LXD Container Ansible Role

This role helps manage LXD/LXC containers on a remote Linux Container Host. For more information, visit: Ubuntu Containers - LXD

Requirements

• You need LXD version 2.0 or higher installed on both the LXD host and the Ansible server. It usually comes pre-installed with Ubuntu 16.04.

• LXD should be set up on the remote host using the command sudo lxd init or by using an Ansible Role like juju4/lxd.

• To let Ansible manage the LXD host from a distance, run the following commands beforehand:

On the remote LXD host:

$ lxc config set core.https_address [::]:8443
$ lxc config set core.trust_password replace-this-with-a-secure-password

On the Ansible host:

$ lxc config set core.https_address [::]:8443

$ lxc remote add lxd4 lxd4.example.com

(remember to replace lxd4.example.com with your actual LXD host's hostname; you can name 'lxd4' whatever you like for your inventory file)

• This role has been tested on both the LXD and Ansible host running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but it might also work on other distributions.

Role Variables

You can find more information about these variables here: Ansible LXD Container Module

• state: started (default), stopped, restarted, absent, frozen
• type: image (default)
• mode: pull (default)
• server: https://images.linuxcontainers.org (default)
• protocol: lxd (default)
• alias: ubuntu/xenial/amd64 (default)
• wait_for_ipv4_addresses: true (default)
• timeout: 600 (default)

Additional Variables:

• public_key: "{{ lookup('file','~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub') }}" (default) - path to the public SSH key to install in the container
• enable_ssh: true (default) - installs and enables the OpenSSH server in the container.
• lxd_host: your LXD container host

Dependencies

None

Installation

To install the role, use the following command:

$ ansible-galaxy install ahnooie.lxd-container

Example

The example below shows how to install 6 containers with different Linux distributions on the LXD host lxd4.example.com. It also installs Python, adds a public SSH key for the root user, and starts the SSH service on each container.

Inventory File Example

# Remote LXD Host
[lxd]
lxd4.example.com ansible_user=root

# Containers on LXD Hosts
[linux-containers]
ubuntu01.example.com ansible_host=lxd4:ubuntu01 alias=ubuntu/xenial/amd64
centos01.example.com ansible_host=lxd4:centos01 alias=centos/7/amd64
centos02.example.com ansible_host=lxd4:centos02 alias=centos/6/amd64
debian01.example.com ansible_host=lxd4:debian01 alias=debian/stretch/amd64
fedora01.example.com ansible_host=lxd4:fedora01 alias=fedora/27/amd64

[linux-containers:vars]
ansible_connection=lxd
lxd_host=lxd4.example.com

Playbook Example (containers.yml)

---
- hosts: linux-containers
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    public_key: "{{ lookup('file','public_keys/id_rsa.pub') }}"
  roles:
  - ahnooie.lxd-container

Running the Playbook

You can run the playbook using the following command:

$ ansible-playbook -i inventory containers.yml

License

MIT

Author Information

Created by Benjamin Bryan