Jenkins : Ansible Plugin

 This plugin allows to execute Ansible tasks as a job build step.

Table of Contents

Global Configuration

Ansible needs to be on the PATH for the build job in order to be used. This can be done through either Jenkins Global Tool Configuration or including Ansible on the OS User PATH variable.

Global Tool Configuration

Configuring Ansible through the Global Tool Configuration in Jenkins (Jenkins → Manage Jenkins → Global Tool Configuration) allows for multiple Ansible installations to be present and used by different Jenkins jobs.

1. Click Add Ansible

2. Configure the name and path
   
   

   Field name	Description
   Name	Symbolic name used to identify a specific Ansible installation when multiple installations are configured
   Path to ansible executables directory	Directory containing the ansible, ansible-playbook, and ansible-vault binaries

3. Repeat for any additional desired installations

OS User PATH

Ansible can also be added to the PATH user used by the Jenkins executor instead of configured through Global Tool Configuration. This is done through normal OS tools outside of Jenkins and is not covered by this guide.

Adhoc

Adhoc commands allow for simple operations to be done without writing a full playbook. This allows for a convenient way of doing quick tasks with Ansible.

Examples

Scripted

Due to JENKINS-43782 and JENKINS-49056, adhoc commands cannot be run with a pipeline job.

Declarative

Arguments

See also jenkins.io documentation.

Playbook

Ansible playbook operations can be run with the plugin. The plugin provides several conveniences such as easily using credentials from the Jenkins credential store, unbuffered color output in the log, etc. 

Examples

Scripted

ansiblePlaybook credentialsId: 'private_key', inventory: 'inventories/a/hosts', playbook: 'my_playbook.yml'

Declarative

ansiblePlaybook(credentialsId: 'private_key', inventory: 'inventories/a/hosts', playbook: 'my_playbook.yml')

Additional scripted and declarative pipeline examples can be found on the plugin's GitHub readme.

Arguments

jenkins.io documentation

Refer to the ansible-playbook manual page for details on how each command line argument is interpretted.

Authentication

SSH Keys

SSH keys are the recommended authentication method for SSH connections. The plugin supports the credential type "SSH Username with private key" configured in the Jenkins credential store through the SSH crendentials plugin.

Password

Even if using SSH keys is recommended authentication method, password authentication may sometimes be required. The plugin has supported password based authentication since 0.3.0. When using password based authentication, the sshpass binary is expected to be on the PATH. The plugin supports the credential type "Username with password" configured in the Jenkins credential store through the SSH crendentials plugin.

Vault Credentials

Vault credentials can be setup in the Jenkins credential store as either a "Secret text" or a "Secret file". 

Colorized Output

The AnsiColor plugin is needed for colorized console output. Once installed, colorized output can be enabled with the argument "colorized: true".

ansiColor('xterm') {
    ansiblePlaybook( 
        playbook: 'path/to/playbook.yml',
        inventory: 'path/to/inventory.ini', 
        credentialsId: 'sample-ssh-key',
        colorized: true) 
}

Extra Parameters

Extra parameters is a string passed to the Ansible Command Line invocation as-is and can be useful for arguments occasionally added to an invocation at runtime, such as tags and host limits.

Inventory

File

A string path to the inventory file to use with the playbook invocation.

Inline

The provided content is used as the content of the inventory file for the playbook invocation.

Using Jenkins Environment Variables

Jenkins environment variables can be accessed from within an Ansible playbook. The Jenkins variables are injected as environment variables making them available through the Ansible lookup plugin.

The following Ansible playbook accesses the Jenkins BUILD_TAG variable:

---
- hosts: example
  tasks:
    - debug: msg="{{ lookup('env','BUILD_TAG') }}"

Vault

Most Ansible Vault operations can be performed with the plugin. Interactive operations such as create, edit, and view are not supported through the plugin. One use case for this enabling developers to encrypt secret values while keeping the vault password a secret.

Examples

Scripted

ansibleVault action: 'encrypt', input: 'vars/secrets.yml', vaultCredentialsId: 'ansible_vault_credentials'

ansibleVault action: 'encrypt_string', content: 'secret_content', vaultCredentialsId: 'ansible_vault_credentials'

Declarative

ansibleVault(action: 'encrypt', input: 'vars/secrets.yml', vaultCredentialsId: 'ansible_vault_credentials')

ansibleVault(action: 'encrypt_string', content: 'secret_content', vaultCredentialsId: 'ansible_vault_password')

Arguments

See also jenkins.io documentation.

Vault Credentials

Vault credentials can be setup in the Jenkins credential store as either a "Secret text" or a "Secret file". 

Open Issues

See also All Open Items

Changelog

Version 1.0 (26 March 2018)

• • • Fix security issue: Do not disable host key verification by default. This may break existing configurations as host key verification will be enabled everywhere by default.

Version 0.8.0 (16 Jan 2018) 

• • • Add support for Ansible Vault [JENKINS-48499]
    • Add hostKeyChecking option to pipeline [JENKINS-42445] 

Version 0.6.2 (3 Jan 2017) 

• • • Fix blocker bug when launched from a pipeline [JENKINS-40780] 

Version 0.6.1 (1 Jan 2017)

• • • Use latest parent project definition in order to deploy plugin (thanks to alecharp for the help and the PR)

Version 0.6 (31 Dec 2016)

WARN: 0.6.x version will be the last one to support Jenkins 1.xxx and Ansible 1.x - The 0.7.x and next releases will require Jenkins 2.32.1 (or higher) and Ansible 2.2 (or higher)

• • • Add a "do not specify" option for inventory [JENKINS-34627]
    • Support inventoryContent in pipeline (thanks to leewin12 for the PR)
    • Add support of extra variables in jobdsl (thanks to pawbur for the PR)
    • Support empty forks (number of parallel processes) parameter [JENKINS-39438]
    • Escape '%' character in private key path (thanks to ewollesen for the PR) 
    • Omit ansible option when expanded environment variable is empty (thanks to vjestin for the PR) 
    • Add the --forks parameter configurable in pipeline step (thanks to anguswilliams for the PR)
    • Fix usage of environment variable in ansiblePlaybook pipeline step (thanks to thomasKalmar and barthorre for the PR) [JENKINS-38289]

Version 0.5 (5 May 2016) 

• • • Add support for ansible extra variables [JENKINS-29863]
    • Improve Pipeline plugin integration [JENKINS-32911]
    • Add the possibility to use the default inventory file (thanks to Johann Schmitz for the PR)
    • Add colorized output in pipeline jobs (thanks to Kirill Merkushev for the PR)
    • Make Jenkins build variables available as environment variables for ansible (thanks to Kevin Mooney for the PR) [JENKINS-29284]

Version 0.4 (25 December 2015) 

• • • Support for password protected SSH keys [JENKINS-30656]
    • Initial support for the workflow plugin [JENKINS-30398]
    • Add support for Job DSL plugin (thanks to Kirill Merkushev for the PR) [JENKINS-31790]

Version 0.3.1 (15 July 2015) 

• • • Fix execution on slave nodes [JENKINS-29294]

Version 0.3 (20 June 2015) 

• • • Add support for password based SSH authentication (with sshpass)
    • Environment variables can be used in Module and Module arguments text field in Ad-hoc command builder
    • Environment variables can be used in inline inventory text box [JENKINS-28547]

Version 0.2 (11 May 2015) 

• • • Fix NullPointerException when no credentials are selected
    • Fix --skippedTags parameter configuration which was ignored
    • Fix NullPointerException and print an error message in the build console when the inventory is not set in the job configuration

Version 0.1 (01 May 2015)

• • • Initial version