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ansiblereverse-proxyansible-inventory

Ansible implementatipn: how to dispatch reverse proxy and backend server configuration efficiently?

I'm wondering what is the best practice when deploying with Ansible this kind of situation (which is quite common):

  • my.domain.com DNS rule must resolve to my proxy server
  • the proxy server (nginx or whatever) serves content from my backend server

How to dispatch configuration to each server?

What I've done so far:

  • host_var/my.domain.com -> nginx vhost configuration
  • host_var/my.backend.com -> backend configuration

This choice is quite annoying, because it makes me create 2 subdomains each time:

  • my.domain.com to resolve and store proxy configuration
  • my.backend.com to resolve and store backend configuration

It seems OK for 1 single example, but when dealing with lots of services (think microservices) it seems to me it could be improved.

Do you think about another possible implementation?

Solution

  • If you want to group redundant configuration you have to put your servers in a group in your inventory file.

    [frontend]
f1 ansible_host=10.0.0.1
f2 ansible_host=10.0.0.2

[backend]
b1 ansible_host=10.0.1.1
b2 ansible_host=10.0.1.2

    And then you create two files

    • group_vars/frontend.yml
    • group_vars/backend.yml

    in which you put the configuration for the frontend and backend servers.

    Ansible does not require, that you use any domain at all.