7. You can take the following example to understand exactly what it is to be explicit while writing Ansible tasks. Users should run roles with limited parameter variables and emphasize convention over configuration. You can also use multiple passwords on a single vault ID. The Ansible control host will be in the internal LAN and will not be accessible from outside, but I think this is not enough. Instead of the above, you can write the task like the example below. . Thanks for contributing an answer to Server Fault! A side note: Try to never create an account called some word (like "ansible" or "admin" or "cluster" or "management" or "operator") if it has a password. Furthermore, hands-on labs and practical experience in automating configurations on Ansible can help you learn the best practices effectively. In such cases, you can use the no_log option. while documenting roles is the use of a template created through ansible-galaxy init. Users should use the template for describing the role and the function and explaining the variables used. How to secure it and avoid it to become a "single point of attack"? By adding the name attribute, users could find out about the activity of the playbook. On the other hand, maintaining explicitness in the tasks provides a better sense of direction to a project. In addition, the examples in the module documentation should follow the YAML syntax. The applications of Ansible in DevOps and the best ways to obtain the most out of Ansible are numerous. Another mention inAnsible security best practicesrefers to verification of compliance. The foremost best practice for using Ansible is to understand the philosophy underlying the design of Ansible. Ansible would repeatedly apply the same security configuration with only necessary changes for reverting the system to compliance. Lets understand the advantages and disadvantages of Ansible. (This textbox essentially becomes /home/ansible/.ssh/authorized_keys). let Ansible use the root user (with its public key saved in, create a unprivileged user dedicated for Ansible with sudo access, let the Ansible user to run every commands through sudo specifying a password (which is unique needs to be known by every sysadmin which uses Ansible to control that servers), let the Ansible user to run every commands through sudo without specifying any password. Documentation of roles is also one of the important aspects of improving the user experience with Ansible. indicate that you should look for playbooks and roles before writing them. It only takes a minute to sign up. In addition, the examples in the module documentation should follow the YAML syntax. Therefore, users should continue experimenting with different approaches to leverage the maximum potential of Ansibles power and simplicity. :-). The decoupling of roles follows the assumptions that play make. The next addition to this list ofAnsible best practicesrefers to improving role usability. Filtering instances returned by the dynamic inventory sources in the controller, 29.14. Choose technology (i.e., database, or languages) that have traditionally had fewer problems, and then code with security at front-of-mind. Don't let ansible be root. Backup and Restoration Considerations, 25.3. Whizlabs Education INC. All Rights Reserved. Troubleshooting Error: provided hosts list is empty, 29.2. Preparing for an Ansible interview? Announcing the Stacks Editor Beta release! Keep up with the latest updates and trends in the industry. How to prepare for Google Cloud Certifications ? Generally, Ansible Galaxy always has a role for common software. The objective could either be the filename or some other additional documentation source. The addition of a name with a helpful description that humans can understand is ideal for communicating the intent of plays or tasks. Therefore, the following list of best practices would also include references to ideal measures for security on Ansible. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. The documentation of modules is also a crucial aspect ofAnsible best practices. While it all sounds very manual, the level of human communication and interaction required ensures that everyone who has the new keys is physically aware of the changes. Copyright 2021. ansible isurface How to Create CI/CD Pipeline Inside Jenkins ? To fix this, it is good practice to employ git hooks to ignore certain types of files unless it has been prefixed by. So, what is the best choice: The bastion host (the ansible control center) belongs to a separate subnet. If the Ansible content is properly optimized, then it could also serve as the documentation for workflow automation. PMI, PMBOK Guide, PMP, PMI-RMP,PMI-PBA,CAPM,PMI-ACP andR.E.P. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. To fix this, it is good practice to employ git hooks to ignore certain types of files unless it has been prefixed by VAULT_. Therefore, the user could easily describe automation jobs in simple English. Convert all small words (2-3 characters) to upper case with awk or sed. Backup and Restore for Clustered Environments, 26. Ansible is ideal for multi-tier deployments, thereby aligning with the clouds basic structure precisely, which is increasing the demand for an, The only proven approach to use Ansible to its full potential is by referring to the best practices recommended by experts. As you point out, the real threat vectors here are what happens if an attacker gains control of that machine and uses it to deploy their own user accounts and (public) keys. In a controller context, any controller system administrator or superuser account can edit, change, and update any inventory or automation definition in the controller. The only proven approach to use Ansible to its full potential is by referring to the best practices recommended by experts. This might come in the form of a file path to a secret key, or a prompt for the user to type in the password. All you have to do is to learn how to be better at Ansible! Best Practice for Documentation of Roles, Documentation of roles is also one of the important aspects of improving the user experience with Ansible. That means that once an Ansible playbook is launched (via the controller, or directly on the command line), the playbook, inventory, and credentials provided to Ansible are considered to be the source of truth. is quite clear here! A little of both, you can use your laptop to connect to servers VIA a bastion host. View a listing of all ansible_ variables, 29.8. 1. To force Ansible to decrypt only if both the vault ID and password pairing match, you need to set the config option to DEFAULT_VAULT_ID_MATCH. LDAP is kind of a pain to install (research pam_ldap and nss_ldap), but we have built in tools to integrate in seconds with Ansible, Chef, Puppet, etc. Users could improve the safeguards of their Ansible configurations by integrating Ansible Towers data collection with general logging and analytics providers. For example, your secret key encryptions inside the vault can have the same vault ID but different passwords for each instance. To force Ansible to decrypt only if both the vault ID and password pairing match, you need to set the config option to, A different ID can be set with the rekeyed files through, I agree to receive email updates from Secure Coding. The use of source control, branching, and mandatory code review is best practice for Ansible automation. Find the, 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator', 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator', 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator', 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator', Starting, Stopping, and Restarting the Controller, Automation Controller Administration Guide v4.2.0, 1. It doesnt matter if the vault ID is dev, if the password matches prod, Ansible will still decrypt it against the prod encryption. This will increase your audit logs and make it easier to track and trace down issues to the source if they ever arise. Is it permissible to walk along a taxiway at an uncontrolled airport to reach airport facilities? Find out more about our privacy policy. An application is only as secure as the underlying system. In other words, not that much. Its an open-source software provisioning tool that lets you configure and manage application deployments in an automated manner. One of the best ways to get the best of Ansible is to look for re-using existing roles. Without an explicit declaration of the owner and group of the file, the owner is generally the user executing Ansible. This will increase your audit logs and make it easier to track and trace down issues to the source if they ever arise. Ansible ssh as user and execute has root (expect like), How to remember/cache or specify private key passphrase for Ansible, -bash: ansible-playbook: command not found. One stupid mail, one stupid flash vulnerability, one stupid guest Wifi and it gets pwned. You can have multiple vaults with different passwords attached to a particular encrypted file. Changing the Controller Admin Password, 29.3. Users should always verify the security configuration on Ansible frequently. Let us find out the particular concerns regarding productivity in the case of roles and then in the case of modules. What is the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange and How Does it Work. Ideally, create a standard user dedicated to server-to-server/ansible communications with sudo access (without password). Generally, Ansible Galaxy always has a role for common software. I am going to introduce Ansible into my data center, and I'm looking for some security best practice on where to locate the control machine and how to manage the SSH keys. Credentials used by automation can be different than credentials used by system administrators for disaster-recovery or other ad-hoc management, allowing for easier auditing. The following discussion presents a collection of the ten most important. It is recommended that automation controller be configured to use whatever IDS and/or logging/auditing (Splunk) is standard in your environment. Also, if you leave SSH at its defaults, those passwords can be brute forced, which makes the keys somewhat meaningless. Roles allow for reuse and collaboration of general automation workflows and configurations. Therefore, you can find diverse illustrations of, from multiple sources. It's up to you if personal accounts allow login on password, ssh key only, or require both. You can consider the example of a play and the standard Ansible output in the image below. are not ideal for writing code. This means that it is often used from provisioning resources, configuration management, app deployments, continuous delivery, along with implementing security and compliance policies on servers. Without the no_log: true, you can find the following output. . How to run Kubernetes on AWS A detailed Guide! It does this through the vault ID. Starting, Stopping, and Restarting the Controller, 7.3. Controller admins can leverage Django to set password policies at creation time via AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS to validate controller user passwords. 10. The return responses should be in the module documentation with a comprehensive description. By adding the no_log- option to a task, there will be no logs of the output. How to Improve the Usability of Roles? Ansible best practicesindicate that you should look for playbooks and roles before writing them. Ansibles task-based nature helps in easier content writing with tools such as STIGMA and OpenSCAP for verifying automation. Bring in outside/independent penetration testing and run bug bounties to make sure you are following those best practices on an on-going basis. 468). It is also good to note that the vault ID merely serves as a password hint, rather than a hard-line enforcer that needs to be matched. @Mat, agreed completely - as I said below, you really don't need Userify or any similar tool until your team gets larger. In addition, users should also describe the required dependencies alongside examples. For ansible, let every admin use their own personal account on each target server, and let them sudo with passwords. A Combination of the following authentications: Lastly, you mentioned nothing about windows. Ansible, an open-source automation platform, has been a prominent introduction in the DevOps movement. Does a self-build random 256-key based on substition and permutation have the same power as an AES-key? This might come in the form of a file path to a secret key, or a prompt for the user to type in the password. This will help ensure that you are truly meeting 'best practices'. If an automation credential is only stored in the controller, it can be further secured. At a higher level, many tools exist that allow for creation of approvals and policy-based actions around arbitrary workflows, including automation; these tools can then use Ansible via the controllers API to perform automation. is where it obtains its password. How to achieve full scale deflection on a 30A ammeter with 5V voltage? Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform docs are generated using Sphinx using a theme provided by Read the Docs. Site design / logo 2022 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. It is also good to note that the vault ID merely serves as a password hint, rather than a hard-line enforcer that needs to be matched. If the best practice is to use my laptop (which could be stolen, of course, but I could have my public keys securely saved online in the cloud or offline on a portable crypted device), what if I need to use some web interfaces with Ansible, like Ansible Tower, Semaphore, Rundeck or Foreman which needs to be installed on a centralised machine into the datacenter? 3. Ansible plays, and. Ansible helps in modeling the cloud IT infrastructure with a description of inter-relation between all systems. If an attacker has access to the control machine, it potentially has access to the whole data center (or to the servers managed by Ansible). How can we determine if there is actual encryption and what type of encryption on messaging apps? Playbooks arent showing up in the Job Template drop-down, 28.11. Ansible Vault is an encryption tool that lets you create and view encrypted variables, files, encrypt existing files, edit, re-key, and decrypt files using standard symmetric encryption (AES-256). How to secure it and avoid it to become a "single point of attack"? Would it be possible to use Animate Objects as an energy source? What are best practices for managing SSH keys in a team? We generally recommend local installation rather than using cloud, since you have increased control, reduce your surface area, you can really lock it down to just known trusted networks. The control machine has public SSH keys saved on it. Isolation functionality and variables, 18.1. Ansible plays, andAnsible rolesare not ideal for writing code. automation controller includes built-in logging integrations for Elastic Stack, Splunk, Sumologic, Loggly, and more. 6. ansible guru The important thing to remember is that, in a properly built system like this, there really shouldn't be any significant secrets that can be leaked to an attacker. Geometry nodes - Why is "mesh to curve" extending the selection of nodes? Then invite your humans and they can create and manage their own keys as well and everything stays separated. Another good security practice for Ansible when it comes to admin accounts is to avoid generic names like admin and ansible. Furthermore, this practice also supports the use of list-tasks switch in the ansible-playbook.. By browsing this site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. How to Install Jenkins on Amazon EC2 (Amazon Linux AMI) ? Users should use ansible-galaxy init for creating the initial directory layout while creating their role and adhere to it. The label is your vault ID and the source is where it obtains its password. Why? If policies are desired around external verification of specific playbook content, job definition, or inventory contents, these processes must be undertaken before the automation is launched (whether via the controller web UI, or the controller API). A user could see the function of the play without knowing the contents of the play. There are many tools that can help create process flow around using source control in this manner. Everything looks great until you get some smart and highly motivated people banging on it once that's finished, you'll have a great deal of confidence in your solution. That is dealing with secrets and ultimately will undermine your security (you can't really vary that sudo password between machines very easily, you have to store it somewhere, the password means you can't really do server-to-server automation which is exactly what it is all about. If you need to communicate w the control computer, you VPN into that subnet. Question 2: the SSH keys May 31st, 2021 We of course need a control machine. with passwords for super admin access. Meet security standards. The ALLOW_JINJA_IN_EXTRA_VARS variable, 29.12. Select identifiers that can be tracked and traced back to a person. If you are using the template- module and the file has passwords and other sensitive data, then you would not want them in the Ansible output. We recommend all customers of automation controller select a secure default administrator password at time of installation. Server Fault is a question and answer site for system and network administrators. Another good security practice for Ansible when it comes to admin accounts is to avoid generic names like. Many audits scoff at this. Its easy to create an Ansible orchestration but this isnt the main focus for this article. Using an unreleased module from Ansible source with the controller, 29.15. You have entered an incorrect email address! Maybe someone has already done that! Roles also imply the enforcement of standards and policies by default. Furthermore, users should always maintain a role such that it is easy to develop, test, and use with better speed and security. Therefore, there is no clarity regarding the objective of the play. Users should always verify the security configuration on Ansible frequently. This way no password is shared between two people. Herere some How-tos to MAXIMIZE YOUR ANSIBLE SKILLS. View Ansible outputs for JSON commands when using the controller, 29.6. Also, avoid use of root user for any purpose, and especially remote login. Therefore, you can find diverse illustrations of Ansible best practices from multiple sources. So I can only assume you are not using this. You can check who did what on each server. Ansible does not implement any agents or additional custom security infrastructure. They encourage users to focus on the design of the automation process. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Users can express modules as Python or PowerShell code, and an Ansible task can call modules. By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. Services such as OpenSSH can be configured to only allow credentials on connections from specific addresses. When you run this command, it will ask you for the original password and the new password. As noted above, Ansible does not have a custom security infrastructure. When something is easy to boot up, it is also usually prone to security risks. You can take the following example to understand exactly what it is to be explicit while writing Ansible tasks. The roles also provide complete lifecycle management for service, container, or microservice. The owner of this username is then responsible for its safekeeping. Furthermore, Ansible also offers flexibility for deployment and uses the simple YAML language in its Playbooks. This is because default settings are usually used, or bad practices implemented because the developer hasnt considered the security repercussions. have some sort of relation to the philosophy behind Ansible. So, why go through all the effort? In the custom.py file located at /etc/tower/conf.d of your controller instance, add the following code block example: For more information, see Password management in Django in addition to the example posted above. Maintain Explicitness while Writing Tasks. Sanitize all incoming data, even from trusted users. People could not know about the exact objective of the tasks. The certification names are the trademarks of their respective owners. Without an explicit declaration of the owner and group of the file, the owner is generally the user executing Ansible. A system administrator/root user can access, edit, and disrupt any system application. Using callback plugins with the controller, 29.17. The examples should have common and general practical uses. What was the large green yellow thing streaking across the sky? If you are using the template- module and the file has passwords and other sensitive data, then you would not want them in the Ansible output. These can take many forms. . This means that if you have an encryption for a dev and prod instance, and the password for one of these is correct it will still work. Select identifiers that can be tracked and traced back to a person. An unprivileged user that you can audit back to ansible, with sudo roles. Thinking to adopt Ansible as a configuration management tool? I'm not sure how "ansible" specific best practices differ from any other ssh connection best practices But no, you want to run ansible as yourself, not a service account and not a root account. Using this eliminates a source of error when working with permissions. Understand the architecture of Ansible and the controller, 17. There are two prominent reasons to follow this best practice. This means that keys cannot be revoked only changed. First of all, Ansible reduces complexity through the design of tools, and it also encourages users to do the same. The in-built vault system adds another layer of security on top of all the other security measures you already have. In the past, Ive used Ansible to boot up backup instances and orchestrate infrastructure recoveries via AWS. However, Ansible isnt just limited to Amazon Web Services. In such cases, you can use the no_log option. Assume that I need to use Ansible to make some tasks which require to be executed by root (like installing software packages or something like this). However, it also increases the maintenance of passwords and management of these passwords over time. For the system overall, this can be done via the built in audit support (https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Security_Guide/chap-system_auditing.html) and via the built-in logging support. 5. Logo are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. But, if Ansible needs to make almost every task, it needs to have access to every commands through sudo. Users should not expose sensitive data in the Ansible output. Use things that tend toward simplicity if they are newer, since simplicity makes it harder to conceal deep bugs. However, Ansible doesnt require a single target login name. Good luck! The most important recommendation in the philosophy of Ansible is the suitability of diverse approaches. Also, it's free for <20 servers. , Ansible will still decrypt it against the, encryption. This means that admins can have their own personal account on each target server, with the ability to. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. I think you're definitely going about this the right way and asking the right questions. Only a human being can be responsible for the actions done via the account and responsible for improperly securing their password, "ansible" cannot. It can also be integrated into your Docker instances, Rackspace and OpenStack. Here is the command to set the vault ID before you start encrypting your sensitive data. However, Ansible doesnt require a single target login name. For example, we selected X25519/NaCl (libsodium) over AES for our encryption layer (we encrypt everything, at rest and in motion), because it was originally designed and written by someone we trusted (DJB et al) and was reviewed by world-renowned researchers like Schneier and Google's security team. To clarify ansible doesn't require to use a single target login name. If someone drives a forklift into your datacenter and walks away with your server, they won't get a whole lot except for some heavily hashed passwords, probably some heavily encrypted files, and some public keys without their corresponding private keys. harden devops geekflare You can enroll in the Ansible Basics training course to explore additional information about Ansible. See Logging and Aggregation for more information. You can notice that almost all. Different pieces of automation may need to access a system at different levels. She is a developer advocate and community builder, helping others navigate their journeys and careers as developers. On the other hand, maintaining explicitness in the tasks provides a better sense of direction to a project.