Using Templates with Ansible

Templating is a powerful tool that we can add to our Ansible arsenal, enabling us to set up some interesting configurations quickly. This lab will help us practice with that tool.

Learning Objectives

Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:

Write a Template to Replace the Document Root in httpd.conf and Any Other Configurations Required

Using the provided httpd.template, replace all occurences of /var/www/ with
{{ variable_name}} – similar to the following. This will let us update the directory with the use of a variable:

&lt;Directory />
   AllowOverride none
   Require all denied
&lt;/Directory>

DocumentRoot "{{ webdir }}html"

&lt;Directory "{{ webdir }}">
   AllowOverride None
   Require all granted
&lt;/Directory>

Note that there are more places /var/www needs to be changed to {{ variable name }}, these are just two.

Write a Playbook to Deploy the Template to the webserver Group

Your playbook should look similar to this:

---
- name: Template playbook
  hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  vars:
   webdir: '/opt/'

  tasks:
   - name: Deploy the web template
     template:
      src: /root/httpd.template
      dest: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

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Using Templates with Ansible

About this Hands-on Lab

Learning Objectives

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