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Quickstart: Deploy SQL Server on Linux using an Ansible playbook

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Applies to: SQL Server - Linux

This quickstart takes you through the steps to automate a SQL Server on Linux deployment on Azure Virtual Machines, using an Ansible playbook.

Ansible is an open-source product that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, and application deployments.

Ansible playbooks allow you to direct Ansible to configure your environment. Playbooks are coded using YAML so as to be human-readable.

Prerequisites

  • An Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, you can create a free account.

  • Create a new resource group using Azure CLI, which contains three Azure Virtual Machines (VMs):

Overview

The first VM, where you configure Ansible Core, is the controller node. On this node, you'll install the SQL Server system role.

The remaining VMs are the target machines, also known as managed nodes, for deploying and configuring SQL Server using the system role.

Install Ansible Core

Starting with RHEL 8.x on Azure VMs, the ansible-core package can be installed from the pre-configured AppStream repository. You can install Ansible Core on the controller node using the following command:

sudo yum install ansible-core

You can check that the installation was successful with the following command:

ansible --version

You'll see output similar to the following example:

ansible [core 2.12.2]
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/<user>/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/<user>/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.8.12 (default, Sep 16 2021, 10:46:05) [GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-3)]
  jinja version = 2.10.3
  libyaml = true

Edit hosts file on controller node

Ansible will create a hosts file is in the /etc/ansible directory. Edit this file using your favorite editor to add the managed node details, either as a group entry, or as ungrouped entries. For information on how to create your own inventory, see How to build your inventory.

In this example using the hosts file, the IP address for the first managed node is 10.0.0.12, and the IP address for the second managed node is 10.0.0.14.

# This is the default ansible 'hosts' file.
#
# It should live in /etc/ansible/hosts
#
#   - Comments begin with the '#' character
#   - Blank lines are ignored
#   - Groups of hosts are delimited by [header] elements
#   - You can enter hostnames or ip addresses
#   - A hostname/ip can be a member of multiple groups

10.0.0.12
10.0.0.14

Configure passwordless SSH access between nodes

You'll need to configure a Secure Shell (SSH) connection between the controller node and all managed nodes where SQL Server is to be installed.

Configure SSH on the controller node

If SSH has already been configured, you can skip this step.

Use the ssh-keygen command to generate SSH keys. When you run the command, you are prompted to accept the default values. When complete, you'll have a private and public key pair.

Copy the public key to the managed nodes

  1. On each managed node, you must copy the public key from the controller node you just created, using the ssh-copy-id command. If you want to specify the target directory on the managed node, you can use the -i parameter.

  2. In the following command, the user account can be the same account you configured for each managed node when creating the VM. You can also use the root account, but this isn't recommended in a production environment.

    sudo ssh-copy-id user@10.0.0.12
sudo ssh-copy-id user@10.0.0.14

  3. To confirm that the SSH public key was copied to each node, use the ssh command from the controller node. If you copied the keys correctly, you aren't prompted for a password, and the connection is successful.

    ssh user@10.0.0.12
ssh user@10.0.0.14

Install the SQL Server system role

The Ansible system role is called ansible-collection-microsoft-sql. On the controller node, run the following command to install the SQL Server system role:

sudo yum install ansible-collection-microsoft-sql

This command installs the SQL Server role to /usr/share/ansible/collections, with the files shown below:

-rw-r--r--. 1 user user 7592 Jul  2 20:22 FILES.json
-rw-r--r--. 1 user user 1053 Jul  2 20:22 LICENSE-server
-rw-r--r--. 1 user user  854 Jul  2 20:22 MANIFEST.json
-rw-r--r--. 1 user user 1278 Jul  2 20:22 README.md
drwxr-xr-x. 1 user user   20 Jul  2 20:22 roles
drwxr-xr-x. 1 user user   20 Jul  2 20:22 tests

Create and configure the Ansible playbook

After installing the system role, you'll create the SQL Server playbook YAML file. To understand the various role variables, refer to the documentation or the README.md included with the SQL Server system role.

The following example shows a playbook file, with role variables defined to configure SQL Server and enable additional functionality:

- hosts: all
  vars:
    mssql_accept_microsoft_odbc_driver_17_for_sql_server_eula: true
    mssql_accept_microsoft_cli_utilities_for_sql_server_eula: true
    mssql_accept_microsoft_sql_server_standard_eula: true
    mssql_password: "YourP@ssw0rd"
    mssql_edition: Evaluation
    mssql_enable_sql_agent: true
    mssql_install_fts: true
    mssql_install_powershell: true
    mssql_tune_for_fua_storage: true
  roles:
    - microsoft.sql.server​

Deploy SQL Server on the managed nodes

To deploy SQL Server on managed nodes using the Ansible playbook, run the following command from the controller node.

sudo ansible-playbook -u user playbook.yaml

This process begins the deployment, and at the end, you should see a summary of the play that looks similar to this:

PLAY RECAP *******

10.0.0.12                  : ok=31   changed=42   unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0   rescued=1    ignored=0

10.0.0.14                  : ok=31   changed=42   unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0   rescued=1    ignored=0

Clean up resources

If you're not going to continue using your Azure VMs, remember to remove them. If you created the three VMs in a new resource group, you can remove all the resources inside that resource group using Azure CLI.

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