IPA Client Enroll Flavour

This Ansible Playbook configures an existing virtual machine in the European Weather Cloud (EWC) to operate as a client of IPA services.

IPA provides integrated identity management and DNS services, enabling centralized user authentication, authorization, and resource discovery.

Suitable for tenant admins and tenant users alike, this template simplifies the integration of VMs into a FreeIPA-managed fleet of instances within the EWC environment. Follow the instructions below to enroll your instance.

Functionality

The template is designed to:

• Configure a pre-existing virtual machine running Rocky Linux 8/9 or Ubuntu to connect to a IPA server on the same subnet.
• Enable DNS resolution for discovering private hosts and public addresses.
• Allow remote access to the VM using centrally managed LDAP users via password authentication.

Prerequisites

💡 This Item is supported by the EWCCLI and can be deployed, together with a compatible VM, via it. Checkout the EWC User Stories: I want to use the ewccli documentation pages to learn how.

• Install git (version 2.0 or higher )

• Install python (version 3.9 or higher)

• Install ansible (version 2.15 or higher)

• Verify the ipa OpenStack Security Group exists in your EWC tenancy

  💡 You may create Security Groups via this EWC Community Hub Item if pre-required ones are missing.

• If you plan to configure an existing VM, ensure it meets the minium requirements before moving on to the Usage section below:

  • VM Image: Ubuntu or RockyLinux
  • VM Plan: 2 CPU cores, 4GB RAM, 40GB Disk
  • Network: Private
  • Security Groups: ipa
  • Floating IP: Optional (not recommended from a security standpoint)

  Otherwise, provision a new VM with above specifications before continuing (see EWC Getting Started: Provision a VM for details).

Usage

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ewcloud/ewc-ansible-playbook-flavours-and-provisioning.git

1.1. Change to the specific Item's subdirectory

cd ewc-ansible-playbook-flavours-and-provisioning/playbooks/ipa-client-enroll-flavour

1.2. Checkout an specific Item's version

⚠️ Make sure to replace x.y.z in the command below, with your version of preference.

git checkout x.y.z

2. Download Ansible dependencies

💡 By default, Ansible Roles are installed under the ~/.ansible/roles directory within your working environment.

Download the correct version of the Ansible dependencies, if you haven't done so already:

ansible-galaxy role install --force -r requirements.yml

3. Specify the target host and SSH credentials

Create an inventory file, to specify address/credentials that your local working environment should use to connect to the target VM.

Copy into the file one of the two snippets below, and replace the placeholders (i.e. values enclosed in < > characters):

• Connecting form within the EWC tenancy's network

  # inventory.yml
  ---
  ewcloud:
    hosts:
      target:
        ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3
        ansible_host: <add the IPV4 address of the target host>
        ansible_ssh_private_key_file: <add the path to local SSH private key file>
        ansible_user: <add the default user according to your chosen VM image>
        ansible_ssh_common_args: -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no
  

OR

• Connecting from outside the EWC tenancy's network

  ⚠️ This requires an SSH Bastion to be already provisioned within your EWC tenancy.

  # inventory.yml
  ---
  ewcloud:
    hosts:
      target:
        ansible_host: <add the IP address of the target host>
        ansible_ssh_user: <add the default user according to your chosen VM image>
        ansible_ssh_private_key_file: <add the path to local SSH private key file>
        ansible_python_interpreter: auto
  
  all:
    vars:
      ansible_ssh_common_args: >-
        -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no
        -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
        -o ProxyCommand="ssh
                        -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no
                        -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
                        -o BatchMode=yes
                        -W %h:%p
                        -i <add the path to local SSH private key file>
                        cloud-user@<add the IP address of the ssh bastion>"
  
  

4. Configure and apply the template

• Interactive Mode

  By running the following command, you can trigger an interactive session that prompts you for the necessary user inputs, and then applies changes to your target EWC environment:

  ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml ipa-client-enroll-flavour.yml
  

OR

• Non-Interactive Mode

  💡 To learn more about defining variables at runtime, checkout the official Ansible documentation.

  You can also run in non-interactive mode by passing the --extra-vars or -e flag, followed by a map of key-value pairs; one for each and every available input (see inputs section below). For example:

  ansible-playbook \
    -i inventory.yml \
    -e '{
          "ipa_domain": "internal-eumetsat-sandbox.ewc",
          "ipa_server_hostname": "ipa-server-1",
          "ipa_admin_username": "ipaadmin",
          "ipa_admin_password": "my-secret-password"
      }' \
    ipa-client-enroll-flavour.yml
  

Inputs

Dependencies

💡 Upon execution, a SBOM (SPDX format) is auto-generated and stored in the VM's file system root directory (see /sbom.json).