Hostname Monitor Service

This project showing how to provision, deploy and run script as service on both Linux and Windows.

File Details

• .gitignore - Git ignore file.
• ansible.cfg - Ansible configuration to configure the inventory details
• host-monitor.service - Linux based service file for configuring the service
• hosts - Inventory file for Ansible to have the server details where the service will be deployed
• Jenkinsfile - Jenkins pipeline file to create the service on both windows and linux
• playbook.yml - Ansible playbook to deploy copy the files and to create the service on both windows and linux
• process.py - Simple python script to print hostname and date stamp
• README.md - This file

CI/CD Pipeline Flow

Github -> Jenkins with Ansible (on linux) -> Target (Windows/Linux Server)

Ansible can be installed on a different server like below but for this project the above flow is used by having Jenkins and Anisble on same linux server.

Github -> Jenkins (on linux) -> Ansible (linux) -> Target (Windows/Linux Server)

Prerequisites

Github

• Nothing required

Jenkins

• Install Git for checkout repo during build.
• Install python sudo yum install python3 -y as it required for Ansible.
• Install Ansible sudo yum install python3 -y and add ansible bin directory /usr/local/bin to Environment variable PATH
• Make sure the SSH keys used to connect linux target servers is under /var/lib/jenkins/.ssh/ with owner as jenkins for user and group with required permission.
• Create pipeline to use Jenkinsfile file from Github repo.
• Add credentials to Jenkins if the repo is private and configure it in pipeline.
• Configure the pipeline to have listed parameters to be passed on each build.
• Install WinRM which is used by Ansible for connecting to Windows. You can use sudo pip3 install pywinrm for linux host.

Parameter type: Choice, Parameter Name: host, Paramater Value: ['linux','windows']; // This is deciding which target the pipeline should be executed. It can be either windows or linux, but not both.
Parameter type: Credentials, Parameter Name: git_credential, Paramater Value: <User name and password of git repo>; // Configured it in Jenkins
Parameter type: String, Parameter Name: git_branch, Paramater Value: <Branch of git repo>; // master
Parameter type: String, Parameter Name: git_repo_url, Paramater Value: <Clone URL of git repo>;
Parameter type: Text, Parameter Name: host_details, Paramater Value: <[linux]\nlinux1.com\nlinux2.com \nOR\n [windows]\nwin1.com\nwin2.com>;

Ansible

• No seperate configuration for Ansible as we covered it in above section.

Linux Targets

• No seperate configs but esnure the SSH connectivity from Jenkins

Windows Targets

• Create new user name and password with Admin rights which will be used to connect by ansible to connect and run playbook.
• Configure WinRM if not already done. Details on how to configure is available in https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/windows_setup.html#winrm-setup.

Implementation

• Implementation is simple. Change the target server details on hosts file. For Linux server add hostname below [linux] and windows server below [windows]. Once done push it to repo and configure it to consumed by Jenkins pipeline to read the file Jenkinsfile. Ensure the other parameter values are also given if default value are not set for those.

Assumption/Key Details

• User/SSH details for bot linux and windows hosts are already configured.
• Linux user used here is ec2-user
• Windows user used here is Test
• Script and log will be available in /app/ for Linux targets
• Script and log will be available in C:\Process\ for Linux targets
• Linux service name host-monitor.service
• Windows service name Hostname Monitor