Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/azure-sensible

A sensible starting point for deploying and configuring virtual machines on Azure
https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/azure-sensible

ansible automation azure devops hut23 terraform virtual-machines

Last synced: 4 days ago
JSON representation

A sensible starting point for deploying and configuring virtual machines on Azure

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
# Azure Sensible



This repository provides a set of example, template

[Terraform](https://www.terraform.io/) and [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com)

files for deploying and configuring Azure virtual machines.



## Why might you want to use this



Through using and building upon these examples you will find that your

deployment is



- 🚅 Fast (no forms or pointing and clicking in your browser required)

- 🔁 Reproducible (as long as you keep your configuration files you can tear down

  and redeploy your environment on demand)

- 🔐 Secure (public key authentication by default with optional two-factor

  authentication)

- 💻 Hackable (we aim to provide a good starting point for building the environment

  you need)

- 🤝 [Permissively licensed](./LICENSE) (you are free to copy, use and modify this

  code as well as to merge it with your own)



## What this is not



While we hope this repository will be useful it will not (and is not intended

to) solve all cloud computing problems. In particular this template is not

intended to expose all of the possibilities of Ansible and Terraform.



For more complicated architectures, such as those involving multiple hosts, it

may be best to build your deployment from the ground up. Nevertheless, we hope

that you can still find some inspiration and useful hints here.



## How to use this repository



The repository is split into two directories [terraform](./terraform) and

[ansible](./ansible) which contain the Terraform and Ansible files respectively.

Terraform is used to deploy the Azure resources (virtual machines, disks, public

IP address, _etc._) and Ansible is used to configure the virtual machine.



### 🎁 Get the code



Download and unzip the [latest

release](https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/azure-sensible/releases/latest)

or clone this repository



```

$ git clone https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/azure-sensible.git

```



### 📦 Requirements



Before you start, you will need to install some dependencies,



- [Azure CLI](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli)

- [Terraform](https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/terraform/install-cli)

- [Ansible](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html)



Additionally for generating QR code images to be scanned with an authenticator

app you will need,



- [Python > 3.6](https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Download)

- [qrencode](https://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/) (which you will likely be able

  to find on you distributions repositories or on

  [brew](https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/qrencode))



### 🏞️ Terraform, provisioning your virtual machine



To use terraform to deploy infrastructure on Azure, you will first need to

authenticate using the Azure CLI



```

$ az login

```



which will launch a browser prompting you to login.



Then you will need to enable the subscription you want to deploy the VM into.

Terraform will use your enabled-by-default subscription.



```

$ az account set --subscription 

```



To see a list of subscriptions available to you, run: `az account list --output table`



Next you can configure your deployment by editing

[`terraform/terraform.tfvars`](terraform/terraform.tfvars). This file has

comments explaining the configuration options and their default values.



Initialise terraform



```

$ cd terraform

$ terraform init

```



Plan your changes



```

$ terraform plan

```



this will print a list of changes to your terminal so you can see what terraform

will do. Run the terraform plan with



```

$ terraform apply

```



> ⚠️ Warning

>

> The Terraform plan generates an SSH key for the Ansible admin account. The

> private key is [stored

> unencrypted](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/tls/latest/docs/resources/private_key)

> in the Terraform state file. This is not a secure if you intend on [sharing

> the terraform state](https://www.terraform.io/docs/state/remote.html) and

> should be replaced if you intend on doing so.



### ⚙️ Ansible, configuring your virtual machine



Ansible uses an inventory file to declare managed nodes and arrange them into

groups. The terraform plan will have created an inventory for you specifying

your virtual machine and how to connect to it in the `ansible` directory.



Similarly to terraform, there is a variables file with some options regarding

how Ansible will configure your virtual machine. Edit

[`ansible/ansible_vars.yaml`](ansible/ansible_vars.yaml), as before there are

comments to explain the options.



You can use [`scripts/generate_password.py`](scripts/generate_password.py) to

create compatible password hashes for your users without displaying the password

as plain text. See the [README](scripts/README.md#generating-password-hashes)

for instructions.



Install the required ansible modules from [Ansible

Galaxy](https://galaxy.ansible.com)



```

$ cd ../ansible

$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yaml

```



Now run the playbook on the inventory generated by Terraform to configure your

virtual machine



```

$ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yaml playbook.yaml

```



### 📱 Optional: generating QR code images



If the option `totp` was `true` in `ansible_vars.yaml` the Ansible play will

have created a file in the ansible directory called `totp_hashes.txt`. This file

contains the information needed to generate QR code images for each user.



To generate the QR code images run the included Python script



```

$ ./scripts/generate_qr_codes.py

```



There will now be a set of PNG files in your current directory, one for each

user, with file names in the format `.png`. These can be distributed

to each user so that they may scan the QR code with their authenticator app.



### 🔗 Connect to your virtual machine



Both the Terraform plan and the Ansible playbook will finish by printing the

public IPv4 address of your virtual machine. You can connect to the machine

via SSH using this IP address and the credentials of a user your created



```

$ ssh @ -i 

```



### 💣 Destroy the resources



When you are finished, you can destroy the resources using Terraform. From the

terraform directory run



```

$ terraform destroy

```



This will delete all Azure resources and any data stored on these resources will

be lost.



## Next steps



See the [examples directory README](examples/README.md) for some practical

examples building on the base configuration files.