Setup Ansible control node

To set up an Ansible control node, execute the following steps from the SUSE Manager Web UI.

Procedure: Setting up an Ansible control node

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Admin  Setup Wizard  Products, verify that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 x86_64 and SUSE Manager Client Tools for SLE 15 x86_64 are selected and synchronized.

  2. Deploy a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 client.

  3. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to the Systems  Overview page of the client. Select Software  Software Channels and subscribe the client to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 x86_64 and SUSE Manager Client Tools for SLE 15 x86_64 channels.

    The SUSE Manager client tools contain the ansible package.

  4. Select Details  Properties of your client. From the Add-On System Types list enable Ansible Control Node and click Update Properties.

  5. Navigate to the client overview page, select State  Highstate, and click Apply Highstate.

  6. Select the Events tab and verify the status of the highstate.

1. Install the SCAP security guide package

For executing remediations you need to install the SCAP security guide package on the Ansible control node.

Procedure: Installing the SCAP security guide package

  1. From Systems  Overview, select the client. Then click Software  Packages  Install.

  2. Search for scap-security-guide and install the package suitable for your system. See the following table for package distribution requirements:

    Table 1. SCAP security guide package requirements
    Package name Supported Systems

    scap-security-guide

    openSUSE, SLES12, SLES15

    scap-security-guide-redhat

    CentOS 7, CentOS 8, Fedora, Oracle Linux 7, Oracle Linux 8, RHEL7, RHEL8, RHEL9, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13, Red Hat Virtualization 4, Scientific Linux

    scap-security-guide-debian

    Debian 9, Debian 10

    scap-security-guide-ubuntu

    Ubuntu 16.04. Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04

2. Create Ansible inventory files

Ansible Integration tools deploy a playbook as an inventory file. Create one inventory file for each operating system listed in Table 1.

Procedure: Creating the Ansible inventory files

  1. Create and add your hosts to an inventory file to be managed by Ansible. The default path for an Ansible inventory is /etc/ansible/hosts.

    Listing 1. Inventory Example
    client240.mgr.example.org
client241.mgr.example.org
client242.mgr.example.org
client243.mgr.example.org ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/etc/ansible/some_ssh_key

[mygroup1]
client241.mgr.example.org
client242.mgr.example.org

[mygroup2]
client243.mgr.example.org

[all:vars]
ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/etc/ansible/my_ansible_private_key

  2. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, from the Ansible tab navigate to Ansible  Control Node to add inventory files to the control node.

  3. Under the Playbook Directories section add /usr/share/scap-security-guide/ansible to the Add a Playbook Directories field and click Save.

  4. Under Inventory Files add your inventory file locations to the Add an Inventory file field and click Save.

    Listing 2. Examples
    /etc/ansible/sles15
/etc/ansible/sles12
/etc/ansible/centos7

    For additional playbook examples, see https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples.

3. Establish communication with the Ansible nodes

Procedure: Establishing communication with the Ansible nodes

  1. Create the SSH keys that you are using in your inventory.

    ssh-keygen -f /etc/ansible/my_ansible_private_key

  2. Copy the generated SSH keys to the Ansible managed clients. Example:

    ssh-copy-id -i /etc/ansible/my_ansible_private_key root@client240.mgr.example.org

  3. Declare the private key in /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg as follows:

    private_key_file = /etc/ansible/my_ansible_private_key

    Replace my_ansible_private_key with the name of the file containing the private key.

  4. Test that Ansible is working by executing the following commands from the control node:

    ansible all -m ping
ansible mygroup1 -m ping
ansible client240.mgr.example.org -m ping

You may now run remediations.

For more information, see Compliance as code.