rpi-ansible-playbooks

Ansible role to setup and configure a fresh Raspberry Pi (RPI)
Please read this documentation carrefully before executing any playbook!

• Assumption
• Main purposes of this role
• Explanation of the role
• How to use
  • First time using the role
  • After the first used of this role
• Resources used

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Assumption

Since RPI OS (most of them) does not ship anymore with the default pi user --> more info here
You'll need to setup the new RPI with the Raspberry Pi imager software and use those advanced settings to create a first user :

Please ensure to create a user called "pi" with password set to "raspberry" in order to run this role with the playbook and command below

I also assume you have Ansible correctly setup on your local machine.

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Explanation of the role

For all tasks, you'll only need to edit the variables used in defaults/main.yml file
This role will execute in order:

• Update and upgrade the RPI
  No variable needed

• Install some apt packages
  Add packages you want to install within the rpi_packages variable

• Set the hostname of the RPI
  You can edit rpi_hostname

• Set a keyboard layout Set the lyaout you want with the rpi_keyboard_layout variable. You can have a list of available layout with the ccommand : localectl list-x11-keymap-layouts

• Create a user and push common configuration files for this user (like .bashrc, .vimrc files)
  Edit rpi_new_user and rpi_common_files.
  You'll also need to encrypt the password of this new user using : ansible-vault encrypt_string "<password_for_user>" and copy the result into the rpi_new_user_passwd variable. Please remember the string used for the encryption, it will be needed later to run the role.

• Disable password authentication
  No variable needed

• Set a static IP for the RPI
  Edit rpi_new_interface,rpi_new_ip,rpi_new_gateway and rpi_new_dns_servers

• Feel free to contribute and add new useful tasks...

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How to use

You will not use this Ansible role in the same way if it's the first time you set up the rpi or not.

First time using the role

First thing is to create a ansible.cfg file with this content, in order to skip host key verification (compulsory if ansible use password authentication) :

[defaults]
host_key_checking = False

Here I suppose you're starting with a fresh new install of the RPI, and the only existing user is the one you setup with the OS Imager, as described in Assumption. A playbook executing this role can look like this :

You can launch this playbook with the following command (from the root of this role)

ansible-playbook --inventory=<your_rpi_local_ipv4>, --extra-vars "ansible_user=pi ansible_password=raspberry" setup_rpi.yml --ask-vault-pass

You can find the IPv4 address of your rpi with the help of a network scanner like AngryIpScanner or the famous nmap tool
Also, do not forget to add the comma , after <your_rpi_local_ipv4>

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After the first used of this role

Inside this role, there is a task which create a new user and a ssh key pair to allow the user's authentication without password (password authentication is by the way deactivated within the role).

Purpose is to retrieve the private key created in ssh_keys folder and add it to your local machine under ~/.ssh/ folder. Assuming this newx user created on the rpi is your current local user, you can do :

cp ssh_keys/rpi_keys_<rpi_new_user> ~/.ssh/

You can then edit (or create) your ~/.ssh/config file and add those lines to used the given ssh key pair without specifying the private key location.

Host <rpi_hostname> <rpi_new_ip>
  Hostname <rpi_new_ip>
  User <rpi_new_user> 
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rpi_keys_<rpi_new_user>

Once that is done, you can now run the playbook (and enable other roles) with the following command :

ansible-playbook --inventory=<rpi_hostname>, setup_rpi.yml --ask-become-pass --ask-vault-pass

The password you'll need to enter is the <rpi_new_user_passwd> pass you setup

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Resources used

A big thanks to the authors of the following projects which helped me inspired me a lot :

• AustinCloudGuru

• vicchi

• m0by314

• acimadamore