expect agents to be installed on managed host, Ansible speaks with has over SSH, making it lightweight and simple to set up. Additionally, Ansible employs a syntax based on YAML, which many individuals find to be more user-friendly and readable than Puppet’s DSL or Chef’s Ruby-based syntax.

Could Ansible be used for continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines?

Yes, Ansible can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines to automate the deployment of applications and infrastructure changes. Ansible playbooks can be triggered as a feature of CI/Cd workflows to provision infrastructure, deploy applications, run tests, and perform different undertakings fundamental for software delivery.