5.4. Storing an IdM service secret in an asymmetric vault using Ansible

Procedure

1. Navigate to the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory:

   $ cd ~/MyPlaybooks/

2. Make a copy of the data-archive-in-asymmetric-vault.yml Ansible playbook file. For example:

   $ cp /usr/share/ansible/collections/ansible_collections/freeipa/ansible_freeipa/playbooks/vault/data-archive-in-asymmetric-vault.yml data-archive-in-asymmetric-vault-copy.yml

3. Open the data-archive-in-asymmetric-vault-copy.yml file for editing.

4. Modify the file by setting the following variables in the freeipa.ansible_freeipa.ipavault task section:

   • Indicate that the value of the ipaadmin_password variable is defined in the secret.yml Ansible vault file.
   • Set the name variable to the name of the vault, for example secret_vault.
   • Set the service variable to the service owner of the vault, for example HTTP/webserver1.idm.example.com.
   • Set the in variable to "{{ lookup('file', 'private-key-to-an-externally-signed-certificate.pem') | b64encode }}". This ensures that Ansible retrieves the file with the private key from the working directory on the Ansible controller rather than from the IdM server.

   • Set the action variable to member.

     This the modified Ansible playbook file for the current example:

   ---
   - name: Tests
     hosts: ipaserver
     gather_facts: false
   
     vars_files:
     - /home/user_name/MyPlaybooks/secret.yml
     tasks:
     - freeipa.ansible_freeipa.ipavault:
         ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
         name: secret_vault
         service: HTTP/webserver1.idm.example.com
         in: "{{ lookup('file', 'private-key-to-an-externally-signed-certificate.pem') | b64encode }}"
         action: member

5. Save the file.

6. Run the playbook:

   $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i inventory.file data-archive-in-asymmetric-vault-copy.yml