🖥️ Configuring an Ansible Control Node

The following steps describe how to configure an Ansible control node. These steps have been automated using the Ansible deployment playbook.

💽 Adding a Second Drive

  1. Add a new disk from the Proxmox web GUI.
  2. Boot the VM.
  3. Enumerate the new disk using fdisk -l.
  4. Use fdisk to create a new partition.
  5. Format the new partition (e.g., sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vdb1).
  6. Create the mount point /ansible (e.g., sudo mkdir /ansible).
  7. Add the new mount point to /etc/fstab (e.g.,
    /dev/vdb1 /ansible ext4 defaults 0 2).
  8. Mount the disk (e.g., sudo mount /ansible).
  9. Grant full group access:
    sudo chmod -R g+rwx /ansible.

🏢 Joining the Machine to Active Directory

See the guide:
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🔐 Configure the Ansible Become User

Use a non‑root user for privilege escalation. The Active Directory user ansible@refol.us will serve as the Ansible become user.

Create the Ansible Active Directory User

New-ADUser -Name "Ansible" -GivenName "Ansible" -Surname "User" -SamAccountName "ansible" -UserPrincipalName "ansible@refol.us" -AccountPassword(Read-Host -AsSecureString "Input Password") -Enabled $true

Enter a password when prompted.

Grant Proxmox Permissions to the ansible User

In Proxmox:

Datacenter → Permissions → Users → Add
Add the user ansible.

❗IMPORTANT The Active Directory domain refol.us must be added as a Realm before adding the user.
Navigate to Datacenter → Permissions → Realms → Add → Active Directory Server.

Create a Proxmox API Token

This token will be used by Ansible for API calls.

Datacenter → Permissions → API Tokens → Add

Click Add, then copy the Token ID and Secret.

Create the ansible Group

sudo addgroup ansible

Add ansible@refol.us to the ansible Group

sudo usermod -a -G ansible ansible@refol.us
sudo usermod -a -G ansible ansible

Add ansible@refol.us to the sudo Group

sudo usermod -a -G sudo ansible@refol.us
sudo usermod -a -G sudo ansible

Configure Ansible Become Settings

become: true
become_user: ansible
become_method: sudo

📦 Ansible Installation

As of this writing, the latest version is Ansible 10.4.0, which includes ansible-core 2.17.4.

Install Python

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3

Create a Python Virtual Environment

A virtual environment allows multiple Ansible versions to coexist.

Install the venv Module

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.12-venv

Create and Activate the Virtual Environment

cd /ansible
python3 -m venv python3.12.3_ansible10.4.0
source python3.12.3_ansible10.4.0/bin/activate

Deactivate with:

deactivate

Upgrade pip

pip install --upgrade pip setuptools

Install Ansible

pip install ansible

Verify installation:

ansible --version

(Version output omitted for brevity.)

📚 Install Python Modules

proxmoxer

python -m pip install proxmoxer

requests

python -m pip install requests

pycdlib

python -m pip install pycdlib

Other Required Packages

sudo apt install sshpass acl

🚀 Getting Started with Ansible

Activate the Working Environment

cd /ansible/dev
source ../python3.12.3_ansible10.4.0/bin/activate

Create ansible.cfg

ansible-config init --disabled -t all > ansible.cfg

Configure the Vault Password File

Create ~/.vault_pass.txt and add your vault password.

In ansible.cfg:

vault_password_file=~/.vault_pass.txt

🔑 Configure SSH Access to Proxmox Servers

Ensure the Ansible account can SSH into each Proxmox node:

ssh pve-0
ssh pve-1
ssh pve-2

Ensure the become user can also connect:

ssh ansible@pve-0
ssh ansible@pve-1
ssh ansible@pve-2

Test connectivity:

ansible pvenodes -i inventory/pve/inventory.ini -m ping --user=ansible -k

Enter the password when prompted.

🧹 Ansible Lint

pip3 install ansible-lint

📖 References