Ansible-playbook to create new users in the remote servers

In this article, I will writing to configure an ansible-playbook for creating a new users in the remote users using the user module provided by the Ansible

Ansible is a feasible configuration management tool which works on the configuration push protocol so it pushes its configurations setup in the playbook through the ssh-key setup during the initial configuration.

Here is the working ansible-playbook for user creation which you can include in your ansible playbook collections for managing your servers.

---
- name: Create User with sudo priviledge on your server
hosts: all
become: yes
vars_prompt:
- name: username
private: false
prompt: "Please provide a username. This user will be provided with sudoers access"
vars:
password: "{{ lookup('password', '/dev/null length=15 chars=ascii_letters') }}"
tasks:
- set_fact:
password_fact: "{{password}}"
- name: Create a login user
user:
name: "{{ username }}"
password: "{{ password_fact | password_hash('sha512') }}"
create_home : yes
home: /home/{{ username }}
groups:
- ''
- sudo
shell: /bin/bash
state: present
- debug:
msg: " The credentials are Username: {{username}} Password: {{password_fact}} "

The ansible playbooks are written in .yml format so the indentation is compulsory so make sure to look after that.

- name: Create User with sudo priviledge on your server
hosts: all
become: yes
vars_prompt:
- name: username
private: false
prompt: "Please provide a username. This user will be provided with sudoers access"
vars:
password: "{{ lookup('password', '/dev/null length=15 chars=ascii_letters') }}"

name: Name of the ansible-playbook

hosts: Hosts to be target. All hosts are targeted from this playbook

vars_prompt: Asks for input using and store inwhose value will be used in the tasks to be done in the playbook

vars: The variables to be used. Password is randomly generated of 15 lengths

The tasks are where the magic happens in the ansible-playbook. You can configure tasks to be run in the server through ansible-built-in module or using community modules

tasks:
- set_fact:
password_fact: "{{password}}"
- name: Create a login user
user:
name: "{{ username }}"
password: "{{ password_fact | password_hash('sha512') }}"
create_home : yes
home: /home/{{ username }}
groups:
- ''
- sudo
shell: /bin/bash
state: present
- debug:
msg: " The credentials are Username: {{username}} Password: {{password_fact}} "

This uses the ansible built-in user module which is used to manage user settings in the remote servers. Here, it creates a user in the remote user with the name specified in the vars_prompt above. Password is provided through vars provided.

NOTE: Always hash your password, the ansible causes conflict and might not take the password provided without any hashing provided.

This playbook creates:

• new user with username provided through vars_prompt
• password provided through vars: password
• creates home directory with create_home: and specify home directory with home:
• adds to group: primary group and sudoers group for sudo access
• The credentials are displayed through the msg