Configuring my laptop using Ansible
Posted on July 9, 2023 (Last modified on March 8, 2024) • 6 min read • 1,194 wordsConfiguring and setting up my laptop using Ansible from scratch
Introduction
Every now and then I like to do a fresh install of my OS, which is currently Kubuntu, just to start fresh and clear out any junk I’ve installed over time. I’d also recently upgraded Kubuntu which had not gone so smoothly and some things were not quite working. So this was a good excuse to do a fresh install and leverage Ansible to configure my laptop. This by no means is revolutionary but is a good example for getting used to using Ansible.
The benefit of using Ansible means that whenever I do this again on any laptop I can simply clone my git repository and run the same playbook and get the same results, remember Ansible is idempotent. This also saves me the chore of installing all the software and if I want fine tuning any settings and customisation
Automating repetitive tasks or any tasks that you want the same outcome to happen each time, for example installing and configuring a laptop, is something I’m trying to move towards each time I come up against tasks that I’ve done a thousand times and never bothered to automate before. In this post I’ll use a simple Ansible playbook to install software I want on my laptop.
Kick starter script
You might be thinking how do I use Ansible to configure my laptop when it’s not even installed and I have to run some apt install commands manually! This is where a kick starter or a “pre” script comes in, at least that’s what I’m calling it. From a fresh OS install, all I need to do is clone my ansible_laptop git repository and run start.sh:
git clone https://github.com/liamtill/ansible_laptop.git
./start.shThe contents of my starter script are:
#!/bin/bash
# Initial script to install requirements to run Ansible
echo "Installing curl"
sudo apt install -y curl
echo "Installing pip and Ansible"
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o /tmp/get-pip.py
python3 /tmp/get-pip.py --user
sudo apt install -y software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt install -y ansible
echo "Checking Ansible version"
ansible --version
echo "Running playbook"
# ensure ansible knows the sudo password
ansible-playbook playbooks/main.yaml --ask-become-pass
echo "Final Steps:"
echo "Configure syncthing"
echo "Configure ohmyzsh"
echo "Log into services"This script
- Makes sure
curlis installed - Installs pip
- Installs a dependency and adds the Ansible ppa to
apt - Installs Ansible and then runs the main playbook
- Prints out some reminder messages for final things I need to do, which could potentially be done using Ansible and dotfiles
You can add any initial steps you might require to your starter script that might be needed to run things in your playbook. Equally you may even just use a bash script to configure/provision your laptop and not need to use Ansible at all.
Ansible playbook
I firstly define a basic inventory.yml, that uses the host localhost and the local connection:
all:
vars:
ansible_user: liam
hosts:
children:
localhost:
ansible_connection: localI add any tasks I want to run to playbooks/main.yaml and by separating playbooks and roles it gives me flexibility to build on this over time. In my git repository I have used some roles; one created by me to install docker and another called gantsign.oh-my-zsh to install and configure oh-my-zsh.
My tasks simply install a bunch of packages using apt, install some applications from deb and ensures the required configuration is done. At the time of this blog post my playbook is:
---
- hosts: localhost
become: yes
vars:
obsidian_version: "1.3.5"
slack_version: "4.32.127"
go_version: "1.20.5"
tasks:
- name: update and upgrade apt packages
apt:
upgrade: yes
update-cache: yes
- name: "Get lsb_release"
shell: lsb_release -cs
register: lsb_release
- name: "Print lsb_release"
debug:
msg: "{{ lsb_release.stdout }}"
- name: confirm keyrings dir exists for syncthing
file:
path: /usr/share/keyrings
state: directory
- name: add syncthing gpg key
apt_key:
url: https://syncthing.net/release-key.gpg
keyring: /usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg
state: present
- name: add stable syncthing channel to sources
apt_repository:
repo: "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable"
state: present
- name: install gpg key for sublime
apt_key:
url: https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg
keyring: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sublimehq-archive.gpg
state: present
- name: add stable sublime channel to sources
apt_repository:
repo: "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/"
state: present
- name: install gpg for terraform
apt_key:
url: https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg
keyring: /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
state: present
- name: add terraform main channel to sources
apt_repository:
repo: "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com {{ lsb_release.stdout }} main"
state: present
- name: Add keepassxc repo
apt_repository:
repo: ppa:phoerious/keepassxc
- name: apt update
become: yes
apt:
update_cache: yes
- name: Install packages
apt:
pkg:
- gnome-keyring
- apt-transport-https
- sublime-text
- syncthing
- zsh
- terraform
- htop
- tmux
- keepassxc
- npm
- name: update npm
shell: npm install -g npm
- name: install nodejs using nodesource
become: true
shell: curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash
- name: install nodejs
apt:
pkg: nodejs
- name: install Obsidian from deb
apt:
deb: "https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/download/v{{ obsidian_version }}/obsidian_{{ obsidian_version }}_amd64.deb"
- name: install VS Code from deb
apt:
deb: https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/stable/695af097c7bd098fbf017ce3ac85e09bbc5dda06/code_1.79.2-1686734195_amd64.deb
- name: install mega.io cloud drive app from deb
apt:
deb: https://mega.nz/linux/repo/xUbuntu_22.04/amd64/megasync-xUbuntu_22.04_amd64.deb
- name: install Chrome from deb
apt:
deb: https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
- name: install Slack from deb
apt:
deb: "https://downloads.slack-edge.com/releases/linux/{{ slack_version }}/prod/x64/slack-desktop-{{ slack_version }}-amd64.deb"
- name: install docker using role
include_role:
name: docker
- name: install and configure ohmyzsh
include_role:
name: gantsign.oh-my-zsh
vars:
users:
- username: {{ ansible_user }}
- name: Clone powerlevel10k zsh theme repo
git:
repo: https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git
dest: "/home/{{ ansible_user }}/powerlevel10k"
depth: 1
- name: add powerlevel10k theme to zsh config
lineinfile:
line: "source /home/{{ ansible_user }}/powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k.zsh-theme"
path: "/home/{{ ansible_user }}/.zshrc"
- name: ensure zsh is default shell
become: yes
shell: chsh -s $(which zsh)
- name: start syncthing
shell: /usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --logfile=default &
- name: download go tar
get_url:
url: "https://go.dev/dl/go{{ go_version }}.linux-amd64.tar.gz "
dest: "/tmp/go{{ go_version }}.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
- name: remove any existing go path
file:
path: /usr/local/go
state: absent
- name: untar go
unarchive:
src: /tmp/go{{ go_version }}.linux-amd64.tar.gz
dest: /usr/local
- name: add go bin path to path
shell: export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
- name: add go path to .profile
lineinfile:
line: export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
path: "/home/{{ ansible_user }}/.profile"
- name: source .profile
shell: ". /home/{{ ansible_user }}/.profile"
- name: Install packages with snap
snap:
name:
- tradingview
- hugoThis fairly basic and can be can be expanded to also configure other things such as setting a wallpaper, user icon or deploying your custom dotfiles.
Dotfile deployment is another usage for a git repository and a shell script or Ansible as this allows you to easily deploy your custom dotfiles such as those for git, vim, tmux, bashrc or zshrc plus many others.
Conclusion
In this post we saw another, yet simple, application for Ansible to configure my laptop. As we’ve done with servers we can use Ansible to configure any system whether it is your own laptop or 1000 user laptops in an organisation. Think of all those custom settings you have applied to your laptop and all the applications you have installed, now imagine having to set up your laptop exactly how you want it again and how long it will take and if you’ll remember all those steps you did and to edit configuration files again.
Let automation tools do this for you!