175 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
175 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
<!--
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title: Deploy Netdata with Ansible
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description: "Deploy an infrastructure monitoring solution in minutes with the Netdata Agent and Ansible. Use and customize a simple playbook for monitoring as code."
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image: /img/seo/guides/deploy/ansible.png
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custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/docs/guides/deploy/ansible.md
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-->
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# Deploy Netdata with Ansible
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Netdata's [one-line kickstart](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/get) is zero-configuration, highly adaptable, and
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compatible with tons of different operating systems and Linux distributions. You can use it on bare metal, VMs,
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containers, and everything in-between.
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But what if you're trying to bootstrap an infrastructure monitoring solution as quickly as possible. What if you need to
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deploy Netdata across an entire infrastructure with many nodes? What if you want to make this deployment reliable,
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repeatable, and idempotent? What if you want to write and deploy your infrastructure or cloud monitoring system like
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code?
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Enter [Ansible](https://ansible.com), a popular system provisioning, configuration management, and infrastructure as
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code (IaC) tool. Ansible uses **playbooks** to glue many standardized operations together with a simple syntax, then run
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those operations over standard and secure SSH connections. There's no agent to install on the remote system, so all you
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have to worry about is your application and your monitoring software.
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Ansible has some competition from the likes of [Puppet](https://puppet.com/) or [Chef](https://www.chef.io/), but the
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most valuable feature about Ansible is that every is **idempotent**. From the [Ansible
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glossary](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/glossary.html)
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> An operation is idempotent if the result of performing it once is exactly the same as the result of performing it
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> repeatedly without any intervening actions.
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Idempotency means you can run an Ansible playbook against your nodes any number of times without affecting how they
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operate. When you deploy Netdata with Ansible, you're also deploying _monitoring as code_.
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In this guide, we'll walk through the process of using an [Ansible
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playbook](https://github.com/netdata/community/tree/main/netdata-agent-deployment/ansible-quickstart) to automatically
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deploy the Netdata Agent to any number of distributed nodes, manage the configuration of each node, and claim them to
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your Netdata Cloud account. You'll go from some unmonitored nodes to a infrastructure monitoring solution in a matter of
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minutes.
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## Prerequisites
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- A Netdata Cloud account. [Sign in and create one](https://app.netdata.cloud) if you don't have one already.
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- An administration system with [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/) installed.
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- One or more nodes that your administration system can access via [SSH public
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keys](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-Generating-Your-SSH-Public-Key) (preferably password-less).
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## Download and configure the playbook
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First, download the
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[playbook](https://github.com/netdata/community/tree/main/netdata-agent-deployment/ansible-quickstart), move it to the
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current directory, and remove the rest of the cloned repository, as it's not required for using the Ansible playbook.
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```bash
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git clone https://github.com/netdata/community.git
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mv community/netdata-agent-deployment/ansible-quickstart .
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rm -rf community
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```
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Next, `cd` into the Ansible directory.
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```bash
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cd ansible-quickstart
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```
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### Edit the `hosts` file
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The `hosts` file contains a list of IP addresses or hostnames that Ansible will try to run the playbook against. The
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`hosts` file that comes with the repository contains two example IP addresses, which you should replace according to the
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IP address/hostname of your nodes.
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```conf
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203.0.113.0 hostname=node-01
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203.0.113.1 hostname=node-02
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```
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You can also set the `hostname` variable, which appears both on the local Agent dashboard and Netdata Cloud, or you can
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omit the `hostname=` string entirely to use the system's default hostname.
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#### Set the login user (optional)
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If you SSH into your nodes as a user other than `root`, you need to configure `hosts` according to those user names. Use
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the `ansible_user` variable to set the login user. For example:
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```conf
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203.0.113.0 hostname=ansible-01 ansible_user=example
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```
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#### Set your SSH key (optional)
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If you use an SSH key other than `~/.ssh/id_rsa` for logging into your nodes, you can set that on a per-node basis in
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the `hosts` file with the `ansible_ssh_private_key_file` variable. For example, to log into a Lightsail instance using
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two different SSH keys supplied by AWS.
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```conf
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203.0.113.0 hostname=ansible-01 ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/.ssh/LightsailDefaultKey-us-west-2.pem
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203.0.113.1 hostname=ansible-02 ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/.ssh/LightsailDefaultKey-us-east-1.pem
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```
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### Edit the `vars/main.yml` file
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In order to claim your node(s) to your Space in Netdata Cloud, and see all their metrics in real-time in [composite
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charts](/docs/visualize/overview-infrastructure.md) or perform [Metric
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Correlations](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/cloud/insights/metric-correlations), you need to set the `claim_token`
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and `claim_room` variables.
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To find your `claim_token` and `claim_room`, go to Netdata Cloud, then click on your Space's name in the top navigation,
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then click on **Manage your Space**. Click on the **Nodes** tab in the panel that appears, which displays a script with
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`token` and `room` strings.
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Copy those strings into the `claim_token` and `claim_rooms` variables.
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```yml
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claim_token: XXXXX
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claim_rooms: XXXXX
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```
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Change the `dbengine_multihost_disk_space` if you want to change the metrics retention policy by allocating more or less
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disk space for storing metrics. The default is 2048 Mib, or 2 GiB.
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Because we're claiming this node to Netdata Cloud, and will view its dashboards there instead of via the IP address or
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hostname of the node, the playbook disables that local dashboard by setting `web_mode` to `none`. This gives a small
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security boost by not allowing any unwanted access to the local dashboard.
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You can read more about this decision, or other ways you might lock down the local dashboard, in our [node security
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doc](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/configure/secure-nodes).
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> Curious about why Netdata's dashboard is open by default? Read our [blog
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> post](https://www.netdata.cloud/blog/netdata-agent-dashboard/) on that zero-configuration design decision.
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## Run the playbook
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Time to run the playbook from your administration system:
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```bash
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ansible-playbook -i hosts tasks/main.yml
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```
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Ansible first connects to your node(s) via SSH, then [collects
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facts](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_vars_facts.html#ansible-facts) about the system.
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This playbook doesn't use these facts, but you could expand it to provision specific types of systems based on the
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makeup of your infrastructure.
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Next, Ansible makes changes to each node according to the `tasks` defined in the playbook, and
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[returns](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/common_return_values.html#changed) whether each
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task results in a changed, failure, or was skipped entirely.
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The task to install Netdata will take a few minutes per node, so be patient! Once the playbook reaches the claiming
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task, your nodes start populating your Space in Netdata Cloud.
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## What's next?
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Go use Netdata!
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If you need a bit more guidance for how you can use Netdata for health monitoring and performance troubleshooting, see
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our [documentation](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs). It's designed like a comprehensive guide, based on what you might
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want to do with Netdata, so use those categories to dive in.
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Some of the best places to start:
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- [Enable or configure a collector](/docs/collect/enable-configure.md)
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- [Supported collectors list](/collectors/COLLECTORS.md)
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- [See an overview of your infrastructure](/docs/visualize/overview-infrastructure.md)
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- [Interact with dashboards and charts](/docs/visualize/interact-dashboards-charts.md)
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- [Change how long Netdata stores metrics](/docs/store/change-metrics-storage.md)
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We're looking for more deployment and configuration management strategies, whether via Ansible or other
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provisioning/infrastructure as code software, such as Chef or Puppet, in our [community
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repo](https://github.com/netdata/community). Anyone is able to fork the repo and submit a PR, either to improve this
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playbook, extend it, or create an entirely new experience for deploying Netdata across entire infrastructure.
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[](<>)
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