#Disposable Cent8 Docker with SSH to test Ansible playbooks. 2019 - pmo

#I was tired of slow VMs and other heavyweight tech to test Ansible playbooks and the like that just required SSH, ansible and python. I don't have a large home lab, I work mostly from a laptop and heavy VMs drain the battery.

#the assumption is you are using your local machine as the Ansible controller with user sshuser

#in no way or form is this meant for production. This is a not so lightweight ephemeral SSH/Ansible container. ephemeral means when you stop the container it's gone as well as any/all changes you made to it... what better way to test your disaster recovery :)

#naturally, there's a bunch this wouldn't handle. It's not be-all-end-all. It's just a simple scrappy tool for testing.

###there's a dozen different ways to achieve the end need. Do what suits you best. ###

Building

Copy the sources to your docker host and build the container:

    # git clone https://github.com/pbmoses/cent8_docker_lab.git
    
    # cd cent8_docker_lab
    
    # docker build --rm -t localhost/cent8_ansible:v1 .

To run:

##CHANGE YOUR KEY PERMISSIONS! (chmod 600 demo_ansible_docker*)

##NEVER RE-USE THESE KEYS OUTSIDE OF YOUR TEST ENVIRONMENT

##you'll probably want to either accept the keys in known_hosts or skip verification (run as many as you would like, within reason for your hardware)

    #docker run -d -p 22 localhost/cent8_ansible:v1
    (you can spin up as many containers as you need for your testing)
    
    #docker ps (look for your port, you need that to login)

To Generate an inventory.ini file:

    #docker ps --format "{{.ID}} {{.Ports}}" | grep 22 | -F' |:|-' 'BEGIN{ print "[all]"};{ print $1" ansible_connection=local" " ansible_ssh_port="$3 }'>inventory.ini

To test, use the port that was just located:

   #ssh -i ./demo_ansible_docker [email protected] -p <port from above>

To test Ansible:

    #ansible all -i inventory.ini -m ping 

Sample output: fb59a66ed022 | SUCCESS => { "ansible_facts": { "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python" }, "changed": false, "ping": "pong" }

Build your playbooks, your roles and experiment. Edit your inventory file to your preference.