Installing and configuring a web server

Now that we have made some generic changes to the operating system, let's move on to actually creating a web server. We are splitting those two phases so that we can share the first phase between every machine and apply the second only to web servers.

For this second phase, we will create a new playbook called webserver.yaml with the following content:

--- 
- hosts: all 
  remote_user: ansible
  tasks: 
    - name: Ensure the HTTPd package is installed 
      yum: 
        name: httpd 
        state: present 
      become: True 
    - name: Ensure the HTTPd service is enabled and running 
      service: 
        name: httpd 
        state: started 
        enabled: True 
      become: True 
    - name: Ensure HTTP can pass the firewall 
      firewalld: 
        service: http 
        state: enabled 
        permanent: True 
        immediate: True 
      become: True 
    - name: Ensure HTTPS can pass the firewall 
      firewalld: 
        service: https 
        state: enabled 
        permanent: True 
        immediate: True 
      become: True  

As you can see, the first two tasks are the same as the ones in the example at the beginning of this chapter, and the last two tasks are used to instruct FirewallD to let the HTTP and HTTPS traffic pass.

Let's run this script with the following:

$ ansible-playbook -i test01.fale.io, webserver.yaml  

This results in the following:

PLAY [all] *************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *************************************
ok: [test01.fale.io]

TASK [Ensure the HTTPd package is installed] ***************
ok: [test01.fale.io]

TASK [Ensure the HTTPd service is enabled and running] *****
ok: [test01.fale.io]

TASK [Ensure HTTP can pass the firewall] *******************
changed: [test01.fale.io]

TASK [Ensure HTTPS can pass the firewall] ******************
changed: [test01.fale.io]

PLAY RECAP *************************************************
test01.fale.io      : ok=5 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 

Now that we have a web server, let's publish a small, single-page, static website.