Sympa deployment with Ansible

Sympa is an open source mailing list software

Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software.

This project is based on Ansible-tools, an example of Ansible Playbooks organization focusing on deployment for multiple environments, articulation with Vagrant, keyczar based encryption. Ansible-tools demonstrates a way to use Ansible to effectively and securely manage multiple environments ranging from development to production using the same playbook.

Quickstart: Creating a development VM

First install the tools on your local machine:

Install Vagrant and VirtualBox. Virtualbox will run the development VM and Vagrant is used to create, configure and manage the development VM instance. Vagrant 2 and later is required (there is problems with previous versions).
Install Ansible. There are several ways to install Ansible. They are described in the Ansible installation guide. Ansible 2.5 is required for the include-role feature to be used.

Clone or download this repository to your local machine:

$ git clone https://github.com/sympa-community/sympa-ansible.git

Next change into the "sympa-ansible" directory and start the development VM:

$ vagrant up

This prepares a VM that is ready to be managed by Ansible. It will call a simple Ansible playbook to make some changes to the VM.

Create the new environment for the VM:

$ ./scripts/create_new_environment.sh environments/local

Provision the environment:

$ vagrant provision

And link the inventory to your local directory:

$ ln -s ../../.vagrant/provisioners/ansible/inventory/vagrant_ansible_inventory environments/local/inventory

Run $ vagrant provision to rerun just the provisioning step and update the inventory.

A starting point for a playbook is provided. Run the playbook "site.yml":

$ ansible-playbook site.yml -i environments/local/inventory

You can login to the VM using $ vagrant ssh

By default, Vagrant shares your project directory (remember, that is the one with the Vagrantfile) to the /vagrant directory in your guest machine.

You should add an entry in your host /etc/hosts file for the VM's IP address

192.168.66.67 lists.example.com robot1.example.com robot2.example.com

You can now connect to your Sympa server web interface https://lists.example.com/sympa.

Fresh environment layout

Once you have created the environment, here is the layout of the environment directory:

ansible-keystore/
group_vars/
private/
tasks/
templates/

ansible-keystore directory

This directory contains the secret used by keyczar to encrypt the secrets.

group_vars directory

This directory contains the variables global to all domains.

It contains three files:

all.yml
postfix.yml
sympa.yml

all.yml file

This file contains parameters global to all servers and domains. Especially, it contains variables that will be visible to all roles. For example, it contains the definition of the db root credentials (as they will be common to Sympa and any other application). It also defines the web and mail default domains, as well as the global admins. Anything not specifically related to either mail or sympa should go there.

Here is the default file content:

vault_keydir: "{{ inventory_dir }}/ansible-keystore"

managed_file_dir: /opt/ansible/managed_files

timezone: Europe/Amsterdam

ansible_remote_user: root

install_prefix: /usr/local

db:
  root_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/db_root_password') }}"
  root_user: root

common:
  ip: "*"
  port: 443
  ssl:
    enabled: yes
    certificate: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/ssl_cert/webserver.crt') }}"
    selfsignedcertificate: yes
    key: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/ssl_cert/webserver.key') }}"
  web:
    domain: lists.example.com
    admin: [email protected]
  mail:
    domain: lists.example.com
  admins:
    - [email protected]
    - [email protected]
    - [email protected]    
  check_smtp:
    smtp_out: localhost
    address: check-smtp-service-ping
    auth_secret: foobar
    max_delay: 300

postfix.yml

This file contains the global parameters for postfix.

All data must be located under the namespace mail.

Here is the default file content:

mail:
  force_smtp_route: 1
  outgoing_server: '192.168.66.66'
  incoming_smtp: '192.168.66.66'
  alias_files:
    basic: /etc/aliases

sympa.yml

This file contain Sympa-only parameters.

All parameters are under the sympa namespace.

Here is the default file content:

sympa:
  db:
    app_user: sympa
    app_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/sympa_db_app_password') }}"
    readonly_user: sympareadonly
    readonly_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/sympa_db_readonly_password') }}"
  lists_path: /var/lib/sympa/list_data
  arc_path: /var/lib/sympa/archives

private directory

This directory contains data that must be saved separately for each environment, such as encrypted secrets and domain descriptions.

After the environment generation, it contains the following directories:

ca/
password/
ssl_cert/
vhosts/

ca/ directory

a pseudo certificate authority used to generate self_signed certificates. During development, you can chose to trust this authority to prevent browser warnings. Note that it sould also be used to create lists email adresses certificates.

password/ directory

This directory contains the encrypted versions of the passwords, such as db passwords. One file per password.

ssl_cert/ directory

This directory contains the server certificates. Note that, for now, the playbook is quite dumb and reuses only one single certificates for all servers and virtual hosts...

vhosts/ directory

This directory contains one file per virtual host. Any parameter can be redefined in these files, Though it is pointless if the parameter is not virtual host-related.

by default, the environment generation script creates four domain descriptions:

lists.example.com.yml
robot1.example.com.yml
robot2.example.com.yml
robot3.example.com.yml

Example of one such file:

robot1.example.com:
  common:
    web:
      domain: robot1.example.com
    mail:
      domain: robot1.example.com
    admins:
      - [email protected]
      - [email protected]
      - [email protected]
  sympa:
    config:
      title: My lovely service
      create_list: listmaster
      color_6: '#FF0000'
    server: local-sympa

You can see that, in this file, we redefine global parameters (web and mail domain), i.e. parameters that would be used by applications others than Sympa (Dokuwiki for example). We also set Sympa specific parameters. Note that anything under sympa.config namespace will be used to generate the robot.conf file for this domain.

A remark regarding sympa.server: it defines on which server this domain's Sympa will be run. That way, you can define several Sympa servers in your inventory, and pick for each domain which one to use.

tasks directory

This directory contains files for tasks to be executed at the end of their respective roles:

sympa.yml is executed at the end of the sympa role
apache.yml is executed at the end ot the apache role
common.yml is executed at the en of the common role.

Why only these three roles? Because we never had to execute other environment-specific tasks for the other roles (such as postfix). But if you want it, just add the following line at the end of the main.yml task of the corresponding role:

- include: "{{ inventory_dir }}/tasks/custom-role.yml"

Available configuration parameters.

Below is the whole set of parameters used in the different files, either role defaults, or group_vars, or virtual hosts files, in that order of precedence:

If you define the same parameter in deifferent locations, it will follow the normal order of precedence in Ansible:

1- first in group_vars, 2- second in role defaults.

We added another level with the vhosts configuration files. If you define a parameter in the vhosts file, it will take precedence over anything else. So the precedence is actually:

1- first in vhosts files 2- second in group_vars, 3- third in role defaults.

In the ansible.cfg file, we setup the following parameter: hash_behaviour=merge. This will trigger automatic merge of hashes. That way, you can specify in the environment only the part of hashes that are specific to your setup. The rest of the hash keys will default to whatever can be found in the defaults/main.yml of the current role.

Here is the list of the parameters used in the playbook, presented as YAML data:

global parameters

install_prefix: the root where applications should be installed. Usefull if you're combining this playbook with others to install other appplications than Sympa.
db.root_user: the username of the database global root user.
db.root_password: the password of the database global root user.

Sympa namespace

unix_*

sympa.unix_user and sympa.unix_group define respectively the user and group under which the Sympa processes are executed.

installation parameters

A set of parameters define how Sympa will be installed.

sympa.install_from_repository : if set to 1, Sympa will be installed from a checkout of a Git repository. Otherwise, a tar.gz is downloaded.
sympa.install_dir_name: the name of the directory where Sympa will be installed. It is a sub_directory of the install_prefix global parameter.

install from repository

You need to set the following parameters:

sympa.install_from_repository: value 1
sympa.version: the version of Sympa, from 6.1.17 to the latest unstable. Only used to find the patches.
sympa.repository: the URL of the git repository, to be used for the git clone operation.
sympa.repository_version: either HEAD or a commit hash.
sympa.apply_patches: if set to 1, any patch located in roles/sympa/patches/version will be applied to the extracted sources before the install process.

install from archive

You need to set the following parameters:

sympa.install_from_repository: value 0
sympa.version: the version of Sympa, from 6.1.17 to the latest unstable.
sympa.apply_patches: if set to 1, any patch located in roles/sympa/patches/version will be applied to the extracted sources before the install process.
sympa.source: the extracted archive must have the URL: source/sympa-version.tar.gz

mail setup

for now, only Postfix is supported. The mail setup is the same as the one proposed by the Sympa documentation for multiple domains support.

sympa.alias_directory: location of the file where list alias file will be stored
sympa.alias_file: name of the alias file

database setup

sympa.db.type: ony two values: mysql or Pg. Defines which RDBMS to use as Sympa database backend.
sympa.db.app_user: username used by Sympa for accessing its own database.
sympa.db.app_password: password used by Sympa for accessing its own database.
sympa.db.readonly_user: a user with readonly privleges to Sympa database. Can be usefull.
sympa.db.readonly_password: a password for the user with readonly privleges to Sympa database.

Sympa configuration

All parameters can't be defined in the playbook. Only the few below. Don't hesitate to change the roles/sympa/templates/sympa.conf.j2 to add more.

sympa.config.color_*: the colors to be used for Sympa web interface.
sympa.config.language: the default server language.

Sympa patchs

lists_path: full path to the directory containing the lists config.
arc_path: full path to the directory where the lists archives will be stored.

Common namespace

Web configuration

For now, only Apache is configured.

common.ip: ("*" by default) IP for apache vhost configuration
common.port: SSL port for Apache
common.ssl.enabled: Set to 1 to enable ssl configuration
common.ssl.certificate: Patch to the vhost certificate to install; Overriden by vhosts configuration.
common.ssl.selfsignedcertificate: Set to 1 if the certificate is self-signed: it implies a configuration change.
common.ssl.key: Private key for the certificate
common.web.domain: web domain
common.web.admin: web admin email address

Mail configuration

common.mail.domain: mail domain (overriden by vhosts configuration)
common.mail.force_smtp_route: if set to 1, any outgoing SMTP session will be made towards common.mail.outgoing_server without DNS resolution.
common.mail.incoming_smtp: the IP from which incoming mail should come to the server. Leave blak if you accept any incoming server.
common.mail.outgoing_server: See common.mail.force_smtp_route.
common.mail.enable_check_smtp: Optional activation of a program sending mails to check whether mails arrive or not.

Global common parameters

common.admins: the default admins for all applictions, including Sympa. Overriden by vhosts configuration.

Example file

sympa:
  unix_user: sympa
  unix_group: sympa
  repository: https://github.com/sympa-community/git
  repository_version: HEAD
  install_from_repository: 0
  source: https://github.com/sympa-community/sympa/releases/download/
  version: 6.2.40
  install_dir_name: sympa
  apply_patches: 1
  mail:
    alias_directory: /etc/mail
    alias_file: sympa_transport
  db:
    type: mysql
    app_user: sympa
    app_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/sympa_db_app_password') }}"
    readonly_user: sympareadonly
    readonly_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/sympa_db_readonly_password') }}"
  config:
    color_0: '#F7F7F7'
    color_1: '#222222'
    color_2: '#004B94'
    color_3: '#5E5E5E'
    color_4: '#4c4c4c'
    color_5: '#0090E9'
    color_6: '#005ab2'
    color_7: '#fff'
    color_8: '#f2f6f9'
    color_9: '#bfd2e1'
    color_10: '#983222'
    color_11: '#66aaff'
    color_12: '#FFE7E7'
    color_13: '#f48A7b'
    color_14: '#ff9'
    color_15: '#fe57a1'
    language: 'en_US'
  lists_path: /var/lib/sympa/list_data
  arc_path: /var/lib/sympa/archives
install_prefix: /usr/local
db:
  root_password: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/password/db_root_password') }}"
  root_user: root
common:
  ip: "*"
  port: 443
  ssl:
    enabled: yes
    certificate: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/ssl_cert/webserver.crt') }}"
    selfsignedcertificate: yes
    key: "{{ lookup('file',inventory_dir+'/private/ssl_cert/webserver.key') }}"
  web:
    domain: lists.example.com
    admin: [email protected]
  mail:
    domain: 'lists.example.com'
    force_smtp_route: 0
    incoming_smtp: '192.168.66.0'
    outgoing_server: '192.168.66.0'
    enable_check_smtp: 0
  admins:
    - [email protected]
    - [email protected]
    - [email protected]

Defining Sympa server setup

All configuration must be done in your environment. There are three ways to customize your installation:

globally for all domains, through the files in group_vars/ directory
specifically for one domain through the domain files in the private/vhosts/ directory.
you can add environment-specific tasks in the tasks/ directory.

Ansible-tools documentation

Organisation

The environments directory contains configuration elements specific to each target environment (local VM, dev, staging, production). This separation is what allows the configuration that is environment specific to be managed separately from the Ansible playbook(s) and roles. Environment specific configuration are things like Hostnames, IP addresses, Firewall rules, Email addresses, Passwords, private keys, certificates etc.

The other top level directories and files are:

The environments directory containing the template for a new environments
The scripts directory containing the various scripts used to create a new environment and manage secrets and work with the Vault
A Vagrantfile for creating a VM using Vagrant
ansible.cfg (optional) makes playbooks run faster by enabling SSH pipelining,
provision-vagrant-vm.yml playbook used by the Vagrant provisioning step only.
filter_plugins: contains custom filters to be used in Jinja2. It contains a single file, custom_plugins.py containing a single filter: vault. This is the filter used to decrypt data encrypted with keyczar. Example usage: myvar: "{{ db.root_password | vault(vault_keydir) }}". myvar will contain the variable db.root_password decrypted using the keys located in the directory defined by variable vault_keydir.
action_plugins: contains custom actions to be used in the playbook. It contains a single file, jin_ver.py defining a single action that allows to check the jinja2 version installed on the host running the playbook. It is used in site.yml that way:

- name: Get Jinja2 version
  hosts: all
  gather_facts: no
  remote_user: "{{ ansible_remote_user }}"
  tags: check_jinja2
  tasks:
    - action: jin_ver
      register: jinja_version
- name: Check Jinja2 version
  hosts: all
  remote_user: "{{ ansible_remote_user }}"
  tags: check_jinja2
  tasks:
    - name: Check Jinja2 version
      assert:
        that: "jinja_version.version_value is version_compare('2.10', '>=')"
        msg: "This playbook requires Jinja2 2.10 or greater. You have {{ jinja_version.version_value }}."

Creating a new environment

To get started you need an environment. Ansible-tools does not ship with a ready made environment, instead it ships with the tools to create new environments. In the environments directory of Ansible-tools you will find two directories:

template - This is the starting point of all new environments
local - some configuration that matches the included Vagrant file.

About the environments/template directory

The environments/template directory contains the starting point of a new environment. It is only used during the creation of a new environment. That means that when you start extending your playbooks, and find that you need to add variables to a environment, you should also add these variable to the template. It is thus up to you to make sure that the template is kept up to date as the playbooks evolve over time. Besides a tool for bootstrapping a new environment, think of the template as an excellent place to document the use of all variables that go into the environments.

The template directory contains one extra file: "environment.conf". This file contains a specification for the passwords and certificates to create when a new environment is created. This file is read by the create_new_environment.sh script that creates a new environment.

About the environments/local directory

The "environments/local" does not yet contain a complete environment, it contains just some configuration to work with the Vagrant VM. It contains:

A symlink to the inventory file that was generated by Vagrant
The static IP address for the VM that was configured in Vagrant

Creating the environment

The "create_new_environment.sh" script is used to create a new environment based on the template stored in "environments/template". The script reads the "environment.conf" file from the template. This file contains a specification for the passwords and certificates to create for the new environment.

To create a new environment call "create_new_environment.sh" and provide the path to the directory where to create the new environment. The environments/local used in the example below already contains an inventory and host_vars files that are suitable for use with Vagrant VM. Create the environment using:

$ ./scripts/create_new_environment.sh environments/local

This creates a new environment in the "environments/local" directory. When the specified directory does not exists, the directory is created. The script will not overwrite any existing files or directories in the specified environment directory. Note that you can create an environment directory anywhere, it does not have to be in the same directory tree as the playbooks and roles.

The "create_new_environment.sh" script:

Copies the "group_vars", "handlers", "tasks" and "template" directories from the template
Generates passwords, certificates, a keyczar key and root CA as specified in the "environment.conf in the template.

Because it does not overwrite existing files, you can rerun the script to generate a password or certificate when the "environment.conf" is updated.

Running an Ansible playbook

When you run "ansible-playbook" you need to provide it with the location of the "inventory" file in the environment. You do this by specifying its location using the "-i" or "--inventory" in "ansible-playbook" command. E.g.

$ ansible-playbook site.yml -i environments/local/inventory

If you omit the inventory, Ansible will try to use an the inventory file from one of its default locations (/etc/ansible/hosts or ./inventory), which is probably not what you want.

Working with environments from a Playbook

Ansible tools comes with a working example playbook site.yml. This playbook applies the common role to a server. This common role demonstrates two environment techniques:

Getting file templates from an environment
Including tasks defined in an environment

Both techniques use the Ansible inventory_dir variable to refer to files from the environment, instead of using files from the role directory. This is a useful technique for dealing with differences between environments. The goal remains to put as little as possible in the environment, and to keep most of the functionality in the playbooks and roles.

The example role, is just that, en example. It is not used from the playbook but contains a selection of common Ansible patterns.

Using a template from an environment

Look at roles/common/tasks/main.yml.

First the standard way of using of a template defined in the role. This tasks uses the template file from roles/common/templates/hostname.j2:

- name: Set /etc/hostname to {{ inventory_hostname }}
  template: src='hostname.j2' dest='/etc/hostname'

Next an example from the same file that uses a template from the environment instead of from the role:

- name: Put iptables configuration
  template: src={{ inventory_dir }}/templates/common/{{item}}.j2 dest=/etc/iptables/{{ item }}
  with_items:
    - rules.v4
    - rules.v6
  notify:
  - restart iptables-persistent

Note that we use inventory_dir to reference the template. The adopted convention is to store templates under templates/<role name>/ in de environment.

Including tasks defined in an environment

At the end of roles/common/tasks/main.yml tasks from the environment are included:

- include: "{{ inventory_dir }}/tasks/common.yml"

Because tasks might need handlers, roles/common/handlers/main.yml includes them from the environment:

- include: "{{ inventory_dir }}/handlers/common.yml"

Note the convention used for storing the included tasks and handlers in the environment:

tasks/<role name>.yml
handlers/<role name>.yml

About the group_vars directory

You might expect there to be a top level group_vars directory next to your role directory. There is none, and when you add it, you will find that it is not used. This is because group_vars (and host_vars) directories are resolved relative to the inventory directory.

groups_vars go in the environments. This means that when you add a variable, you will have to add it to all environments. This is where the template environment comes in.

The template environment

The template environment is the prototype of all new environments. During development of your playbooks and roles you should add the variables, jinja2 templates, files, tasks and handlers that required by your roles and playbooks to the template environment.

Adding a new variable

When you add a variable in the groups_vars directory of an environment, you should add it to the groups_vars in the environments/template directory as well. This way the template serves as a place to document the use of the variable for all environments.

Add all variables that are used to the template environment and document them there

But what value to give to the new variable? Give it a value that works well (i.e. without requiring to be changed) with the development VM. This allows you to verify that the template is still up to date: create a new vm using the template. This test can be automated.

Make the template environment testable: Set the group_var variables in the template to values that immediately work in the vm

Variables used in a role that do not typically change between environments should not be stored in the environment. These can be stored in the vars directory of the role in the playbook.

Using the generated secrets in your playbooks

The encrypted secrets, password and certificates to be created by the create_new_environment.sh script are specified in the environments/template/environment.conf file. Generated secrets will be stored in the environment's directory in the "password", "secret", "ssl_cert" or "saml_cert" directory, depending on the type of secret. To use the secret in a playbook it must be read from disk. For this the Jinja2 "lookup" function can be used. E.g. to read the "some_password" password from the "password" directory in the environment:

"{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/password/some_password') }}"

While you could use this directly in your templates or Ansible tasks, for readability, it is recommended to create a variable fot the secret in group_vars. Assuming you have a "middleware" role, the group_vars/middleware.yml in your environment could contain:

# Password for the middleware management API
middleware_management_api_password: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/password/middleware_management_api') }}"

# Middleware encryption secret
middleware_encryption_secret: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/secret/middleware') }}"

# Format: PEM RSA PRIVATE KEY
middleware_ssl_key: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/ssl_cert/middleware.key') }}"

# Format: PEM X.509 Certificate (chain)
# Order: SSL Server certificate followed by intermediate certificate(s) in chain order.
# Do not include root CA certificate
middleware_ssl_certificate: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/ssl_cert/middleware.crt') }}"

# Format: PEM RSA PRIVATE KEY
middleware_saml_sp_privatekey: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/saml_cert/middleware_saml_sp.key') }}"

# Format: PEM X.509 certificate
middleware_saml_sp_publickey: "{{ lookup('file', inventory_dir+'/saml_cert/middleware_saml_sp.crt') }}"

Now you can use these variables in your tasks and templates. E.g.

- name: Put SSL certificate for middleware
  copy: content="{{ middleware_ssl_certificate }}" dest=/etc/nginx/middleware.crt
  notify:
      - restart nginx

- name: Put SSL private key for middleware
  copy: content="{{ middleware_ssl_key }}" dest=/etc/nginx/middleware.key owner=root mode=400
  notify:
      - restart nginx

Encrypting secrets

An environment will typically contain secrets like passwords, private keys. Ansible-tools can use a vault to store these secrets in encrypted form in the environment. A vault uses a symmetric key to encrypt and decrypt secrets so only this key has to be protected. This allows the encrypted values to be put under version control like the rest of the environment.

The included "create_new_environment.sh" script can be used to create the encryption key for an environment and to generate the secrets required by the environment in one go. The specification for the secrets to create and whether to use encryption in configured in the "environment.conf" in the template.

When talking about a vault in the rest of this document this refers to the way ansible-tools uses keyczar to work with encrypted values, not the Ansible playbook vault.

Required tools

To use the vault python-keyczar must be installed. Use pip install python-keyczar to install this tool.

Enabling encryption

To enable encryption of secrets set "USE_KEYSZAR=1" in environments/template/environment.conf. Any new password, secrets or private keys generated by the "create_new_environment.sh" will be encrypted. Existing secrets will not be changed. To create encrypted secrets you can delete the exiting ons and rerun the script, or you can encrypt them manually using the encrypt-file.sh script.

E.g to output the encrypted contents of "environments/password/some_password":

$ ./scripts/encrypt-file.sh environment/local/ansible-keystore -f environments/password/some_password

The encrypted secrets, password and certificates to be created by the create_new_environment.sh script are specified in the environments/template/environment.conf file. Generated secrets will be stored in the environment in the "password", "secret", "ssl_cert" or "saml_cert" directory, depending on type.

You must update your playbooks to decrypt the secrets. The ansible-tools example playbook already set a variable "vault_keydir" in group_vars/all.yml that points to the keyczar keyset for decrypting secrets: vault_keydir: "{{ inventory_dir }}/ansible-keystore".

We assume that you are loading your secrets in (group) variables as described above.

To decrypt a secret so it can be used in an Ansible playbook you use the custom Jinja2 filter "vault". This filter expects one argument: the location of the keyset to use to decrypt the secret.

Example of an Ansible task that is not using encrypted passwords:

- name: add mariadb backup user
  mysql_user:
    name: "{{ mariadb_backup_user }}"
    password: "{{ mariadb_backup_password }}"
    login_user: root
    login_password: "{{ mariadb_root_password }}"
    priv: "*.*:SELECT"
    state: present
  when: mariadb_enable_remote_ssh_backup | default(false)

Example of the same task that is using encrypted passwords:

# Task that is using encrypted passwords
- name: add mariadb backup user
  mysql_user:
    name: "{{ mariadb_backup_user }}"
    password: "{{ mariadb_backup_password | vault(vault_keydir) }}"
    login_user: root
    login_password: "{{ mariadb_root_password | vault(vault_keydir) }}"
    priv: "*.*:SELECT"
    state: present
  when: mariadb_enable_remote_ssh_backup | default(false)

Keyset

When "USE_KEYCZAR=1" in environments/template/environment.conf the "create_new_environment.sh" script will create a keyset for the environment. This keyset contains the secret key that is used to encrypt and decrypt secrets. An existing keyset will not be overwritten.

Creating an encrypted secret

Several utility scripts are provided to create encrypted secrets:

An existing secret in a file can be encrypted using encrypt-file.sh script. E.g. to encrypt the contents of "/file/with/plaintext/secret" and store it in "environment/secrets/encrypted_secret":

$ ./scripts/encrypt-file.sh environment/local/ansible-keystore -f /file/with/plaintext/secret > environment/secrets/encrypted_secret
A new random password can be generated using the gen_password.sh script. E.g. to generate a new 15 character long encrypted password in "environment/passwords/encrypted_password":

$ ./scripts/gen_password.sh 15 environment/local/ansible-keystore > environment/secrets/encrypted_secret

Decrypting an encrypted file

An encrypted file can be decrypted using the "-d" option to the encrypt-file.sh script. E.g. to output the decrypted contents of "environment/password/some_password":

$ ./scripts/encrypt-file.sh -d environment/local/ansible-keystore -f environment/password/some_password

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 320 Commits
action_plugins		action_plugins
environments/template		environments/template
filter_plugins		filter_plugins
roles		roles
scripts		scripts
.gitignore		.gitignore
.travis.yml		.travis.yml
NOTICES		NOTICES
README.md		README.md
Vagrantfile		Vagrantfile
[local-sympa-ubuntu16],		[local-sympa-ubuntu16],
ansible.cfg		ansible.cfg
provision-vagrant-vm.yml		provision-vagrant-vm.yml
site.yml		site.yml

dverdin/sympa-ansible

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Sympa deployment with Ansible

Quickstart: Creating a development VM

Fresh environment layout

ansible-keystore directory

group_vars directory

all.yml file

postfix.yml

sympa.yml

private directory

ca/ directory

password/ directory

ssl_cert/ directory

vhosts/ directory

tasks directory

Available configuration parameters.

global parameters

Sympa namespace

unix_*

installation parameters

install from repository

install from archive

mail setup

database setup

Sympa configuration

Sympa patchs

Common namespace

Web configuration

Mail configuration

Global common parameters

Example file

Defining Sympa server setup

Ansible-tools documentation

Organisation

Creating a new environment

About the environments/template directory

About the environments/local directory

Creating the environment

Running an Ansible playbook

Working with environments from a Playbook

Using a template from an environment

Including tasks defined in an environment

About the group_vars directory

The template environment

Adding a new variable

Using the generated secrets in your playbooks

Encrypting secrets

Required tools

Enabling encryption

Keyset

Creating an encrypted secret

Decrypting an encrypted file

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