CentOS(Ansible2.5) --> Jump/Bastion Server--> Inventory

[Love]

Hello Experts,

Could you please help me how to use Ansible through a Jump/Bastion Server? My desktop (CentOS 7.5) is installed with Ansible 2.5 and I cannot install Ansible on Jump/Bastion server, what are the configuration changes required on my desktop to be able to login as my user and switch to root and ssh to clients to execute daily tasks.

CentOS(Ansible 2.5) → Jump/Bastion Server → Destination Servers

SSH keys are deployed for root user from Jump/Bastion server to all destination servers.

All Linux/Unix servers. NO WinGdows, please tell me I’m not the only one who has/had this issue, do let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks in advance

[Karl_Auer]

We have a build host that we run Ansible on.

I.e., we don’t run ansible through a bastion host, we run it on a bastion host. This host is just for the purpose, and has (in AWS) an instance policy that allows it to build stuff.

Regards, K.

(attachments)

[Karl_Auer]

Sorry, I suppose I was asking whether you could ADD a new bastion server for Ansible.

Regards, K.

(attachments)

[Love]

No, I do not have the option to use another Jump/Bastion server, we already have 6 Jump/Bastion servers for different data centers & environments, ansible is not installed on any of them.

[felixfontein]

Hi,

Could you please help me how to use Ansible through a Jump/Bastion
Server? My desktop (CentOS 7.5) is installed with Ansible 2.5 and I
cannot install Ansible on Jump/Bastion server, what are the
configuration changes required on my desktop to be able to login as
my user and switch to root and ssh to clients to execute daily tasks.

CentOS(Ansible 2.5) --> Jump/Bastion Server --> Destination Servers

SSH keys are deployed for root user from Jump/Bastion server to all
destination servers.

in case you have the SSH keys for the destination users also on your
local machine, you can do that by adding the following to your
~/.ssh/config file:

Host jump-host.example.com
User user_for_jump_host
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_private_key_for_jump_host

Host destination-1.example.com destination-2.example.com
User admin_user_for_destinations
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_private_key_for_destinations
ProxyCommand ssh -q jump-host.example.com nc -q0 %h 22

If you have newer OpenSSH clients, there are also some simplifications
for this (see
https://superuser.com/questions/1253960/replace-proxyjump-in-ssh-config).

In case you do *not* have the keys for the destination machines on your
local machine, this will not work. Instead, take a look at this one:
https://serverfault.com/questions/337274/ssh-from-a-through-b-to-c-using-private-key-on-b/701884#701884
I've never used that one, so I don't know whether it really works, but
it looks reasonable.

If the keys on the jump host are not available as the user you logged
in with, you probably need to include an appropriate 'sudo' into the
ProxyCommand (probably before ssh-add).

Cheers,
Felix

[Love]

Thank you, I will try this and post any/all questions based on output.