Introduction
If you have been following my blog for a few years you may have already read some of my blogs on Ansible, or used seen some demos or even pulled some Ansible code from my GitHub repo
I was recently asked How can I learn more about Ansible, and the how can I start automating Pure Storage tasks with Ansible ?
So in response to that question, here’s a new post to provide a quick guide to help setting up an educational environment to explore automating Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade tasks with Ansible.
This post includes:
- Building a local Oracle Linux 7.9 server using VirtualBox and Vagrant
- Installation of Ansible, pip and the Pure Storage Python Software Development Kits (SDKs)
- Installation of the Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade Ansible modules from Ansible Galaxy
- and then running two example playbooks, and sharing their output.
Preparation
Let’s start by creating an Oracle Linux 7.9 server using VirtualBox and Vagrant
To check if VirtualBox is installed and version use the vboxmanage –version command.
% vboxmanage --version 6.1.32r149290
And to confirm the status and version of Vagrant use vagrant -v for example
% vagrant -v Vagrant 2.2.19
Build Linux Server
Use the vagrant box list command to see if/what boxes you have installed, for example.
% vagrant box list oraclelinux/7 (virtualbox, 7.8.142)
Vagrant Box Add
To add a vagrant box use vagrant box add for example.
% vagrant box add https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/7.json
Or if you want to get Oracle Linux 8 try.
% vagrant box add https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/8.json
==> box: Loading metadata for box 'https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/8.json'
==> box: Adding box 'oraclelinux/8' (v8.5.320) for provider: virtualbox
box: Downloading: https://yum.oracle.com/boxes/oraclelinux/ol8/OL8U5_x86_64-vagrant-virtualbox-b320.box
box: Calculating and comparing box checksum...
==> box: Successfully added box 'oraclelinux/8' (v8.5.320) for 'virtualbox'!
Upgrade Vagrant Box
For this post I will upgrade my Oracle Linux 7.8 box to 7.9.
% vagrant box update --box oraclelinux/7 Checking for updates to 'oraclelinux/7' Latest installed version: 7.8.142 Version constraints: > 7.8.142 Provider: virtualbox Updating 'oraclelinux/7' with provider 'virtualbox' from version '7.8.142' to '7.9.324'... Loading metadata for box 'https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/7.json' Adding box 'oraclelinux/7' (v7.9.324) for provider: virtualbox Downloading: https://yum.oracle.com/boxes/oraclelinux/ol7/OL7U9_x86_64-vagrant-virtualbox-b324.box Calculating and comparing box checksum... Successfully added box 'oraclelinux/7' (v7.9.324) for 'virtualbox'!
Initialise Vagrant
Create a new environment and Vagrantfile in with vagrant init, for example
% mkdir vagrant-ol79 % cd vagrant-ol79 % vagrant init oraclelinux/7 A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on `vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant.
A cool Vagrant feature is that if you have not already pulled a box image you can get init to do it for you, as below.
% vagrant init oraclelinux/7 https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/7.json A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on `vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant.
Alternatively for Oracle Linux 8 use.
% vagrant init oraclelinux/8 https://oracle.github.io/vagrant-projects/boxes/oraclelinux/8.json A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on `vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant.
Start Vagrant Machine
And start the VirtualBox virtual machine.
% vagrant up --provider=virtualbox
Bringing machine 'default' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> default: Importing base box 'oraclelinux/7'...
==> default: Matching MAC address for NAT networking...
==> default: Checking if box 'oraclelinux/7' version '7.9.324' is up to date...
==> default: Setting the name of the VM: vagrant-ol79_default_1648136667554_7114
==> default: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
==> default: Preparing network interfaces based on configuration...
default: Adapter 1: nat
==> default: Forwarding ports...
default: 22 (guest) => 2222 (host) (adapter 1)
==> default: Booting VM...
==> default: Waiting for machine to boot. This may take a few minutes...
default: SSH address: 127.0.0.1:2222
default: SSH username: vagrant
default: SSH auth method: private key
...
==> default: Machine booted and ready!
==> default: Checking for guest additions in VM...
==> default: Mounting shared folders...
default: /vagrant => /Users/rekins/vagrant-ol79
Install Ansible
Shell into Vagrant Machine using vagrant ssh, change to root, and install Ansible, for example.
% vagrant ssh Welcome to Oracle Linux Server release 7.9 (GNU/Linux 5.4.17-2136.302.7.2.2.el7uek.x86_64) [vagrant@localhost ~]$ sudo su - [root@localhost ~]# yum install ansible ... [vagrant@localhost ~]$ ansible --version ansible 2.9.27 config file = /home/vagrant/ansible.cfg configured module search path = [u'/home/vagrant/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules'] ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible executable location = /usr/bin/ansible python version = 2.7.5 (default, Mar 12 2021, 14:55:44) [GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-44.0.3)]
Install Pure SDKs
Install the Pure Storage Python SDK using pip, for example.
[root@localhost ~]# yum install python-pip ... [root@localhost ~]# pip install purestorage Collecting purestorage ... Successfully installed certifi-2021.10.8 chardet-4.0.0 purestorage-1.19.0 requests-2.27.1 urllib3-1.26.9 [root@localhost ~]# pip install purity_fb Collecting purity_fb ... Successfully installed purity-fb-1.12.3 python-dateutil-2.8.2 six-1.16.0
Install Pure Collections
Install the FlashBlade Collection using ansible-galaxy collection install
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ ansible-galaxy collection install purestorage.flasharray Process install dependency map Starting collection install process Installing 'purestorage.flasharray:1.12.1' to '/home/vagrant/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/purestorage/flasharray'
And again for the FlashBlade Collection
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ ansible-galaxy collection install purestorage.flashblade Process install dependency map Starting collection install process Installing 'purestorage.flashblade:1.9.0' to '/home/vagrant/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/purestorage/flashblade'
Pure Storage FlashArray
If you don’t know / have a FlashArray API token, logon to the FlashArray and using the CLI obtain an API token using pureadmin list –api-token –expose, for example
pureuser@z-m20-a> pureadmin list --api-token --expose Name Type API Token Created Expires ... pureuser local 5d8ad02f-547d-fc24-bb51-fa0d2b0de123 2019-03-15 09:00:57 GMT - ...
Create an Ansible playbook, using the Pure Storage FlashArray collection, for example fa_demo.yaml
- name: Pure Storage FlashArray Ansible module Demo
hosts: localhost
collections:
- purestorage.flasharray
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Create new FlashArray Volume
purefa_volume:
name: "Vagrant-Demo"
size: "1T"
fa_url: "10.225.112.80"
api_token: "5d8ad02f-547d-fc24-bb51-fa0d2b0de123"
Run playbook with ansible-playbook <filename>
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ ansible-playbook fa_demo.yaml -i hosts PLAY [Pure Storage FlashArray Ansible module Demo] *********************************************************************************************** TASK [Create new FlashArray Volume] *********************************************************************************************** changed: [localhost] PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************************ localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
Logon to the FlashArray and navigate to Storage -> Volumes to see the newly created volume
FlashArray module documentation, syntax and examples are available at docs.ansible.com
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Let’s do the same again, but this time using a FlashBlade.
Again, if you don’t know / have a FlashBlade API token, logon to the FlashBlade and use the CLI to obtain an API token using pureadmin list –api-token –expose, for example
pureuser@fbstaines01> pureadmin list --api-token --expose Name Type Role API Token Created pureuser local array_admin T-2b74f9eb-a35f-40d9-a6a6-22c13775a53c 2020-05-08 06:00:24 BST -
Create an Ansible playbook, using the Pure Storage FlashBlade collection, for example fb_demo.yaml
- name: Pure Storage FlashBlade Ansible module Demo
hosts: localhost
collections:
- purestorage.flashblade
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Create new FlashBlade FileSystem
purefb_fs:
fb_url: "10.225.112.69"
api_token: "T-2b74f9eb-a35f-40d9-a6a6-22c13775a53c"
name: "Vagrant-Demo"
state: present
size: 1T
nfsv3: True
nfsv4: False
hard_limit: true
nfs_rules: '*(rw,no_root_squash)'
snapshot: True
Run playbook with ansible-playbook <filename>
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ ansible-playbook fb_demo.yaml -i hosts PLAY [Pure Storage FlashBlade Ansible module Demo] ************************************************************************************* TASK [Create new FlashBlade FileSystem] ************************************************************************************* changed: [localhost] PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************** localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
Logon to the FlashBlade and navigate to Storage -> File Systems to see the newly created file system
FlashBlade module documentation, syntax and examples are available at docs.ansible.com
Summary
In this short post I have shared how we can use Vagrant and VirtualBox to create an Oracle Linux 7.9 server for use as an educational Ansible control machine and, how we can use the Pure Storage Ansible modules to automate FlashArray and FlashBlade tasks.
If you want to learn more or see Ansible in action check-out my Oracle Rapid Cloud Automation (ORCA) Ansible playbook or YouTube demo.
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