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Install Ansible Configuration Management And IT Automation Tool

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<span class="drop_cap" style="float: left; font-size: 54px; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 0.15em 0px 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">T</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">oday I will be talking about ansible, a powerful configuration management solution written in python. There are many configuration management solutions available, all with pros and cons, ansible stands apart from many of them for its simplicity. What makes ansible different than many of the most popular configuration management systems is that its agent-less, no need to setup agents on every node you want to control. Plus, this has the benefit of being able to control you entire infrastructure from more than one place, if needed. That last point's validity, of being a benefit, may be debatable but I find it as a positive in most cases. Enough talk, lets get started with Ansible installation and configuration on a RHEL/CentOS, and Debian/Ubuntu based systems.</span></h2>
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Prerequisites</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Distro: RHEL/CentOS/Debian/Ubuntu Linux</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Jinja2</kbd>: A modern and designer friendly templating language for Python.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">PyYAML</kbd>: A YAML parser and emitter for the Python programming language.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">parmiko</kbd>: Native Python SSHv2 protocol library.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">httplib2</kbd>: A comprehensive HTTP client library.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Most of the actions listed in this post are written with the assumption that they will be executed by the root user running the bash or any other modern shell.</li>
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How Ansible works</h2>
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Ansible tool uses no agents. It requires no additional custom security infrastructure, so it’s easy to deploy. All you need is ssh client and server:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">     +----------------------+                    +---------------+
     |Linux/Unix workstation|       SSH          | file_server1  |
     |with Ansible          |<------------------>| db_server2    | Unix/Linux servers
     +----------------------+    Modules         | proxy_server3 | in local/remote
        192.168.1.100                            +---------------+ data centers
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Where,</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">192.168.1.100 - Install Ansible on your local workstation/server.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">file_server1..proxy_server3 - Use 192.168.1.100 and Ansible to automates configuration management of all servers.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">SSH - Setup ssh keys between 192.168.1.100 and local/remote servers.</li>
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Ansible Installation Tutorial</h2>
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Installation of ansible is a breeze, many distributions have a package available in their 3rd party repos which can easily be installed, a quick alternative is to just pip install it or grab the latest copy from github. To install using your package manager, on RHEL/CentOS Linux based systems you will most likely need the EPEL repo then:</div>
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Install ansible on a RHEL/CentOS Linux based system</h3>
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Type the following yum command:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ sudo yum install ansible</code></div>
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Install ansible on a Debian/Ubuntu Linux based system</h3>
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Type the following apt-get command:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ sudo apt-get update<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ sudo apt-get install ansible</code></div>
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Install ansible using pip</h3>
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The pip command is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. The following method works on Linux and Unix-like systems:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ sudo pip install ansible</code></div>
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Install the latest version of ansible using source code</h3>
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You can install the latest version from github as follows:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ cd ~<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ git clone git://github.com/ansible/ansible.git<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ cd ./ansible<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ source ./hacking/env-setup</code><br />
When running ansible from a git checkout, one thing to remember is that you will need to setup your environment everytime you want to use it, or you can add it to your bash rc file:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;"># ADD TO BASH RC<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ echo "export ANSIBLE_HOSTS=~/ansible_hosts" >> ~/.bashrc<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />$ echo "source ~/ansible/hacking/env-setup" >> ~/.bashrc</code><br />
The hosts file for ansible is basically a list of hosts that ansible is able to perform work on. By default ansible looks for the hosts file at /etc/ansible/hosts, but there are ways to override that which can be handy if you are working with multiple installs or have several different clients for whose datacenters you are responsible for. You can pass the hosts file on the command line using the <kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">-i</kbd> option:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m shell -a "hostname" --ask-pass -i /etc/some/other/dir/ansible_hosts</code><br />
My preference however is to use and environment variable, this can be useful if source a different file when starting work for a specific client. The environment variable is $ANSIBLE_HOSTS, and can be set as follows:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ export ANSIBLE_HOSTS=~/ansible_hosts</code><br />
Once all requirements are installed and you have you hosts file setup you can give it a test run. For a quick test I put 127.0.0.1 into the ansible hosts file as follow:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ echo "127.0.0.1" > ~/ansible_hosts</code><br />
Now lets test with a quick ping:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m ping</code><br />
OR ask for the ssh password:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m ping --ask-pass</code><br />
I have run across a problem a few times regarding initial setup, it is highly recommended you setup keys for ansible to use but in the previous test we used <kbd style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">--ask-pass</kbd>, on some machines you will need to install sshpass or add a -c paramiko like so:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m ping --ask-pass -c paramiko</code><br />
Or you can install sshpass, however sshpass is not always available in the standard repos so paramiko can be easier.</div>
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Setup SSH Keys</h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">-c and </span><kbd style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">--ask-pass</kbd><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;"> options:</span><br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ssh-keygen -t rsa</code><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">Sample outputs:</span><br />
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</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/hackthesec/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/hackthesec/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/hackthesec/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
94:a0:19:02:ba:25:23:7f:ee:6c:fb:e8:38:b4:f2:42 info@hackthesec.co.in
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|... . .          |
|.  . + . .       |
|= . o   o        |
|.*     .         |
|. . .   S        |
| E.o             |
|.. ..            |
|o o+..           |
| +o+*o.          |
+-----------------+
</pre>
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Now obviously there are plenty of ways to put this in place on the remote machine but since we are using ansible, lets use that:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m copy -a "src=/home/<span style="line-height: 27px;">hackthesec</span><span style="line-height: 1em;">/.ssh/id_rsa.pub dest=/tmp/id_rsa.pub" --ask-pass -c paramiko</span></code></div>
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Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">SSH password:
127.0.0.1 | success >> {
    "changed": true,
    "dest": "/tmp/id_rsa.pub",
    "gid": 100,
    "group": "users",
    "md5sum": "bafd3fce6b8a33cf1de415af432774b4",
    "mode": "0644",
    "owner": "hackthesec",
    "size": 410,
    "src": "/home/hackthesec/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1407008170.46-208759459189201/source",
    "state": "file",
    "uid": 1000
}</pre>
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Next, add the public key in remote server, enter:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m shell -a "cat /tmp/id_rsa.pub >> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys" --ask-pass -c paramiko</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">SSH password:
127.0.0.1 | FAILED | rc=1 >>
/bin/sh: /root/.ssh/authorized_keys: Permission denied
</pre>
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Whoops, we want to be able to run things as root, so lets add a -u option:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m shell -a "cat /tmp/id_rsa.pub >> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys" --ask-pass -c paramiko -u root</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">SSH password:
127.0.0.1 | success | rc=0 >>
</pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Please note, I wanted to demonstrate a file transfer using ansible, there is however a more built in way for managing keys using ansible:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m authorized_key -a "user=<span style="line-height: 27px;">hackthesec</span><span style="line-height: 1em;"> key='{{ lookup('file', '/home/</span><span style="line-height: 27px;">hackthesec</span><span style="line-height: 1em;">/.ssh/id_rsa.pub') }}' path=/home/</span><span style="line-height: 27px;">hackthesec</span><span style="line-height: 1em;">/.ssh/authorized_keys manage_dir=no" --ask-pass -c paramiko</span></code></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">SSH password:
127.0.0.1 | success >> {
    "changed": true,
    "gid": 100,
    "group": "users",
    "key": "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCq+Z8/usprXk0aCAPyP0TGylm2MKbmEsHePUOd7p5DO1QQTHak+9gwdoJJavy0yoUdi+C+autKjvuuS+vGb8+I+8mFNu5CvKiZzIpMjZvrZMhHRdNud7GuEanusTEJfi1pUd3NA2iXhl4a6S9a/4G2mKyf7QQSzI4Z5ddudUXd9yHmo9Yt48/ASOJLHIcYfSsswOm8ux1UnyeHqgpdIVONVFsKKuSNSvZBVl3bXzhkhjxz8RMiBGIubJDBuKwZqNSJkOlPWYN76btxMCDVm07O7vNChpf0cmWEfM3pXKPBq/UBxyG2MgoCGkIRGOtJ8UjC/daadBUuxg92/u01VNEB hackthesec@hackthesec.co.in",
    "key_options": null,
    "keyfile": "/home/hackthesec/.ssh/authorized_keys",
    "manage_dir": false,
    "mode": "0600",
    "owner": "hackthesec",
    "path": "/home/hackthesec/.ssh/authorized_keys",
    "size": 410,
    "state": "file",
    "uid": 1000,
    "unique": false,
    "user": "hackthesec"
}
</pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Now that the keys are in place lets try running an arbitrary command like hostname and hope we don't get prompted for a password<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m shell -a "hostname" -u root</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">127.0.0.1 | success | rc=0 >></pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Success!!! Now that we can run commands as root and not be bothered by using a password we are in a good place to easily configure any and all hosts in the ansible hosts file. Let's remove the key from /tmp:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m file -a "dest=/tmp/id_rsa.pub state=absent" -u root</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">127.0.0.1 | success >> {
    "changed": true,
    "path": "/tmp/id_rsa.pub",
    "state": "absent"
}</pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Next, I'm going to make sure we have a few packages installed and on the latest version and we will move on to something a little more complicated:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible all -m zypper -a "name=apache2 state=latest" -u root</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;">127.0.0.1 | success >> {
    "changed": false,
    "name": "apache2",
    "state": "latest"
}
</pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Alright, the key we placed in /tmp is now absent and we have the latest version of apache installed. This brings me to the next point, something that makes ansible very flexible and gives more power to playbooks, many may have noticed the -m zypper in the previous commands. Now unless you use openSuse or Suse enterpise you may not be familiar with zypper, it is basically the equivalent of yum in the suse world. In all of the examples above I have only had one machine in my hosts file, and while everything but the last command should work on any standard *nix systems with standard ssh configs, this leads to a problem. What if we had multiple machine types that we wanted to manage? Well this is where playbooks, and the configurability of ansible really shines. First lets modify our hosts file a little, here goes:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ cat ~/ansible_hosts</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>RHELBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.33</span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.47</span>
 
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>SUSEBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">127.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span>
 </pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
First, we create some groups of servers, and give them some meaningful tags. Then we create a playbook that will do different things for the different kinds of servers. You might notice the similarity between the yaml data structures and the command line instructions we ran earlier. Basically the -m is a module, and -a is for module args. In the YAML representation you put the module then :, and finally the args.</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
---
- hosts: SUSEBased
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - zypper: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">apache2 state=latest</span>
- hosts: RHELBased
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - yum: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">httpd state=latest</span>
 </pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Now that we have a simple playbook, we can run it as follows:<br />
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">$ ansible-playbook testPlaybook.yaml -f 10</code><br />
Sample outputs:</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
PLAY <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>SUSEBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span> **************************************************************
 
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">127.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
 
TASK: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>zypper <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">apache2 state=latest<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span> ************************************** </span>
ok: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">127.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
 
PLAY <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>RHELBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span> **************************************************************
 
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.33</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
ok: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.47</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
 
TASK: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>yum <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">httpd state=latest<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span> ******************************************* </span>
changed: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.33</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
changed: <span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.47</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
 
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.33</span>                 : <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">ok</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">2</span>    changed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">1</span>    unreachable=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>    failed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>   </span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.47</span>                 : <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">ok</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">2</span>    changed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">1</span>    unreachable=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>    failed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>   </span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">127.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span>                  : <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">ok</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">2</span>    changed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>    unreachable=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span>    failed=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">0</span> </span>
 </pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Now you will notice that you will see output from each machine that ansible contacted. The -f is what lets ansible run on multiple hosts in parallel. Instead of using all, or a name of a host group, on the command line you can put this passwords for the ask-pass prompt into the playbook. While we no longer need the --ask-pass since we have ssh keys setup, it comes in handy when setting up new machines, and even new machines can run from a playbook. To demonstrate this lets convert our earlier key example into a playbook:</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
---
- hosts: SUSEBased
  remote_user: hackthesec

sudo: yes
  tasks:
    - authorized_key: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">user</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">root key=</span><span style="color: #993333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">"{{ lookup('file', '/home/<span style="color: #666666;">hackthesec</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">/.ssh/id_rsa.pub') }}"</span><span style="color: #666666;"> </span><span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">path</span><span style="color: #666666;">=</span><span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">/root/.ssh/authorized_keys manage_dir=no</span></span>- hosts: RHELBased
  remote_user: mdonlon
  sudo: yes
  tasks:
    - authorized_key: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">user</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">root key=</span><span style="color: #993333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">"{{ lookup('file', '/home/<span style="color: #666666;">hackthesec</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">/.ssh/id_rsa.pub') }}"</span><span style="color: #666666;"> </span><span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">path</span><span style="color: #666666;">=</span><span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">/root/.ssh/authorized_keys manage_dir=no</span></span> </pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Now there are plenty of other options here that could be done, for example having the keys dropped during a kickstart, or via some other kind of process involved with bringing up machines on the hosting of your choice, but this can be used in pretty much any situation assuming ssh is setup to accept a password. One thing to think about before writing out too many playbooks, version control can save you a lot of time. Machines need to change over time, you don't need to re-write a playbook every time a machine changes, just update the pertinent bits and commit the changes. Another benefit of this ties into what I said earlier about being able to manage the entire infrastructure from multiple places. You can easily git clone your playbook repo onto a new machine and be completely setup to manage everything in a repetitive manner.</div>
<h2 style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 32px; margin: 41px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Real world ansible example</h2>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
I know a lot of people make great use of services like pastebin, and a lot of companies for obvious reasons setup their own internal instance of something similar. Recently, I came across a newish application called showterm and coincidentally I was asked to setup an internal instance of it for a client. I will spare you the details of this app, but you can google showterm if interested. So for a reasonable real world example I will attempt to setup a showterm server, and configure the needed app on the client to use it. In the process we will need a database server as well. So here goes, lets start with the client configuration.</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
---
- hosts: showtermClients
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - yum: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">rubygems state=latest</span>
    - yum: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">ruby-devel state=latest</span>
    - yum: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">gcc state=latest</span>
    - gem: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">showterm state=latest user_install=no</span>
 </pre>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
That was easy, lets move on to the main server:</div>
<pre class="ini" style="background-color: #fafbfc; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; overflow: auto; padding: 14px; tab-size: 4; word-wrap: normal;"> 
---
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - name: ensure packages are installed
      yum: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span>item<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span> state=latest</span>
      with_items:
        - postgresql
        - postgresql-server
        - postgresql-devel
        - python-psycopg2
        - git
        - ruby21
        - ruby21-passenger
    - name: showterm server from github
      git: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">repo</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">https://github.com/ConradIrwin/showterm.io dest=/root/showterm</span>
    - name: Initdb
      command: service postgresql initdb
               <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">creates</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">/var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf</span>
 
    - name: Start PostgreSQL and enable at boot
      service: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">postgresql</span>
               <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">enabled</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">yes</span>
               <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">state</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">started</span>
    - gem: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">pg state=latest user_install=no</span>
  handlers:
   - name: restart postgresql
     service: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">postgresql state=restarted</span>
 
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  sudo: yes
  sudo_user: postgres
  vars:
    dbname: showterm
    dbuser: showterm
    dbpassword: showtermpassword
  tasks:
    - name: create db
      postgresql_db: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">name</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span>dbname<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span></span>
 
    - name: create user with ALL priv
      postgresql_user: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">db</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span>dbname<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span> name=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span>dbuser<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span> password=<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">{</span>dbpassword<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">}</span> priv=ALL</span>
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - name: database.yml
      template: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">src</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">database.yml dest=/root/showterm/config/database.yml</span>
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - name: run bundle install
      shell: bundle install
      args:
        chdir: /root/showterm
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - name: run rake db tasks
      shell: 'bundle exec rake db:create db:migrate db:seed'
      args:
        chdir: /root/showterm
- hosts: showtermServers
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    - name: apache config
      template: <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">src</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">showterm.conf dest=/etc/httpd/conf.d/showterm.conf</span>
 
 </pre>
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Not so bad, now keeping in mind that this is a somewhat random and obscure app that we can now install in a consistent fashion on any number of machines, this is where the benefits of configuration management really come to light. Also, in most cases the declarative syntax almost speaks for itself and wiki pages need not go into as much detail, although a wiki page with too much detail is never a bad thing in my opinion.</div>
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Expanding Configuration</h2>
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We have not touched on everything here, Ansible has many options for configuring you setup. You can do things like embedding variables in your hosts file, so that Ansible will interpolate them on the remote nodes, eg.</div>
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<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>RHELBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.33</span>  <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">http_port</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">443</span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">10.50</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.47</span>  <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">http_port</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">80</span>  ansible_ssh_user=mdonlon</span>
 
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">[</span>SUSEBased<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">]</span></span>
<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">127.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.0</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">.1</span>  <span style="color: #000099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">http_port</span>=<span style="color: #660066; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">443</span>
 </pre>
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While this is really handy for quick configurations, you can also layer variables across multiple files in yaml format. In you hosts file path you can make two sub directories named group_vars and host_vars. Any files in those paths that match the name of the group of hosts, or a host name in your hosts file will be interpolated at run time. So the previous example would look like this:</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # pwd<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />/etc/ansible<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # tree<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />├── group_vars<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />│   ├── RHELBased<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />│   └── SUSEBased<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />├── hosts<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />└── host_vars<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />├── 10.50.1.33<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />└── 10.50.1.47</code></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">2 directories, 5 files<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # cat hosts<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />[RHELBased]<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />10.50.1.33<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />10.50.1.47</code></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<code style="background-color: #fafbfc; border: 1px solid rgb(222, 222, 222); clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Consolas, Monaco, Menlo, Courier, Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 21px; word-wrap: normal;">[SUSEBased]<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />127.0.0.1<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # cat group_vars/RHELBased<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # cat group_vars/SUSEBased<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />---<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />http_port: 443<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # cat host_vars/10.50.1.33<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />---<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />http_port: 443<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ultrabook:/etc/ansible # cat host_vars/10.50.1.47<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />---<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />http_port:80<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" />ansible_ssh_user: mdonlon</code></div>
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Refining Playbooks</h2>
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There are many ways to organize playbooks as well. In the previous examples we used a single file, and everything is really simplified. One way of organizing things that is commonly used is creating roles. Basically you load a main file as your playbook, and that then imports all the data from the extra files, the extra files are organized as roles. For example if you have a wordpress site, you need a web head, and a database. The web head will have a web server, the app code, and any needed modules. The database is sometimes ran on the same host and some times ran on remote hosts, and this is where roles really shine. You make a directory, and small playbook for each role. In this case we can have an apache role, mysql role, wordpress role, mod_php, and php roles. The big advantage to this is that not every role has to be applied on one server, in this case mysql could be applied to a separate machine. This also allows for code re-use, for example you apache role could be used with python apps and php apps alike. Demonstrating this is a little beyond the scope of this article, and there are many different ways of doing thing, I would recommend searching for ansible playbook examples. There are many people contributing code on github, and I am sure various other sites.</div>
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Modules</h2>
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All of the work being done behind the scenes in ansible is driven by modules. Ansible has an excellent library of built in modules that do things like package installation, transferring files, and everything we have done in this article. But for some people this will not be suitable for their setup, ansible has a means of adding your own modules. One great thing about the API provided by Ansible is that you are not restricted to the language it was written in, Python, you can use any language really. Ansible modules work by passing around JSON data structures, so as long as you can build a JSON data structure in your language of choice, which I am pretty sure any scripting language can do, you can begin coding something right away. There is much documentation on the Ansible site, about how the module interface works, and many examples of modules on github as well. Keep in mind that some obscure languages may not have great support, but that would only be because not enough people are contributing code in that language, try it out and publish your results somewhere!</div>
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Conclusion</h2>
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In conclusion, there are many systems around for configuration management, I hope this article shows the ease of setup for ansible which I believe is one of its strongest points. Please keep in mind that I was trying to show a lot of different ways to do things, and not everything above may be considered best practice in your private infrastructure, or the coding world abroad. Here are some more links to take you knowledge of ansible to the next level:</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px; list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 27px 27px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://www.ansible.com/" style="color: grey; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Ansible project</a> home page.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://docs.ansible.com/" style="color: grey; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">Ansible project documentation</a>.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://rosstuck.com/multistage-environments-with-ansible/" style="color: grey; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">Multistage environments with Ansible</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>

Install Ansible Configuration Management And IT Automation Tool

Today I will be talking about ansible, a powerful configuration management solution written in python. There are many configuration management solutions available, all with pros and cons, ansible sta…

21 Jan 2016

602 Gbps! This May Have Been the Largest DDoS Attack in History

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Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies day-by-day, and the <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack</i> is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend services of a host connected to the Internet.</div>
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Until now, nearly every big website had been a victim of this attack, and the most recent one was conducted against the <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BBC</b>'s websites and Republican presidential candidate <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Donald Trump</b>'s main campaign website over this past holiday weekend.</div>
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Out of two, the largest DDoS attack in the history was carried out against the BBC website: <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Over 600 Gbps</b>.</div>
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Largest DDoS Attack in the History</h3>
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The group calling itself <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New World Hacking</b> claimed responsibility for taking down both the BBC's global website and Donald Trump's website last week.</div>
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The group targeted all BBC sites, including its iPlayer on-demand service, and took them down for at least three hours on New Year's Eve.</div>
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At the moment, the BBC news organization announced that the outage was caused due to some "technical" fault, but later it stated that "New World Hacking" group had claimed responsibility for launching a DDoS attack against BBC, as a <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"test of its capabilities."</i></div>
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BangStresser DDoS Attack Tool</h3>
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One of the members of the New World Hacking group, identified himself as Ownz, claimed that the group allegedly used their own tool called <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BangStresser</b> to launch a <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">DDoS attack of up to 602 Gbps </i>on the BBC's website.</div>
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As a proof, the group <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/attackers-targeting-bbc-donald-trump-amazon-web-services/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #4184f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">provided</a> ZDNet a screenshot of a web interface that was allegedly used to attack the BBC website.</div>
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Although the authenticity of the screenshot has not been verified, if the attack size is proven true, it would vastly surpass the largest DDoS attack record of 334 Gbps, recorded by Arbor Networks last year.</div>
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The recent massive DDoS attack apparently utilizes two <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Amazon Web Services</b> servers that employ a large number of automated detection and mitigation techniques in order to prevent the misuse of the services, Amazon previously claimed.</div>
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More details about the attack have yet not disclosed, but Ownz claimed that their main purpose behind the development of the BangStresser DDoS tool is to unmask ISIS and possibly end its online propaganda.</div>
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A similar group named <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lizard Squad</b>, conducted a marketing campaign for promoting their DDoS tool, known as the Lizard Stresser, using which the group took down Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live last year on Christmas Eve.</div>
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602 Gbps! This May Have Been the Largest DDoS Attack in History

Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies day-by-day, and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend servi…

11 Jan 2016

EPIC Fail — For the Third Time, Linux Ransomware CRACKED!

EPIC Fail — For the Third Time, Linux Ransomware CRACKED!

Ransomware is now a common practice for money-motivated cyber criminals. It's basically a type of software written in any system-based programming language that has the ability to hijack victim’s com…

11 Jan 2016

How to become an Information Security Expert with the CISSP Certification

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If you dream of making it big in the IT security community, the CISSP certification is a necessary milestone.</div>
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Having this certification to your credit portrays a sense of commitment to the security profession and shows potential employers that you have a strong knowledge base to excel in this domain.</div>
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So if you're considering a certification, read on – we've answered a few questions that you might have.</div>
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What is CISSP?</h3>
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Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) is a globally recognized certification in the field of information security, which is governed by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, commonly known as (ISC) ²</div>
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CISSP has become a standard of achievement that is acknowledged worldwide. The exam is highly challenging, and requires a broad level of knowledge. Moreover, achieving it requires help, irrespective of your experience level.</div>
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How do I choose the right CISSP Training Course?</h3>
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This is one of the most important decisions to make. Successfully passing any exam largely depends on how well your study material matches your learning style and schedule.</div>
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The most important factor, of course, is the quality of training and the relevance of the course content.</div>
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You need to ensure that you sign up for training that equips you with the best practices in the industry and helps you to ace the exam in your first attempt.</div>
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To help you with that, <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Simplilearn </b>presents CISSP certification training course where a team of experts will walk you through the skills and concepts you need to master CISSP.</div>
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We've interacted with plenty of CISSP professionals who have successfully completed the certification, as well as with current aspirants, and have understood that professionals might need to attend multiple training sessions to pass the exam.</div>
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The solution to this would be the "<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.simplilearn.com/it-security-management/cissp-certification-training" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #4184f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">CISSP Online Classroom Flexi-Pass</a></b>" that Simplilearn offers. The offering provides access to online self-learning videos for 180 days, along with unlimited access to multiple training batches conducted by industry experts across the globe – for 90 days at the cost of one batch.</div>
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Who should do a CISSP Certification?</h3>
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The CISSP certification is highly sought-after by IT professionals since it is well recognized by IT organizations. The certification is best suited for:</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chief Information Security Officers</li>
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Why Choose Simplilearn?</h3>
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CISSP is all about achieving perfection in design, engineering, implementation and managing of information security programs in an organization. </div>
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The course is comprehensively designed in-line with the ISC2 Common Book of Knowledge, 2015. The quizzes and simulation exams ensure you get enough practice and preparation for the final certification exam.</div>
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All the 8 domains are provided with business scenarios for the participants to understand the real-life application. Aspects such as Security and Risk Management and Security Engineering, which cover around 35% of the exam, are discussed in detail with end-of-chapter quizzes.</div>
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So if you're looking to build a strong career in Information Security, a CISSP certification is a must. Get yourself up to date with the latest trends, and give your career that much-needed boost.</div>
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How to become an Information Security Expert with the CISSP Certification

If you dream of making it big in the IT security community, the CISSP certification is a necessary milestone. Having this certification to your credit portrays a sense of commitment to the security p…

11 Jan 2016

Microsoft Windows 10 is now Installed on over 200 Million Devices

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Windows 10 here, Windows 10 there, and it is everywhere.</div>
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This is exactly what Microsoft dreamed of, and it seems like the company is actively working to reach its One Billion goal by the end of 2017 or mid-2018.</div>
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Proudly announcing its first huge success, Microsoft reported that its newest Windows 10 operating system is now officially installed on more than<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 200 Million devices worldwide</b> since its launch five months ago.</div>
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Windows 10 is the latest as well as the greatest operating system from Microsoft that took less than six months to hit 200 Million milestone.</div>
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<span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">The growth is really impressive, and Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Windows and Devices</span><b style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Yusuf Mehdi</b><span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> outlined other milestones for Windows 10 in a </span><a href="https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/04/windows-10-now-active-on-over-200-million-devices/" rel="nofollow" style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #4184f3; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">blog post</a><span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> on Monday. Here's the list:</span><ul style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 30px; margin: 20px 20px 20px 35px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Windows 10's adoption is growing 140% faster than Windows 7 and over 400% faster than Windows 8.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">More than 40% of the new Windows 10 devices were activated since Black Friday.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Over 11 Billion hours have been spent using Windows 10 in December, meaning roughly 365 million hours per day.</li>
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What made Windows 10 an enormous success?</h3>
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Obviously, the first and foremost reason to reach these milestones is the fact that Windows 10 was available as a free upgrade for both Windows 7 as well as Windows 8.1 users during its first year.</div>
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In addition to the free upgrade, Microsoft also changed the whole game by including non-PC devices such as smartphones (<i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Windows 10 Mobile</i>) and other smart devices in its count. As Windows 10 is now on the Xbox One, new Lumia phones and even on some IoT devices.</div>
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Sounds good, doesn't it?</div>
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Microsoft Aims to Reach its 1 BILLLLLION Goal</h3>
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Microsoft says it was 'humbled' by the update, but still it aims to have Windows 10 running on 1 Billion devices by late summer 2018, including computers, smartphones, consoles, and Internet of Things devices, as well.</div>
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As part of its strategy to reach this milestone, all Microsoft has to do is contributing to the massive Windows 10 push.</div>
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Microsoft will very soon begin automatically upgrading some users to the newest version of its Windows OS, the company revealed.</div>
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Like It Or Not, Get Ready for Windows 10 Upgrade </h3>
<br style="content: ' '; display: block; margin: 16px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" />The company plans to re-categorize Windows 10 as a "<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Recommended Update</b>" in its Windows Update service in the early part of this year, in an effort to begin automatically downloading and installing Windows 10 to Windows 7 and 8 users.</div>
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It doesn't come as a surprise as Microsoft previously tried several number of times to push its new operating system more aggressively. Windows 7 and 8.1 users have been forced many times to upgrade their machines to Windows 10.</div>
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After all 200 Million-device milestone is a big one, but if compared to the company's 1 Billion goal, Microsoft has just hit 20% of its milestone.</div>
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Although there is nothing we could predict what tweaks Microsoft has planned for future upgrades, the next time you may get a pop-up window with a single button that says "<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Upgrade Now</b>."</div>
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Microsoft Windows 10 is now Installed on over 200 Million Devices

Windows 10 here, Windows 10 there, and it is everywhere. This is exactly what Microsoft dreamed of, and it seems like the company is actively working to reach its One Billion goal by the end of 2017 …

05 Jan 2016

Ransom32 — First JavaScript-powered Ransomware affecting Windows, Mac and Linux

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Here's New Year's first Ransomware: <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ransom32</b>.</div>
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A new Ransomware-as-a-service, dubbed <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ransom32</i>, has been spotted that for the first time uses a ransomware written in JavaScript to infect Mac, Windows as well as Linux machines.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvTTNzz8ihRlaZZlbVZdKxIztqSn_6kAqSQ96Yb8uAgnFtZIEh3DM9uf2TXhBM6aRMP5pu73T1Jv8O7l2-YCdgBQdExHEbBnDP-i1ALaU2aan7lmibMb_kLXvugJwiNRvkjA6NCeeo2VH/s1600/javascript-ransomware-malware.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvTTNzz8ihRlaZZlbVZdKxIztqSn_6kAqSQ96Yb8uAgnFtZIEh3DM9uf2TXhBM6aRMP5pu73T1Jv8O7l2-YCdgBQdExHEbBnDP-i1ALaU2aan7lmibMb_kLXvugJwiNRvkjA6NCeeo2VH/s1600/javascript-ransomware-malware.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Ransom32 allows its operators to deploy the malware very quickly and easily. It has a dashboard that enables operators to designate their Bitcoin addresses to which the ransom can be sent. The dashboard also shows stats about how much Bitcoins they have made.</div>
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In short, this new ransomware-as-a-service is so simple, and efficient at the same time, that anyone can download and distribute his/her own copy of the ransomware executable as long as he/she have a Bitcoin address.</div>
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The copy of Ransom32 was first analysed by Emsisoft, which found that the new ransomware family, which embedded in a self-extracting WinRAR archive, is using the NW.js platform for infiltrating the victims' computers, and then holding their files by encrypting them with<b style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 128-bit AES encryption</b>.</div>
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But, Why the NW.js Framework?</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKMM2qT3BeI5BmEyvxBP7BM7jL50vueUWfhH42FPbsYa0zTkSlziWDhGPiDP176uqNeiDAbJ6MOSxDgo1z32VUNBrH3HXjgssyOo5d-byGZM5Zzvf_VyXpLR8EkJbmFsItvocIvPA5R4J/s1600/ransom32-malware.png" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; clear: left; color: #4184f3; cursor: default; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; pointer-events: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="ransom32-malware" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKMM2qT3BeI5BmEyvxBP7BM7jL50vueUWfhH42FPbsYa0zTkSlziWDhGPiDP176uqNeiDAbJ6MOSxDgo1z32VUNBrH3HXjgssyOo5d-byGZM5Zzvf_VyXpLR8EkJbmFsItvocIvPA5R4J/s1600/ransom32-malware.png" style="border: 0px; clear: both; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 728px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="ransom32-malware" /></a></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NW.js</b>, formerly known as Node-WebKit, is a JavaScript framework for app development based on Node.js and Chromium. It works around normally-strict sandboxing of JavaScript, so a Web app can be repurposed for desktops without the sandbox getting in its way.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-left-color: rgb(191, 202, 218); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: inherit; margin: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"NW.js allows for much more control and interaction with the underlying operating system (OS), enabling JavaScript to do almost everything 'normal' programming languages like C++ or Delphi can do,"</i> Emsisoft's Fabian Wosar <a href="http://blog.emsisoft.com/2016/01/01/meet-ransom32-the-first-javascript-ransomware/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #4184f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">writes</a>.</blockquote>
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The NW.js framework not only allows for cross-platform infections but also is harder to detect because it is a legitimate framework. Ransom32 has some resemblance to <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CryptoLocker</b> that is one of the nasty ransomware that already infected millions of PCs.</div>
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Ransom32 has been traded on the dark web with the authors asking for a 25 percent cut of all ransom payments for offering its service and forwarding the rest of the amount to the operator’s Bitcoin address.</div>
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How Does Ransom32 Work?</h3>
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Malware operators place the malicious file inside emails masquerading as delivery notifications, unpaid invoices, and such.</div>
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As soon as it was installed and launched, Ransom32 connected to a command-and-control (C&C) server on TOR anonymising network, displaying ransom note as shown above and the Bitcoin address where victims are supposed to pay to recover their files.</div>
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Currently, Wosar has only seen Ransom32 as a Windows attack vector, but the NW.js framework can run on all three major operating systems.</div>
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Therefore, ransomware coded to work on top of NW.js would theoretically be able to target Mac OS X as well as Linux operating systems.</div>
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How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Threat?</h3>
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Here are some important steps that should be considered to protect yourself from Ransomware threats.</div>
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<ul style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; margin: 20px 20px 20px 35px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Always keep regular backups of your important data.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Make sure you run an active anti-virus security suite of tools on your system.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Do not open email attachments from unknown sources.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Most importantly, always browse the Internet safely</li>
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Ransom32 — First JavaScript-powered Ransomware affecting Windows, Mac and Linux

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