Automating Server Deployment and Web Applications Using Terraform and Ansible Commands

In this blog, I will explain how I automated the deployment of two servers using Terraform for provisioning and Ansible commands for configuration. One server (server1) runs an NGINX web server, and the other (server2) hosts a custom HTML web page. This approach does not use Ansible playbooks, but instead manual Ansible commands to achieve the same result.

Step 1: Provision Servers with Terraform

To begin, we use Terraform to create two servers on AWS EC2:

Terraform Configuration: main.tf:

provider "aws" { region = "us-east-1" }

resource "aws_instance" "server1" { ami = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0" # Replace with your AMI instance_type = "t2.micro" key_name = "ansible-master"

tags = { Name = "server1" } }

resource "aws_instance" "server2" { ami = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0" instance_type = "t2.micro" key_name = "ansible-master"

tags = { Name = "server2" } }

output "server1_ip" { value = aws_instance.server1.public_ip }

output "server2_ip" { value = aws_instance.server2.public_ip }

Run Terraform Commands

Execute the following commands:

terraform init

terraform apply

Step 2: SSH Configuration for Ansible

Create Inventory File (hosts)

Add the servers' IPs to the Ansible inventory:

[servers] server1 ansible_host=<server1_ip> ansible_user=ubuntu ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/keys/ansible.pem server2 ansible_host=<server2_ip> ansible_user=ubuntu ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/keys/ansible.pem

Step 3: Configure Servers Using Manual Ansible Commands

Once the inventory is ready, configure the servers using Ansible ad-hoc commands:

1. Install NGINX on server1

Run the following command to install NGINX on server1:

ansible server1 -i hosts -m apt -a "name=nginx state=present" --become

2. Start and Enable NGINX

Start and enable NGINX on server1 using:

ansible server1 -i hosts -m service -a "name=nginx state=started enabled=true" --become

3. Deploy a Custom Web Page on server2

To deploy a custom HTML file on server2, use the following command:

ansible server2 -i hosts -m copy -a "dest=/var/www/html/index.html content='My Html code

'" --become

4. Install and Start Apache2 on server2

Install Apache2 on server2 to serve the HTML file:

ansible server2 -i hosts -m apt -a "name=apache2 state=present" --become ansible server2 -i hosts -m service -a "name=apache2 state=started enabled=true" --become

Step 4: Verify the Configuration

Ping Test

To confirm Ansible can connect to the servers, run:

ansible servers -i hosts -m ping:

Test the Web Servers

1. For server1 (NGINX Server):
   Open a browser and visit:

   http://<server1_ip

   

   For server2 (Custom Web Page):
   Open a browser and visit:

   http://<server2_ip>

   

   Step 5: Troubleshoot Common Issues

   Issue: Private Key Permissions Too Open

   If you encounter:

   Permissions 0664 for 'ansible-.pem' are too open

   Fix it using:

   chmod 400 ~/keys/ansible.pem./

   Conclusion

   In this blog, I demonstrated how to provision and configure two servers without using Ansible playbooks. By using Terraform to provision infrastructure and Ansible ad-hoc commands to configure servers, we achieved:

   1. NGINX Installation and Configuration on server1.

   2. Custom Web Page Deployment on server2.

This approach is ideal for small-scale automation or when quick configurations are needed.

Try it out, and let me know your thoughts in the comments! 🚀