How To Deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7) On Amazon AWS And Install The Ansible IT Automation Software.
The Red Hat enterprise linux operating system is one of the leading premium open source operating systems used by large organizations such as the united postal service and the ford motor company. Red Hat enterprise linux 7 comes with new and improved features such as Open JDK 7, support for 3 different desktop environments i.e GNOME 3, GNOME Classic, and KDE, support for the XFS, EXT4, BTRFS and CIFS file systems, SNAPPER for creating , deleting and organizing snapshots of both BTRFS file systems and LVM logical volumes. Red Hat can be deployed in almost any IT environment and is ideal for use as a web, email, file, compute, virtualization and also directory server. Continue reading this tutorial to learn how to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7) on Amazon AWS and install the ansible IT automation software. We’ve also put recorded a step by step youtube video that also shows how to do what is explained here.
REQUIREMENTS
In order to complete this tutorial successfully the following items are required. Please ensure to have these items available before taking implementation action on this tutorial:
1) An AWS free tier account.
2) The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 machine image (available on the AWS MARKET PLACE)
3) An AWS IAM user account.
4) An internet connection with atleast 1MBPS speeds.
OVERVIEW
1) Login to the AWS management console using your IAM credentials and create a new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 EC2 instance.
2) Download the key pair for the Red Hat EC2 instance and connect to it via SSH.
3) Connect to the Red Hat instance using an SSH connection check for and install system updates then install the Ansible IT Automation Software.
4) Configure The Ansible Automation Software.
Step 1: Login To The AWS Management Console And Create A New RHEL 7 Instance.
1) Go to aws.amazon.com and click on the SIGN INTO THE CONSOLE button. Click on the IAM USER option, type in your AWS 12 digit ID or account alias and click on NEXT.
Type in your IAM username and password on the appropriate spaces and click on SIGN IN.
2) If you do not know your AWS 12 digit ID, sign into the AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE using your root user account and click on SERVICES > IAM.
The 12 digit ID will indicated on the bottom left corner of the IAM MANAGEMENT CONSOLE.
If you do not have an IAM user account, you can create it using in the IAM MANAGEMENT CONSOLE, click HERE for a more detailed guide about creating and managing IAM users.
If you do not have an AWS FREE TIER account, click HERE to learn how to sign up for a free AWS account.
3) Once you have logged into the AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE, click on SERVICES > EC2. Click on the LAUNCH INSTANCE button. Click on the AWS MARKET PLACE tab and search for Red Hat using the search bar at the top of the page.
Click on the SELECT button on the RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX (RHEL) 7 search result and click on CONTINUE.
4) On the CHOOSE AM INSTANCE TYPE step, click on the T3.MICRO instance type with the green FREE TIER flag and click on the REVIEW AND LAUNCH button.
5) Click on the LAUNCH button and on the “SELECT AN EXISTING KEY PAIR OR CREATE A NEW KEY PAIR” popup message, select the CREATE A NEW KEY PAIR option, type in a name for the key pair and click on the DOWNLOAD KEY PAIR button.
Proceed by clicking on the LAUNCH INSTANCES button.
Step 2: Connect To The RHEL7 Instance. Check For And Install Updates.
6) To connect to the Red Hat Enterprise linux EC2 instance, the first step is to change the permissions on the key pair file that you downloaded in the presvious step to read only.
Open you terminal application, go to the directory where the key pair file is located and run the following command :
chmod 400 yourkeypairfile.pem
7) Next, connect to the Red Hat Instance by running the following command :
ssh -i “BILLYSOFTACADEMY REDHAT KEYPAIR.pem” ec2-user@public_ip_address_or_hostname_of_red_hat_instance.
8) The next step is to check for Red Hat updates for all system software as well as their dependencies by running the following command:
yum update.
Step 3: Install Ansible The YUM Package Manager.
9) Ansible is a simple IT Automation tool that enables any network or system administrator to automate repetitive tasks. Unlike many other automation tools, ansible is completely agent-less and this means that there is no software that has to be installed on end devices to enable automation. This makes it possible to make and configure devices where additional, third party or custom software cannot be installed. Examples of such devices are network routers and intelligent switches.
Ansible is no available for download on the Red Hat enterprise linux repositories and you have to manually add the EPEL packages first. To do this run the following command :
yum install ansible
Step 4: Configure Ansible.
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