Playing with Ansible and FreeBSD

By default, FreeBSD doesn’t install a python package in its standard distribution. So, we need to install python, either manually or using ansible module.

$ ansible freebsd-host -m raw -a 'env ASSUME_ALWAYS_YES=YES pkg install python' -u root

Of course before we can use ansible we have to install public key authentication and enable SSH to root user in FreeBSD host from controller machine. FreeBSD install python in different path than Linux machine, so we must set variable for the python interpreter, either in host file or variable files.

ansible_python_interpreter: "/usr/local/bin/python"

Then test installed python interpreter.

$ ansible freebsd-host -m ping -u root
<ip address> | success >> {
	"changed": false,
	"ping": "pong"
}

For new installation of FreeBSD, we should update port distribution using portsnap. The ad-hoc command

$ ansible freebsd-host -m command -a "/usr/sbin/portsnap fetch extract"

The playbook

---
- hosts: freebsd-host
  remote_user: root
  vars:
    ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/local/bin/python
  tasks:
  - name: update portsnap
    command: /usr/sbin/portsnap fetch extract

After that we are ready to begin using ansible to automate our servers.