# Ansible Quickstart Examples This section contains examples for how to set up a Squirro installation using Ansible. Please refer to the full documentation at [Install and Manage Squirro with Ansible](index.md#ansible) for more information. ## Basic Setup If you’re looking for a quick single server setup of the latest Squirro release, follow the steps below. 1. Secure a Rocky Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux server. Squirro recommends [AWS](../../../a-z/industry-glossary.md#term-AWS), [GCP](../../../a-z/industry-glossary.md#term-GCP), Azure, Hetzner Cloud, or any physical server. For development, Vagrant is a great choice, but any [VM](../../../a-z/industry-glossary.md#term-VM) solution such as VirtualBox, Proxmox, VMware Workstation/Fusion/Player, etc. will work. 2. Ensure your setup meets the requirements detailed in [System Requirements](../system-requirements.md#install-system-requirements). 3. Log in to the server and become root. 4. Install Ansible. On supported versions of RHEL and Rocky Linux, `ansible-core` is available in the standard AppStream repository. For supported versions, see the [System Requirements](../system-requirements.md#install-system-requirements) page. Run: ```console yum install -y ansible-core ansible-galaxy collection install community.general ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.posix ``` The `ansible-galaxy` commands require an internet connection to reach `galaxy.ansible.com`. For air-gapped environments, download the collection archives on a machine with internet access, transfer them to the server, then install them locally: ```console ansible-galaxy collection download community.general ansible-galaxy collection download ansible.posix ansible-galaxy collection install community-general-.tar.gz ansible-galaxy collection install ansible-posix-.tar.gz ``` > **Note** > > Ansible is a Python application and can also be installed using pip. 5. Go to [mirror.squirro.net/ansible/](https://mirror.squirro.net/ansible/) and download the Squirro Ansible ZIP file with the highest version number (for example, `squirro-ansible-3.16.0.zip`). Then unzip it using the following command: ```console unzip squirro-ansible-x.x.x.zip ``` Replace `x.x.x` with the version number of the downloaded file. 6. Edit `playbook-quickstart.yml` to and edit the yum username and password to match your Squirro mirror username and password. Example code shown below: ```yaml - name: Quickstart Install Squirro hosts: all become: true vars: squirro_clusternode: True squirro_storagenode: True yum_user: ... yum_password: ... squirro_channel: stable squirro_version: latest elasticsearch_discovery_type: single-node roles: - role: squirro-ansible ``` 7. Install Squirro using the following command: ```console ansible-playbook --connection=local --inventory 127.0.0.1, playbook-quickstart.yml ``` Depending on your system, the installation can take 15 to 20 minutes. 8. Open the HTTP and HTTPS port on the firewall as shown below: ```console firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-service=http firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-service=https firewall-cmd --reload ``` 9. Validate if all services are running using the following command: ```console squirro_status ``` 10. Access the service at `https://your-sytems-ip` or `http://your-systems-ip`. ## Offline Installation If your machine cannot reach mirror.squirro.net, you can install Squirro offline as shown below: ```yaml - name: Offline Squirro hosts: all become: true vars: squirro_clusternode: True squirro_storagenode: True squirro_install_mode: offline squirro_packages_tar: /path/to/os-n.n-stable-x86_64-n.n.n.tar.gz squirro_channel: stable squirro_version: latest elasticsearch_discovery_type: single-node roles: - role: squirro-ansible ``` The corresponding `tar.gz` file can be downloaded from the mirror. Example: For Rocky Linux 8, you can get the correct package from: `https://mirror.squirro.net/rocky/8/stable/x86_64/`. If you expect to run multiple installations, you can speed things up by extracting the `tar.gz` file and placing it on a shared file system, as shown below: ```yaml - name: Offline Squirro hosts: all become: true vars: squirro_clusternode: True squirro_storagenode: True squirro_install_mode: filesystem yum_repo_folder: /path/to/offline/yum/repo squirro_channel: stable squirro_version: latest elasticsearch_discovery_type: single-node roles: - role: squirro-ansible ``` This can be faster as the unzipping will not take place each time. Note: The `yum_repo_folder` variable needs to point at the location that contains the `repodata` folder. ## AWS Standalone Playbook Expanding on the quickstart example, on Amazon Web Services, when deploying Squirro, it is best practice to leverage managed services to increase availability and enable horizontal scaling. In the example below, the following are leveraged: - RDS to externalize MariaDB / MySQL - ElastiCache to externalize the Key/Value Store - ElastiCache again to externalize the In-Memory Cache - EFS as a shared file system These resources can be spun up manually in the AWS web console. Important: Squirro highly recommends you leverage infrastructure automation solutions such as AWS CloudFormation or [Terraform](https://www.terraform.io/). Once complete, edit the `playbook-quickstart-aws.yml` file to fill in all the blanks and adjust the RDS and ElastiCache endpoints, credentials, and IP addresses. ```yaml - name: Quickstart Install Squirro on AWS hosts: all become: true vars: squirro_clusternode: True squirro_storagenode: True yum_user: ... yum_password: ... squirro_channel: stable squirro_version: latest elasticsearch_squirro_cluster_name: squirro-quickstart elasticsearch_cluster_nodes: ['10.1.0.2', '10.1.0.3', '...'] elasticsearch_network_interface: eth0 remote_mysql_server: True mysql_host: yourproject-db.abcdefghij.eu-central-1.rds.amazonaws.com mysql_root_user: root mysql_root_password: ... mysql_shared_service_password: ... remote_redis_server: True redis_tls: True redis_storage_host: master.storage-abcdefgh.euc1.cache.amazonaws.com redis_storage_port: 6379 redis_storage_password: ... redis_cache_host: master.storage-abcdefgh.euc1.cache.amazonaws.com redis_cache_port: 6380 redis_cache_password: ... remote_filesystem: True remote_filesystem_path: /mnt/efs/squirro roles: - role: squirro-ansible ``` You then run the same steps as under the _Quickstart_ section to install Ansible, but instead run this command to execute the install: ```console ansible-playbook --connection=local --inventory 127.0.0.1, playbook-quickstart-aws.yml ``` You can now repeat this on each EC2 instance. Tip: For production deployments, Squirro typically recommends at least three instances. This procedure can be fully automated with Cloud-init user data methods to bootstrap new instances or even to build [AMI](../../../a-z/industry-glossary.md#term-AMI) images using frameworks such as Packer. > **Caution** > > This only serves as an example, for full production readiness you will need to delegate the secrets to a secrets manager (e.g. Hashicorp Vault) and also leverage the AWS EC2 discovery plugin for Elasticsearch. ## Next Steps After the installation completes, create the first administrator, turn off open sign-up, and finish the required configuration. For the full list of steps, see the [Post-Installation Checklist](../post-installation-checklist.md#install-post-installation-checklist) page.