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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2023-05-08 16:27:04 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2023-05-08 16:27:04 +0000
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+<!--
+title: "Deploy Netdata with Ansible"
+description: "Deploy an infrastructure monitoring solution in minutes with the Netdata Agent and Ansible. Use and customize a simple playbook for monitoring as code."
+image: /img/seo/guides/deploy/ansible.png
+custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/packaging/installer/methods/ansible.md
+sidebar_label: "Ansible"
+learn_status: "Published"
+learn_rel_path: "Installation/Install on specific environments"
+-->
+
+# Deploy Netdata with Ansible
+
+Netdata's [one-line kickstart](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/packaging/installer/README.md#install-on-linux-with-one-line-installer) is zero-configuration, highly adaptable, and compatible with tons
+of different operating systems and Linux distributions. You can use it on bare metal, VMs, containers, and everything
+in-between.
+
+But what if you're trying to bootstrap an infrastructure monitoring solution as quickly as possible? What if you need to
+deploy Netdata across an entire infrastructure with many nodes? What if you want to make this deployment reliable,
+repeatable, and idempotent? What if you want to write and deploy your infrastructure or cloud monitoring system like
+code?
+
+Enter [Ansible](https://ansible.com), a popular system provisioning, configuration management, and infrastructure as
+code (IaC) tool. Ansible uses **playbooks** to glue many standardized operations together with a simple syntax, then run
+those operations over standard and secure SSH connections. There's no agent to install on the remote system, so all you
+have to worry about is your application and your monitoring software.
+
+Ansible has some competition from the likes of [Puppet](https://puppet.com/) or [Chef](https://www.chef.io/), but the
+most valuable feature about Ansible is **idempotent**. From the [Ansible
+glossary](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/glossary.html)
+
+> An operation is idempotent if the result of performing it once is exactly the same as the result of performing it
+> repeatedly without any intervening actions.
+
+Idempotency means you can run an Ansible playbook against your nodes any number of times without affecting how they
+operate. When you deploy Netdata with Ansible, you're also deploying _monitoring as code_.
+
+In this guide, we'll walk through the process of using an [Ansible
+playbook](https://github.com/netdata/community/tree/main/configuration-management/ansible-quickstart/) to automatically
+deploy the Netdata Agent to any number of distributed nodes, manage the configuration of each node, and connect them to
+your Netdata Cloud account. You'll go from some unmonitored nodes to a infrastructure monitoring solution in a matter of
+minutes.
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+- A Netdata Cloud account. [Sign in and create one](https://app.netdata.cloud) if you don't have one already.
+- An administration system with [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/) installed.
+- One or more nodes that your administration system can access via [SSH public
+ keys](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-Generating-Your-SSH-Public-Key) (preferably password-less).
+
+## Download and configure the playbook
+
+First, download the
+[playbook](https://github.com/netdata/community/tree/main/configuration-management/ansible-quickstart/), move it to the
+current directory, and remove the rest of the cloned repository, as it's not required for using the Ansible playbook.
+
+```bash
+git clone https://github.com/netdata/community.git
+mv community/netdata-agent-deployment/ansible-quickstart .
+rm -rf community
+```
+
+Or if you don't want to clone the entire repository, use the [gitzip browser extension](https://gitzip.org/) to get the netdata-agent-deployment directory as a zip file.
+
+Next, `cd` into the Ansible directory.
+
+```bash
+cd ansible-quickstart
+```
+
+### Edit the `hosts` file
+
+The `hosts` file contains a list of IP addresses or hostnames that Ansible will try to run the playbook against. The
+`hosts` file that comes with the repository contains two example IP addresses, which you should replace according to the
+IP address/hostname of your nodes.
+
+```conf
+203.0.113.0 hostname=node-01
+203.0.113.1 hostname=node-02
+```
+
+You can also set the `hostname` variable, which appears both on the local Agent dashboard and Netdata Cloud, or you can
+omit the `hostname=` string entirely to use the system's default hostname.
+
+#### Set the login user (optional)
+
+If you SSH into your nodes as a user other than `root`, you need to configure `hosts` according to those user names. Use
+the `ansible_user` variable to set the login user. For example:
+
+```conf
+203.0.113.0 hostname=ansible-01 ansible_user=example
+```
+
+#### Set your SSH key (optional)
+
+If you use an SSH key other than `~/.ssh/id_rsa` for logging into your nodes, you can set that on a per-node basis in
+the `hosts` file with the `ansible_ssh_private_key_file` variable. For example, to log into a Lightsail instance using
+two different SSH keys supplied by AWS.
+
+```conf
+203.0.113.0 hostname=ansible-01 ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/.ssh/LightsailDefaultKey-us-west-2.pem
+203.0.113.1 hostname=ansible-02 ansible_ssh_private_key_file=~/.ssh/LightsailDefaultKey-us-east-1.pem
+```
+
+### Edit the `vars/main.yml` file
+
+In order to connect your node(s) to your Space in Netdata Cloud, and see all their metrics in real-time in [composite
+charts](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/visualize/overview-infrastructure.md) or perform [Metric
+Correlations](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/cloud/insights/metric-correlations.md), you need to set the `claim_token`
+and `claim_room` variables.
+
+To find your `claim_token` and `claim_room`, go to Netdata Cloud, then click on your Space's name in the top navigation,
+then click on **Manage your Space**. Click on the **Nodes** tab in the panel that appears, which displays a script with
+`token` and `room` strings.
+
+![Animated GIF of finding the claiming script and the token and room
+strings](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/98740235-f4c3ac00-2367-11eb-8ffd-e9ab0f04c463.gif)
+
+Copy those strings into the `claim_token` and `claim_rooms` variables.
+
+```yml
+claim_token: XXXXX
+claim_rooms: XXXXX
+```
+
+Change the `dbengine_multihost_disk_space` if you want to change the metrics retention policy by allocating more or less
+disk space for storing metrics. The default is 2048 Mib, or 2 GiB.
+
+Because we're connecting this node to Netdata Cloud, and will view its dashboards there instead of via the IP address or
+hostname of the node, the playbook disables that local dashboard by setting `web_mode` to `none`. This gives a small
+security boost by not allowing any unwanted access to the local dashboard.
+
+You can read more about this decision, or other ways you might lock down the local dashboard, in our [node security
+doc](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/netdata-security.md).
+
+> Curious about why Netdata's dashboard is open by default? Read our [blog
+> post](https://www.netdata.cloud/blog/netdata-agent-dashboard/) on that zero-configuration design decision.
+
+## Run the playbook
+
+Time to run the playbook from your administration system:
+
+```bash
+ansible-playbook -i hosts tasks/main.yml
+```
+
+Ansible first connects to your node(s) via SSH, then [collects
+facts](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_vars_facts.html#ansible-facts) about the system.
+This playbook doesn't use these facts, but you could expand it to provision specific types of systems based on the
+makeup of your infrastructure.
+
+Next, Ansible makes changes to each node according to the `tasks` defined in the playbook, and
+[returns](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/common_return_values.html#changed) whether each
+task results in a changed, failure, or was skipped entirely.
+
+The task to install Netdata will take a few minutes per node, so be patient! Once the playbook reaches the connect to Cloud
+task, your nodes start populating your Space in Netdata Cloud.