Infrastructure as Code Boilerplate

This project is using Infrastructure as Code principles to setup a WordPress website on AWS using Ansible and Terraform.

Features

• Terraform managing the AWS infrastructure (EC2, Load Balancer, RDS, Security Groups, VPC)
• Modular design with separate concerns for networking, security, and application components
• Ansible handling the software configuration (Apache, PHP, MySQL, WordPress)
• Dynamic inventory for AWS resource discovery

Requirements

• A Linux system
• Free Tier AWS Account
• AWS CLI v2
• Python 3.8+
• Terraform 1.9+
• Ansible 2.9+

Project Structure

├── ansible/
│   ├── ansible.cfg         # Ansible main configuration
│   ├── inventory/              # Dynamic inventory configurations
│   │   └── inventory_aws_ec2.yml   # AWS EC2 dynamic inventory
│   ├── playbook.yml            # Main Ansible playbook
│   └── roles/                  # Ansible roles
├── terraform/
│   └── aws/                # AWS-specific Terraform configs
│       ├── main.tf             # Main Terraform configuration
│       ├── modules/            # Terraform modules
│       ├── outputs.tf          # Terraform output definitions
│       ├── terraform.tfvars    # Variable values
│       └── variables.tf        # Variable declarations
└── tests/                  # Integration tests

Configuration

• Infrastructure variables: terraform/aws/terraform.tfvars
• Dynamic Inventory: ansible/inventory/inventory_*.yml

Setup

Clone project:

git clone https://github.com/handrej/lamp-ec2-boilerplate.git
cd lamp-ec2-boilerplate

Install Prerequisites

chmod +x setup.sh
# This will take care of installing any dependencies and setup the run environment
./setup.sh

Environment Configuration

# Activate Python environment
source .lamp-ec2/bin/activate

Using Terraform:

cd terraform/aws
terraform init      # Initialize files
terraform plan      # Review changes
terraform apply     # Apply changes

Run Ansible Playbook to install AMP

cd ../../ansible
ansible-playbook playbook.yml

Run Tests

cd ..   # Switch back to project directory
pytest  # Run test_integration.py to ensure the infrastructure and application are running

Encountered Issues

• Python Interpreter Mismatch: When using Ansible on Amazon EC2 instances, especially with Amazon Linux AMI or Amazon Linux 2, the following issue can arise:
  • Amazon Linux does not have the appropriate package manager (e.g., dnf for Python v3).
  • Related topics:
    • Issue #74948
    • Issue #62722
  • Downgrading the Python interpreter to v2 will affect the ansible-core module, requiring a downgrade, which is not sustainable for a version that is EOL.
  • Solutions:
    • To allow seamless integration with Ansible, this project uses the latest Ubuntu Server AMI from Canonical, which comes with Python v3 and compatible package manager.