Ansible Playbook for configuring Ubuntu Server (minimal)

Introduction

This is a collection of roles and configuarions I use for Ubuntu Server deployment.

This playbook was primarily created for deploying Unbound DNS server with Unbound-adblock.

Unbound-adblock is essentially a DNS filter that blocks ads and trackers, similar to pi-hole.

This Playbook is designed and tested for Ubuntu Server 24.04.1 LTS. This playbook may not work on older versions of Ubuntu without modification.

Requirements

1. Basic knowledge of Ansible

2. Ubuntu Server 24.04.1 (may work on other apt based distros with modification)

3. Software: ansible, git, openssh-server, vim-gtk3 (vim or vim-gtk3 is not strictly required, but is required if the vim role is executed)

4. Ensure ansible community modules are installed. See below for instructions.

Instructions

This assumes a new/fresh installation and the execution of this playbook is on the target machine (localhost). Of course, this playbook can be executed to a remote host, if needed. This also assumes the user indicated below by <username> belongs to the sudo group. Additionally, this assumes the user's primary group on the host and target machine(s) are the same.

1. Install required software for this playbook.
   sudo apt update && sudo apt install ansible git vim -y ansible-galaxy collection install community.general

2. Clone ansible-desktop-ubuntu repo.
   git clone https://github.com/richlamdev/ansible-desktop-ubuntu.git

3. Generate SSH key pair for localhost.
   cd ansible-desktop-ubuntu/scripts

The following script will generate a new SSH key pair for localhost and copy the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. This will allow authentication via SSH key.
./gen_ssh_keys.sh

Alternatively, if password authentication is preferred, install sshpass.
sudo apt install sshpass

** *Limit use of sshpass for setup only, due to potential security issues. * **

Note: Be aware /role/base/tasks/ssh.yml will update the sshd_config indirectly by the configuration file placed in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/, this will disable SSH password authentication; consequently, making SSH key-based authentication a hard requirement.

4. Amend inventory file if needed, default target is localhost.

5. Amend main.yml file for roles (software) desired.

• The majority of third party packages are separated into roles, this was setup this way to allow convenient inclusion/exclusion of roles as needed by commenting/uncommenting roles in main.yml at the root level of the repo.

6. To run the playbook use the following command:
   ansible-playbook main.yml -bKu <username> --private-key ~/.ssh/<ssh-key>

• enter SUDO password. (assumes user is a member of the sudo user group)

To run the playbook using SSH password authentication, use the following command:
ansible-playbook main.yml -bkKu <username>

• enter SSH password
• enter SUDO password. (assumes user is a member of the sudo user group)

7. Where privilege escalation is not required, the packages or configuration is installed on the target host(s) in the context of <username> indicated.

Role Information

The majority of roles are self explantory in terms of what they install.

Additional information for the following roles:

• auto-update

  • force dpkg to accept default settings during updates
  • add cron to run apt update and dist-upgrade daily
  • add cron to run snap update daily
  • technically there are built-in methods to run apt and snap update daily (unattended-upgrades), however, none of those methods seem to work. This primitive implementation achieves a similar effect.
  • This role is for any desktop/laptop that requires operating 24/7.
  • Unfortunately there is no method to ensure reboots are triggered when required, at this time.

• base

  • packages.yml - list of packages to install via apt
  • keychron.yml - enables keychron keyboard shortcuts
  • autostart.yml - enables autostart of applications
  • ssh.yml - configures ssh server and client. disables password authentication

• disable-local-dns

  • disables local dns on the target host (again this is a personal preference, as my network DNS server handles DNS lookup and filtering)
  • this role is executed last, as a dns service restart is required; the restart will take too long and cause the following playbook role(s) to fail (a delay could be added, but that adds unnecessary execution time for the playbook)

• env

  • setups personal preferences for bash shell
  • fzf is required for fzf.vim
  • .bashrc -bash function se is for fast directory navigation at the CLI refer to fzf explorer (this is slightly different from the built in alt-c command provided with fzf)
  • refer to System Updates section for manual (script) updating of fzf

• unbound

  • installs and configures unbound DNS server
  • enables DNSSEC
  • enables DNS-over-TLS via Quad9, CloudFlare, Mulvadd, Adguard DNS service providers

• unbound-adblock

  • all credit for this role goes to Jordan Geoghegan. I did not write this, I only transferred the implementation from Bash to Ansible.
  • Refer to Unbound Adblock webpage

• vim (this role is commented out by default)

  • installs customization only, does not install vim

    • compile and install vim with this script
    • Note: Vim >9.0 is required for codeium plugin below, at the time of the writing of this playbook, Vim 9.x was not available in the official Ubuntu repos

  • if codeium is not needed, disable codeium in the status line within .vimrc that is deployed with this role:

    • comment out this line

    set statusline+=\{…\}%3{codeium#GetStatusString()} " codeium status

    If this is not disabled before codeium.vim is uninstalled, vim will freeze on startup. (you'll have to edit .vimrc with an alternative editor,and/ or disable loading of .vimrc then comment the above line indicated)

    • remove codeium.vim from $HOME/.vim/pack: rm -rf ~/.vim/pack/Exafunction

  • installs following plugins:

    • ALE
    • codeium
    • fzf.vim
    • Github copilot (use codeium)
    • hashivim
    • indentLine
    • monokai colorscheme
    • nerdtree
    • tagbar
    • vim-commentary
    • vim-unimpaired
    • vimwiki
    • personal/custom .vimrc

System Updates

The commands used to keep your system up to date are:

1. sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
2. sudo apt autoremove -y (not really an update, but removes old packages)
3. sudo snap refresh*

*while snap package mangement is controversial - tradeoff of manual updates vs. convenience...

Idempotency

The majority of this playbook is idempotent. Minimal use of Ansible shell or command is used.

Scripts

1. gen_ssh_keys.sh - generates a new SSH key pair for localhost and copies the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

2. check_ssh_auth.sh - checks for SSH authentication methods against a host Eg: ./check_ssh_auth.sh localhost

Random Notes, General Information & Considerations

1. For further information regarding command line switches and arguments above, please see the Ansible documentation, alternatively read my ansible-misc github repo

2. Review the base role for potential unwanted software installation/ configuration. The majority of the software within the base role is software available via the default apt repositories. Other software are some git repos, keychron keyboard setup, and screen blanking short-cut key enablement. Furthermore the roles env and vim are personal preferences.

3. Appropriate GPG keys are added to /usr/share/keyrings/ folder for third party apt packages, and referenced within repos, per deprecation of apt-key as of Ubuntu 22.04.

4. The organization of this ansible repo has become a little messier than preferred. TODO: Clean it up to be more organized / readable / reusable.