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      How to Use Ansible to Install and Set Up Docker on Ubuntu 18.04


      Introduction

      With the popularization of containerized applications and microservices, server automation now plays an essential role in systems administration. It is also a way to establish standard procedures for new servers and reduce human error.

      This guide explains how to use Ansible to automate the steps contained in our guide on How To Install and Use Docker on Ubuntu 18.04. Docker is an application that simplifies the process of managing containers, resource-isolated processes that behave in a similar way to virtual machines, but are more portable, more resource-friendly, and depend more heavily on the host operating system.

      While you can complete this setup manually, using a configuration management tool like Ansible to automate the process will save you time and establish standard procedures that can be repeated through tens to hundreds of nodes. Ansible offers a simple architecture that doesn’t require special software to be installed on nodes, and it provides a robust set of features and built-in modules which facilitate writing automation scripts.

      Pre-Flight Check

      In order to execute the automated setup provided by the playbook discussed in this guide, you’ll need:

      Testing Connectivity to Nodes

      To make sure Ansible is able to execute commands on your nodes, run the following command from your Ansible Control Node:

      This command will use Ansible's built-in ping module to run a connectivity test on all nodes from your default inventory file, connecting as the current system user. The ping module will test whether:

      • your Ansible hosts are accessible;
      • your Ansible Control Node has valid SSH credentials;
      • your hosts are able to run Ansible modules using Python.

      If you installed and configured Ansible correctly, you will get output similar to this:

      Output

      server1 | SUCCESS => { "changed": false, "ping": "pong" } server2 | SUCCESS => { "changed": false, "ping": "pong" } server3 | SUCCESS => { "changed": false, "ping": "pong" }

      Once you get a pong reply back from a host, it means you're ready to run Ansible commands and playbooks on that server.

      Note: If you are unable to get a successful response back from your servers, check our Ansible Cheat Sheet Guide for more information on how to run Ansible commands with custom connection options.

      What Does this Playbook Do?

      This Ansible playbook provides an alternative to manually running through the procedure outlined in our guide on How To Install and Use Docker on Ubuntu 18.04.

      Running this playbook will perform the following actions on your Ansible hosts:

      1. Install aptitude, which is preferred by Ansible as an alternative to the apt package manager.
      2. Install the required system packages.
      3. Install the Docker GPG APT key.
      4. Add the official Docker repository to the apt sources.
      5. Install Docker.
      6. Install the Python Docker module via pip.
      7. Pull the default image specified by default_container_image from Docker Hub.
      8. Create the number of containers defined by create_containers field, each using the image defined by default_container_image, and execute the command defined in default_container_command in each new container.

      Once the playbook has finished running, you will have a number of containers created based on the options you defined within your configuration variables.

      How to Use this Playbook

      To get started, we'll download the contents of the playbook to your Ansible Control Node. For your convenience, the contents of the playbook are also included in the next section of this guide.

      Use curl to download this playbook from the command line:

      • curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/do-community/ansible-playbooks/master/docker/ubuntu1804.yml -o docker_ubuntu.yml

      This will download the contents of the playbook to a file named docker_ubuntu.yml in your current working directory. You can examine the contents of the playbook by opening the file with your command-line editor of choice:

      Once you've opened the playbook file, you should notice a section named vars with variables that require your attention:

      docker_ubuntu.yml

      . . .
      vars:
        create_containers: 4
        default_container_name: docker
        default_container_image: ubuntu
        default_container_command: sleep 1d
      . . .
      

      Here's what these variables mean:

      • create_containers: The number of containers to create.
      • default_container_name: Default container name.
      • default_container_image: Default Docker image to be used when creating containers.
      • default_container_command: Default command to run on new containers.

      Once you're done updating the variables inside docker_ubuntu.yml, save and close the file. If you used nano, do so by pressing CTRL + X, Y, then ENTER.

      You're now ready to run this playbook on one or more servers. Most playbooks are configured to be executed on all servers from your inventory, by default. We can use the -l flag to make sure that only a subset of servers, or a single server, is affected by the playbook. To execute the playbook only on server1, you can use the following command:

      • ansible-playbook docker_ubuntu.yml -l server1

      You will get output similar to this:

      Output

      ... TASK [Add Docker GPG apt Key] ******************************************************************************************************************** changed: [server1] TASK [Add Docker Repository] ********************************************************************************************************************* changed: [server1] TASK [Update apt and install docker-ce] ********************************************************************************************************** changed: [server1] TASK [Install Docker Module for Python] ********************************************************************************************************** changed: [server1] TASK [Pull default Docker image] ***************************************************************************************************************** changed: [server1] TASK [Create default containers] ***************************************************************************************************************** changed: [server1] => (item=1) changed: [server1] => (item=2) changed: [server1] => (item=3) changed: [server1] => (item=4) PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************************************** server1 : ok=9 changed=8 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

      Note: For more information on how to run Ansible playbooks, check our Ansible Cheat Sheet Guide.

      When the playbook is finished running, log in via SSH to the server provisioned by Ansible and run docker ps -a to check if the containers were successfully created:

      You should see output similar to this:

      Output

      CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES a3fe9bfb89cf ubuntu "sleep 1d" 5 minutes ago Created docker4 8799c16cde1e ubuntu "sleep 1d" 5 minutes ago Created docker3 ad0c2123b183 ubuntu "sleep 1d" 5 minutes ago Created docker2 b9350916ffd8 ubuntu "sleep 1d" 5 minutes ago Created docker1

      This means the containers defined in the playbook were created successfully. Since this was the last task in the playbook, it also confirms that the playbook was fully executed on this server.

      The Playbook Contents

      You can find the Docker playbook featured in this tutorial in the ansible-playbooks repository within the DigitalOcean Community GitHub organization. To copy or download the script contents directly, click the Raw button towards the top of the script, or click here to view the raw contents directly.

      The full contents are also included here for your convenience:

      docker_ubuntu.yml

      
      ---
      - hosts: all
        become: true
        vars:
          create_containers: 4
          default_container_name: docker
          default_container_image: ubuntu
          default_container_command: sleep 1d
      
        tasks:
          - name: Install aptitude using apt
            apt: name=aptitude state=latest update_cache=yes force_apt_get=yes
      
          - name: Install required system packages
            apt: name={{ item }} state=latest update_cache=yes
            loop: [ 'apt-transport-https', 'ca-certificates', 'curl', 'software-properties-common', 'python3-pip', 'virtualenv', 'python3-setuptools']
      
          - name: Add Docker GPG apt Key
            apt_key:
              url: https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg
              state: present
      
          - name: Add Docker Repository
            apt_repository:
              repo: deb https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic stable
              state: present
      
          - name: Update apt and install docker-ce
            apt: update_cache=yes name=docker-ce state=latest
      
          - name: Install Docker Module for Python
            pip:
              name: docker
      
          # Pull image specified by variable default_image from the Docker Hub
          - name: Pull default Docker image
            docker_image:
              name: "{{ default_container_image }}"
              source: pull
      
          # Creates the number of containers defined by the variable create_containers, using default values
          - name: Create default containers
            docker_container:
              name: "{{ default_container_name }}{{ item }}"
              image: "{{ default_container_image }}"
              command: "{{ default_container_command }}"
              state: present
            with_sequence: count={{ create_containers }}
      
      

      Feel free to modify this playbook to best suit your individual needs within your own workflow. For example, you could use the docker_image module to push images to Docker Hub or the docker_container module to set up container networks.

      Conclusion

      Automating your infrastructure setup can not only save you time, but it also helps to ensure that your servers will follow a standard configuration that can be customized to your needs. With the distributed nature of modern applications and the need for consistency between different staging environments, automation like this has become a central component in many teams' development processes.

      In this guide, we demonstrated how to use Ansible to automate the process of installing and setting up Docker on a remote server. Because each individual typically has different needs when working with containers, we encourage you to check out the official Ansible documentation for more information and use cases of the docker_container Ansible module.

      If you'd like to include other tasks in this playbook to further customize your initial server setup, please refer to our introductory Ansible guide Configuration Management 101: Writing Ansible Playbooks.



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