How-to: Hetzner Cloud Ansible modules

Introduction

In this how-to you will learn to use the hcloud Ansible modules. This includes how to create and delete resources and how to do more complex scenarios like attaching a volume to a server.

Prerequisites

Hetzner Cloud API Token
- Visit Hetzner Cloud Console at https://console.hetzner.cloud, select your project, and create a new API Token.
Basic knowledge about the Hetzner Cloud
- knowing what a server, an image, a server type and a volume is
Ansible 2.8 is installed and you have basic knowledge about it
hcloud-python installed (pip install hcloud)

Step 1 – Basic Usage

In Ansible you can control your infrastructure with yaml files. They describe the state of your infrastructure. These files are called “Roles”. Every role can have tasks. A task is something like “create a server”, “run a command on the server” or something else. You can control ansible with the ansible command.

To use the module, a task like the following is needed:

hcloud_server:
      api_token: "YOUR_API_TOKEN"
      name: my-server
      server_type: cx11
      image: ubuntu-18.04
      state: present

All Hetzner Cloud modules are built into Ansible 2.8!

Step 2 – Create a server

You have learned something about the basic usage of Ansible. Now we will show you, how you can create a new server with the hcloud-server module. First of all, you should save the following YAML as hcloud-server.yml.

---
- name: Create Basic Server
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: False
  user: root
  vars:
    hcloud_token: YOUR_API_TOKEN
  tasks:
    - name: Create a basic server
      hcloud_server:
          api_token: "{{ hcloud_token }}"
          name: my-server
          server_type: cx11
          image: ubuntu-18.04
          state: present
      register: server

The snippet will create a new server called my-server with the server type cx11 and the image ubuntu-18.04, the state is present so the module will create the server. When you run ansible-playbook -v hcloud-server.yml you should get an output similar to this below:

PLAY [Create a Basic Server] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Create a basic server] ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "hcloud_server": {"backup_window": "None", "datacenter": "nbg1-dc3", "id": "2505729", "image": "ubuntu-18.04", "ipv4_address": "<10.0.0.1>", "ipv6": "<2001:db8:1234::/64>", "labels": {}, "location": "nbg1", "name": "my-server", "rescue_enabled": false, "server_type": "cx11", "status": "running"}, "root_password": "xrLvkKwXTxNnECACdCEf"}


PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

Congratulations! You have created your first Hetzner Cloud server with the hcloud_server– Ansible module! You should now see a server in your Hetzner Cloud Console.

Step 3 – Create a volume and attach it to a server

Now we create a server and a attach a volume to it. The following snippet creates a server (the server from Step 2!) and create a new volume wich will be attached to the server. Save the following snippet as hcloud-server-volume.yml.

---
- name: Create a Server and a Volume with server
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: False
  user: root
  vars:
    hcloud_token: YOUR_API_TOKEN
  tasks:
    - name: Create a basic server
      hcloud_server:
          api_token: "{{ hcloud_token }}"
          name: my-server
          server_type: cx11
          image: ubuntu-18.04
          state: present
      register: server
    - name: Create a volume
      hcloud_volume:
          api_token: "{{ hcloud_token }}"
          name: my-volume
          size: 10
          server: "{{ server.hcloud_server.name }}"
          state: present

When you now run ansible-playbook -v hcloud-server-volume.yml you will get a similar output like this:

PLAY [Create a Server and a Volume with server] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Create a basic server] ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "hcloud_server": {"backup_window": "None", "datacenter": "nbg1-dc3", "id": "2505729", "image": "ubuntu-18.04", "ipv4_address": "<10.0.0.1>", "ipv6": "<2001:db8:1234::/64>", "labels": {}, "location": "nbg1", "name": "my-server", "rescue_enabled": false, "server_type": "cx11", "status": "running"}, "root_password": "xrLvkKwXTxNnECACdCEf"}

TASK [Create a volume] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "hcloud_volume": {"id": "2489399", "labels": {}, "location": "nbg1", "name": "my-volume", "server": "my-server", "size": 10}}

PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

You have created a server and an attached volume!

Conclusion

You now have a basic overview of the Hetzner Cloud Ansible modules. We covered how you can create and delete resources and how to do more complex scenarios like attaching a volume to a server. You can find more help on the official documentation. If you need further help, just open an issue on our Github Repository.

Reprint:https://community.hetzner.com/tutorials/howto-hcloud-ansible