Ansible idempotent MySQL installation Playbook

Question

I want to set up a MySQL server on AWS, using Ansible for the configuration management. I am using the default AMI from Amazon (ami-3275ee5b), which uses yum for package management.

When the Playbook below is executed, all goes well. But when I run it for a second time, the task Configure the root credentials fails, because the old password of MySQL doesn't match anymore, since it has been updated the last time I ran this Playbook.

This makes the Playbook non-idempotent, which I don't like. I want to be able to run the Playbook as many times as I want.

- hosts: staging_mysql

  user: ec2-user

  sudo: yes

  tasks:

    - name: Install MySQL

      action: yum name=$item

      with_items:

        - MySQL-python

        - mysql

        - mysql-server

    - name: Start the MySQL service

      action: service name=mysqld state=started

    - name: Configure the root credentials

      action: command mysqladmin -u root -p $mysql_root_password

What would be the best way to solve this, which means make the Playbook idempotent?

Answer 1

The trick to doing it idempotently is knowing that the mysql_user module can load a ~/.my.cnf file if it finds one.

I first change the password, then copy a .my.cnf file with the password credentials. When you try to run it a second time, the myqsl_user ansible module will find the .my.cnf and use the new password.

- hosts: staging_mysql

user: ec2-user

sudo: yes

tasks:

- name: Install MySQL

action: yum name=}

with_items:

- MySQL-python

- mysql

- mysql-server

- name: Start the MySQL service

action: service name=mysqld state=started

# 'localhost' must be the last item for idempotency, see

# http://ansible.cc/docs/modules.html#mysql-user

- name: this will update mysql root password for all root accounts

mysql_user: name=root host=} password=} priv=*.*:ALL,GRANT

with_items:

- "}"

- 127.0.0.1

- ::1

- localhost

- name: this will copy .my.cnf file with root password credentials

template: src=templates/root/.my.cnf dest=/root/.my.cnf owner=root mode=0600

The .my.cnf template looks like this:

[client]

user=root

password=}