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Ansible NGINX Role

This role installs NGINX (NGINX Open Source), NGINX Plus, NGINX Agent and/or the NGINX Amplify agent on your target host(s).

[!IMPORTANT] This role is still in active development. There may be unidentified issues and the role variables may change as development continues.

Role Requirements

NGINX

Depending on your target NGINX use case, you might need to obtain a license or API key/token before being able to use the role:

Product	Requirements
NGINX	None
NGINX Plus	NGINX Plus license (both a license key and crt files)
NGINX Agent	A compatible control plane and (optionally) an NGINX One SaaS console data plane token
NGINX Amplify	API key found within the NGINX Amplify SaaS console

Ansible

If you want to use this role, you will need to use a supported version of Ansible core and Jinja2 as well as a few Ansible collections.

For ease of use, you can install and/or upgrade Ansible core, Jinja2, and the aforementioned Ansible collections by running the following four commands on your Ansible host:

pip install --upgrade -r https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/ansible-role-nginx/main/.github/workflows/requirements/requirements_ansible.txt
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/ansible-role-nginx/main/.github/workflows/requirements/requirements_collections.yml
ansible-galaxy install --force -r requirements_collections.yml
rm -f requirements_collections.yml

This will also ensure you are deploying/running this role with a fully tested version of the aforementioned packages/collections.

Ansible core

• This role is developed and tested with maintained versions of Ansible core and Python.

  Note: Ansible 2.18 does no longer support the yum module and as such, is not supported by this role until Amazon Linux 2 reaches EoL.

• Instructions on how to install Ansible core can be found in the Ansible docs.

• When using Ansible core, you will also need to install the following Ansible collections:

  ---
  collections:
    - name: ansible.posix
    version: 1.6.2
    - name: community.general
    version: 10.0.1
    - name: community.crypto # Only required if you plan to install NGINX Plus
    version: 2.22.3
    - name: community.docker # Only required if you plan to use Molecule (see below)
    version: 4.1.0
  

• Instructions on how to install Ansible collections can be found in the Ansible collections guide.

• You will need to run this role as a root user using Ansible’s become parameter. Make sure you have set up the appropriate permissions on your target hosts.

[!TIP] You can alternatively install the Ansible community distribution (what is still known Ansible – instead of Ansible core) if you don’t want to manage individual collections.

Jinja2

• This role uses Jinja2 templates. Ansible core installs Jinja2 by default, but depending on your install and/or upgrade path, you might be running an outdated version of Jinja2. The minimum version of Jinja2 required for the role to properly function is 3.1.
• Instructions on how to install Jinja2 can be found in the Jinja2 website.

Testing suite (Optional)

If you want to contribute to this role, you will also need to install Ansible Lint and Molecule.

Ansible Lint (Optional)

• Ansible Lint is used to lint the role for both Ansible best practices and potential Ansible/YAML issues.
• Instructions on how to install Ansible Lint can be found in the Ansible Lint website.

• Once installed, using Ansible Lint is as easy as running:

  ansible-lint
  

• For ease of use, you can install and/or upgrade Ansible Lint by running the following command on your Ansible host:

  pip install -r https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/ansible-role-nginx/main/.github/workflows/requirements/requirements_ansible_lint.txt
  

Molecule (Optional)

• Molecule is used to test the various functionalities of the role.
• Instructions on how to install Molecule can be found in the Molecule website. You will also need to install the Molecule plugins package and the Docker Python SDK.

• To run any of the NGINX Plus Molecule tests, you must first copy your NGINX Plus license to the role’s files/license directory.

  You can alternatively add your NGINX Plus repository certificate and key to the local environment. Run the following commands to export these files as base64-encoded variables and execute the Molecule tests:

  export NGINX_CRT=$( cat <path to your certificate file> | base64 )
  export NGINX_KEY=$( cat <path to your key file> | base64 )
  molecule test -s plus
  

• For ease of use, you can install and/or upgrade Molecule, the Molecule plugins package, and the Docker Python SDK by running the following command on your Ansible host:

  pip install --upgrade -r https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nginxinc/ansible-role-nginx/main/.github/workflows/requirements/requirements_molecule.txt
  

Role Installation

This role can be installed via either Ansible Galaxy (the Ansible community marketplace) or by cloning this repo. Once installed, you will need to include the role in your Ansible playbook using the roles keyword, the import_role module, or the include_role module.

Ansible Galaxy

To install the latest stable release of the role on your system, use:

ansible-galaxy install nginxinc.nginx

Alternatively, if you have already installed the role, you can update the role to the latest release by using:

ansible-galaxy install -f nginxinc.nginx

To use the role, include the following task in your playbook:

- name: Install NGINX
  ansible.builtin.include_role:
    name: nginxinc.nginx

Git

To pull the latest edge commit of the role from GitHub, use:

git clone https://github.com/nginxinc/ansible-role-nginx.git

To use the role, include the following task in your playbook:

- name: Install NGINX
  ansible.builtin.include_role:
    name: <path/to/repo> # e.g. <roles/ansible-role-nginx> if you clone the repo inside your project's roles directory

Platforms

The NGINX Ansible role aims to work on all platforms supported by the latest mainline/stable release of NGINX Open Source, NGINX Plus, NGINX Agent, and the NGINX Amplify agent.

Older releases might work, but keep in mind that NGINX Open Source only actively develops against the latest release of the mainline and stable branches, and NGINX Plus only officially supports releases for two years.

[!NOTE] Due to the release pipeline of the various projects supported by this role, there is usually a short delay between new releases and support for the release in this role.

NGINX Open Source

AlmaLinux:
  - 8
  - 9
Alpine:
  - 3.18
  - 3.19
  - 3.20
Amazon Linux:
  - 2
  - 2023
Debian:
  - bullseye (11)
  - bookworm (12)
Oracle Linux:
  - 8
  - 9
Red Hat:
  - 8
  - 9
Rocky Linux:
  - 8
  - 9
SUSE/SLES:
  - 12
  - 15
Ubuntu:
  - focal (20.04)
  - jammy (22.04)
  - noble (24.04)
  - oracular (24.10)

NGINX Plus

AlmaLinux:
  - 8
  - 9
Alpine:
  - 3.17
  - 3.18
  - 3.19
  - 3.20
Amazon Linux:
  - 2
  - 2023
Debian:
  - bullseye (11)
  - bookworm (12)
FreeBSD:
  - 13
  - 14
Oracle Linux:
  - 8.1+
  - 9
Red Hat:
  - 8.1+
  - 9
Rocky Linux:
  - 8
  - 9
SUSE/SLES:
  - 12
  - 15
Ubuntu:
  - focal (20.04)
  - jammy (22.04)
  - noble (24.04)

NGINX Agent

AlmaLinux:
  - 8
  - 9
Alpine:
  - 3.17
  - 3.18
  - 3.19
  - 3.20
Amazon Linux:
  - 2
  - 2023
Debian:
  - bullseye (11)
  - bookwork (12)
FreeBSD:
  - 13
  - 14
Oracle Linux:
  - 8
  - 9
Red Hat:
  - 8
  - 9
Rocky Linux:
  - 8
  - 9
SUSE/SLES:
  - 12
  - 15
Ubuntu:
  - focal (20.04)
  - jammy (22.04)
  - noble (24.04)

NGINX Amplify Agent

Amazon Linux:
  - 2
Debian:
  - buster (10)
  - bullseye (11)
Red Hat:
  - 8
  - 9
Ubuntu:
  - bionic (18.04)
  - focal (20.04)
  - jammy (22.04)

[!WARNING] At your own risk, you can also use this role to compile NGINX Open Source from source, install NGINX Open Source on “compatible” yet unsupported platforms, install NGINX from your respective distribution package manager, or install NGINX Open Source on BSD systems.

Role Variables

This role has multiple variables. The descriptions and defaults for all these variables can be found in the defaults/main/ directory in the following files:

Name	Description
main.yml	NGINX installation variables
agent.yml	NGINX Agent installation variables
amplify.yml	NGINX Amplify agent installation variables
bsd.yml	BSD installation variables
logrotate.yml	Logrotate configuration variables
selinux.yml	SELinux configuration variables
systemd.yml	Systemd configuration variables

Similarly, descriptions and defaults for preset variables can be found in the vars/ directory in the following files:

Name	Description
main.yml	List of supported NGINX platforms, modules, and Linux installation variables

Example Playbooks

Working functional playbook examples can be found in the molecule/ folder in the following files:

Name	Description
agent/converge.yml	Install and configure NGINX Agent to connect to the NGINX One SaaS control plane on F5 Distributed Cloud
amplify/converge.yml	Install and configure the NGINX Amplify agent
default/converge.yml	Install a specific version of NGINX, install various NGINX supported modules, tweak systemd and set up logrotate
distribution/converge.yml	Install NGINX from the distribution’s package repository instead of NGINX’s package repository
downgrade/converge.yml	Downgrade to a specific version of NGINX
downgrade-plus/converge.yml	Downgrade to a specific version of NGINX Plus
plus/converge.yml	Install NGINX Plus and various NGINX Plus supported modules
source/converge.yml	Install NGINX from source
stable/converge.yml	Install NGINX using the latest stable release
uninstall/converge.yml	Uninstall NGINX
uninstall-plus/converge.yml	Uninstall NGINX Plus
upgrade/converge.yml	Upgrade NGINX
upgrade-plus/converge.yml	Upgrade NGINX Plus
version/converge.yml	Install a specific version of NGINX and various NGINX modules

[!NOTE] If you install this repository via Ansible Galaxy, you will need to replace the include_role variable in the example playbooks from ansible-role-nginx to nginxinc.nginx.

Other NGINX Ansible Collections and Roles

You can find the Ansible NGINX Core collection of roles to install and configure NGINX Open Source, NGINX Plus, and NGINX App Protect here.

You can find the Ansible NGINX configuration role to configure NGINX here.

You can find the Ansible NGINX App Protect role to install and configure NGINX App Protect WAF and NGINX App Protect DoS here.

License

Apache License, Version 2.0

Author Information

Alessandro Fael Garcia

Grzegorz Dzien

Tom Gamull

© F5, Inc. 2018 - 2024