httpd

Ansible role `httpd`

A simple Ansible role for installing and configuring the Apache web server for RHEL/CentOS 7. Specifically, the responsibilities of this role are to:

Install the necessary packages;
Maintain the main configuration file;
Maintain the configuration file for mod_ssl. The default settings are based on the recommendations of Mozilla's SSL Configuration Generator;
Install custom certificate files;
Enable and maintain the configuration file for mod_status.

No virtual hosts or other features are provided. Other roles, if added, will create vhosts as needed as well as add additional modules.

Requirements

The firewall settings are not considered to be a concern of this role. You can use another role for this, e.g. clusterapps.rh-base.

Dependencies

No dependencies.

Role Variables

None of the variables below are required

Variable	Default	Comments
`httpd_access_log`	logs/access_log	Location of the access log file (http)
`httpd_access_log_ssl`	logs/ssl_access_log	Location of the access log file (https)
`httpd_document_root`	'/var/www/html'	Path to the document root (directory containing html files)
`httpd_error_log`	logs/error_log	Location of the error log file (http)
`httpd_error_log_ssl`	logs/ssl_error_log	Location of the error log file (https)
`httpd_extended_status`	on	Enable extended status info (see `httpd_status_enable`)
`httpd_listen_ssl`	443	Port number for https connections
`httpd_listen`	80	Port number for http connections
`httpd_log_level_ssl`	warn	Verbosity of the https logs
`httpd_log_level`	warn	Verbosity of the http logs
`httpd_server_admin`	root@localhost	E-mail address of the server administrator
`httpd_server_name`	-	Hostname that the server uses to identify itself
`httpd_server_root`	'/etc/httpd'	Directory containing configuration files
`httpd_server_tokens`	Prod	See documentation
`httpd_ssl_ca_certificate_file`	-	Name of a CA certificate file. See below, Installing certificates
`httpd_ssl_certificate_chain_file`	-	Name of a certificate chain file. See below, Installing certificates
`httpd_ssl_certificate_file`	localhost.crt	Name of the certificate file. See below, Installing certificates
`httpd_ssl_certificate_key_file`	localhost.key	Name of the certificate key file. See below, Installing certificates
`httpd_ssl_cipher_suite`	...	See default variables
`httpd_ssl_compression`	'off'	When 'on', enables compression on the SSL level (which may cause security issues)
`httpd_ssl_honor_cipher_order`	'on'	When 'on', prefer the server's cipher preference order instead of the client's
`httpd_ssl_protocol`	'all -SSLv3 -TLSv1'	Specifies usable SSL/TLS protocol versions
`httpd_ssl_session_tickets`	'off'	When 'on', enables use of TLS session tickets (which may cause security issues)
`httpd_ssl_stapling_cache`	'shmcb:/var/run/ocsp(128000)'	Configures the OCSP stapling cache (1)
`httpd_ssl_stapling_responder_timeout`	5	Timeout for OCSP stapling queries (1)
`httpd_ssl_stapling_return_responder_errors`	'off'	When 'on', pass stapling related OCSP errors on to client (1)
`httpd_ssl_use_stapling`	'on'	When 'on', enables stapling of OCSP responses in the TLS handshake (1)
`httpd_status_enable`	false	Enable mod_status
`httpd_status_location`	'/server-status'	Location for mod_status status page
`httpd_status_require`	'host localhost'	Access control for mod_status

(1) For more information on Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) stapling, see the Apache documentation, and the section "Certificate Status Request" of RFC 6066

Installing certificates

By default, the role uses the self-signed certificate that is generated when installing mod_ssl. If you want to use a custom certificate, put it in a subdirectory named files/, relative to your main playbook location. Then set the appropriate role variables. For instructions on how to set up your own (self-signed) certificates, see e.g. the CentOS Wiki.

E.g. you have a server key acme-inc.key and certificate file acme-inc.crt. The directory structure should look:

.
├── playbook.yml
└── files
    ├── acme-inc.crt
    └── acme-inc.key

Then, define the role variables in the appropriate location (playbook vars: section, group_vars, or host_vars):

httpd_ssl_certificate_key_file: 'acme-inc.key'
httpd_ssl_certificate_file: 'acme-inc.crt'

The same goes for a certificate chain file and CA certificate file. Ensure they are available in the files/ directory, and define variables httpd_ssl_certificate_chain_file, and httpd_ssl_ca_certificate_file, respectively.

Example Playbook

Comming Soon.

Testing

Coming Soon.

Contributing

Issues, feature requests, ideas are appreciated and can be posted in the Issues section.

Pull requests are also very welcome. The best way to submit a PR is by first creating a fork of this Github project, then creating a topic branch for the suggested change and pushing that branch to your own fork. Github can then easily create a PR based on that branch.