Perun Ansible script

This repository serves for easier deployment of Perun server with default configuration.

Overview

This Ansible playbook installs an instance of Perun. Its main part is the Perun RPC web application, which is deployed into Tomcat servlet container. The Tomcat is not accessible directly from outside, it is behind an Apache web server, which forwards requests to the Tomcat using AJP protocol. Apache uses Shibboleth SP plugin and its associated daemon for federated authentication based on SAML protocol.

The Perun RPC application stores data in PostgreSQL relational database.

Selected data from the Perun database are made available through an OpenLDAP server. A separate process called LDAP Connector (LDAPc) observes changes in the database and modifies the LDAP directory in real-time.

A separate process called Perun Engine controls slave machines. It communicates using JMS with Perun Dispatcher, which is located inside of the Perun RPC. Dispatcher observes changes in database and instructs Engine to update some services on some slave machines. For each service on a machine, Engine runs a GEN script, which uses HTTP to obtain data from RPC and generates files to be transferred to the slave machine. Then Engine runs a SEND script, which connects to the slave machine using the Secure Shell (ssh) protocol, transfers the generated files, and executes so-called slave scripts installed on the machines from DEB or RPM packages. An administrator of a slave machine can tune the slave scripts by adding so-called pre-hook, mid-hook and post-hook scripts to the directory /etc/perun/<service>.d/

Requirements

• 64-bit Debian system (version 11 or 12)
• Requires at least 8GB free disk space
• Ideally dedicated 2 CPUs and at least 4GB RAM

TL;DR for the impatient

sudo apt install ansible
git clone https://github.com/CESNET/perun-ansible.git
cd perun-ansible
git submodule update --init --recursive
MY_PERUN_MACHINE=perun.mysite.org
sed -i -e "s/perun.example.org/$MY_PERUN_MACHINE/" hosts
echo >.password "test"
ansible-playbook playbook_perun.yml

firefox https://perun:test@$MY_PERUN_MACHINE/ba/gui/

All passwords are set to "test".

Installation of Ansible

• First you need to install Ansible to your system, which will be used to install Perun to remote server (or localhost).
• Install Ansible following the guide Installing Ansible
• The required version of Ansible is 7!
• You must be able to log into the remote server, thus your public SSH key must be placed in the file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote server.
• SSH and Python must be installed on both sides of communication.

Clone this repo

• Download this repository from Github and update its submodules:

git clone https://github.com/CESNET/perun-ansible.git
cd perun-ansible
git submodule update --init --recursive

Set address of your server in the inventory file

• In hosts file you must set hostname of your Perun server. It should be a publicly accessible DNS name, because TLS certificates will be issued for it.

Create configuration files for your host

• You do not need to configure anything for a default installation, just skip this section.
• For a single machine, you can set variables in the file group_vars/all/vars.yml which is used for all machines.
• For more than one machine, create a new folder under host_vars/ named exactly as your host in the inventory file and put a YAML file with variables there
• The playbook looks for files in the directory files/{{ perun_instance_hostname }}/ where the variable perun_instance_hostname has by default the same value as inventory_hostname which contains the name of the machine from the Ansible inventory (the hosts file).

Run Ansible playbook

• Now you can run Ansible playbook with this command (you need to be in the downloaded Ansible repository).
  • ansible-playbook playbook_perun.yml
• Perun should be running after installation on https://[hostname]/ba/gui/. Username is "perun", password is "test".

After installation

Now you need to do stuff, which is not handled by Ansible script:

• Install slave scripts at slave machines
  • The slave scripts should be installed at the machines that Perun will control, not at the Perun server!
  • Add APT repository by creating file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/meta_repo.list containing the line deb ftp://repo.metacentrum.cz/ all main pilot and run apt-get update
  • Install slave scripts for each needed service, e.g.: apt-get install perun-slave-process-passwd for installation of passwd service
  • For all services install meta package perun-slave-full: apt-get install perun-slave-full