🧾 Ansible Project: Automate EC2 Instance Lifecycle on AWS

✅ Objective

This project automates:

1. Creating EC2 instances using loops

2. Setting up password-less SSH between Ansible control node and EC2 instances

3. Shutting down only Ubuntu instances using Ansible conditionals

📋 Prerequisites

Before starting this project, ensure you have the following:

• ✅ Ansible installed on your control node (Ubuntu/Linux preferred)

• ✅ An AWS account with access credentials (Access Key ID & Secret Key)

• ✅ An IAM user with permissions to create EC2 instances

• ✅ Ansible collections:

•   ansible-galaxy collection install amazon.aws
  

• ✅ AWS CLI configured on the control node:

    aws configure
  

• ✅ A valid AWS key pair (.pem) for SSH access

• ✅ Basic understanding of writing Ansible playbooks

• Control node (local machine or EC2 instance) with:

  • AWS CLI configured

  • Python packages: boto, boto3, botocore

      Copysudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ansible python3-pip
      pip install boto boto3 botocore
    

• ✅ Setup Vault:

  1. Create a password for vault:

•   openssl rand -base64 2048 > vault.pass
  

  2. Add your AWS credentials using the below vault command:

•   #To create 
    ansibile-vault create group_vars/all/pass.yml --vault-password-file vault.pass
  
    #To edit
    ansibile-vault edit group_vars/all/pass.yml --vault-password-file vault.pass
  

📁 Project Structure

ansible-ec2-project/
├── group_vars/
│   └── all/
│       └── pass.yml             ← Encrypted using Ansible Vault
├── ec2_create.yaml              ← Creates EC2 instances
├── ec2_stop.yaml                ← Stops only Ubuntu EC2 instances
├── inventory.ini                ← Contains public IPs of instances
├── vault.pass                   ← DO NOT COMMIT!
└── .gitignore                   ← Prevents leaking secrets

Project Setup

📌 Task 1: Create 3 EC2 Instances using Ansible Loops

Create a playbook ec2_create.yml

---
- hosts: localhost
  connection: local

  tasks:
  - name: create EC2 instances
    amazon.aws.ec2_instance:
      name: "{{ item.name }}"
      key_name: "ansible_begin"
      instance_type: t2.micro
      security_group: default
      region: us-east-1
      aws_access_key: "{{ec2_access_key}}"
      aws_secret_key: "{{ec2_secret_key}}"
      network:
        assign_public_ip: true
      image_id: "{{ item.image }}"
    loop:
      - { image: "ami-084568db4383264d4", name: "ansible-ec2-1" }
      - { image: "ami-084568db4383264d4", name: "ansible-ec2-2" }
      - { image: "ami-0e449927258d45bc4", name: "ansible-ec2-3" }

Run the playbook:

ansible-playbook ec2_create.yml  --vault-password-file vault.pass

👉 Note down public IPs and add them to inventory.ini:

[all]
ec2-user@<PUBLIC_IP_OF_AMAZON_LIUNX_EC2>
ubuntu@<PUBLIC_IP_OF_UBUNTU_EC2-1>
ubuntu@<PUBLIC_IP_OF_UBUNTU_EC2-2>

📌 Task 2: Set Up Password-less SSH Authentication

Using Public Key

ssh-copy-id -f "-o IdentityFile <PATH TO PEM FILE>" ubuntu@<INSTANCE-PUBLIC-IP>

• ssh-copy-id: This is the command used to copy your public key to a remote machine.

• -f: This flag forces the copying of keys, which can be useful if you have keys already set up and want to overwrite them.

• "-o IdentityFile ": This option specifies the identity file (private key) to use for the connection. The -o flag passes this option to the underlying ssh command.

• ubuntu@: This is the username (ubuntu) and the IP address of the remote server you want to access.

📌 Task 3: Shutdown Ubuntu Instances Only Using Conditionals

Create a playbook ec2_stop.yml

---
- hosts: all
  become: true

  tasks:
    - name: Shutdown ubuntu instances only
      ansible.builtin.command: /sbin/shutdown -t now
      when:
        ansible_os_family == "Debian"

Run the playbook:

ansible-playbook -i inventory ec2_stop.yml --vault-password-file vault.pass

At last don’t forget to terminate your ec2 instances after completing the project.

📸 Screenshots

1. Creating IAM user with permission to Create EC2 Instances which named as ansible_admin:

2. Creation of EC2 instances after running ec2_create.yml file:

ansible output:

3. Shutting down only Ubuntu instances after running ec2_stop.yml file: