Ansible roles for Ubuntu laptop or desktop install

Note 1: This repository is not a finished product ! For me it seems too complex to be used at large. For quick tasks I am using simpler playbooks and scripts, like those from the Scripts repository.

Note 2: Coding best practices, linting and so on were not a priority for this repository, some of these are tests and proof of concept code !

Note 3 begin: I am rebuilding this repository. Someof the changes that must be done:

• the settings section from vscode role MUST be rebuilt
• vscode role should be rebuilt to include the profiles feature
• wordlists role MUST be rebuilt

Note 3 end.

This repository contains some roles meant to be used after a basic Ubuntu installation. The defined roles are:

• common install the apps defined in common_apps, group_apps and host_apps variables
• clamav installs clamav and freshclam then sets the number of checks per day
• dconf, see it's source for description of functionality
• firewall installs nftables and firewalld
• git installs git and sets it's global settings from the git_global_options variable
• hydra installs THC Hydra
• keyboard adds custom keyboard profiles / layouts. It contains keyboard layouts for converting a laptop keyboard to a Tenkeyless-like one, using the numberpad as navigation keys. See this post for details.
• kicad installs a KiCad version from it's ppa
• nodejs installs Node.js from nodesource.com repository
• podman installs podman, buildah, slirp4netns and fuse-overlayfs. In Ubuntu 20.04 uses the Kubic project provided packages. For other distributions uses the default repositories.
• python installs python3, python3-pip and python3-venv
• ruby_bundler installs ruby-full and ruby-bundler
• setuser sets basic user properties, see it's source for description of functionality
• teams_insiders installs Teams Insiders from Microsoft's repository
• vim installs vim and sets /etc/vim/vimrc.local
• vscode installs Visual Studio Code from Microsoft's repository, extensions and custom user settings. For extensions I have built an Ansible module.
• wordlists downloads wordlists into user's ~/wordlists directory. Downloading is implemented from SkullSecurity.org, KaliLists/dirbuster and from any complete URL.
• zaproxy installs OWASP ZAP using the official ZAP Linux Repos

This is a work-in-progress and should be tested before use.

Testing

To test playbooks, roles and tasks I use physical and virtual hosts.

Using lxc, a simple virtual system container can be created with:

lxc launch images:ubuntu/22.04 jammy-container

# set a password for 'ubuntu' user
pass='uuu'
lxc exec jammy-container -- sh -c "echo \"ubuntu:$pass\" | chpasswd"

# install OpenSSH server
lxc exec jammy-container -- sh -c 'apt update && apt -y install openssh-server'

# find the IPv4 address of the container
addr="$(lxc info jammy-container | grep 'inet:' | grep -v '127.0.0.1' | cut -d: -f2 | cut -d/ -f1 | tr -d ' ')" && echo "$addr"

# try a connection to add the key to known_hosts file
ssh -l ubuntu "$addr"

and cleaned up with:

lxc stop jammy-container
lxc delete jammy-container

About Ansible

You may start by reading Ansible notes and quick start

Usage

On the control host (the local host if the roles will be launched from this host) run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv python3-jmespath python3-psutil
sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt install ansible ansible-lint

# install the requirements with
[[ -r requirements.yml ]] && ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml
# to upgrade all collections from a 'requirements.yml' file use:
# [[ -r requirements.yml ]] && ansible-galaxy collection install --upgrade -r requirements.yml
# or, to upgrade a single collection, use:
# ansible-galaxy collection install --upgrade <collection_name>

With inventory file(s)

In the root directory of the repository create the inventories/production directory. Inside the inventories/production directory copy the content of the inventories/example directory.

The default configuration files are inventories/production/all.yml, where you should put the common settings, and inventories/production/desktops.yml and inventories/production/laptops.yml for specific ones.

Modify ! the files for your environment, mostly:

• local_user_name should be the name of your standard user;
• set the content of git_global_options as needed;
• enable the roles that you want in site.yml.

Then, for production environment, use:

# if configuring a laptop
ansible-playbook --ask-become-pass -i inventories/production --limit laptop_local site.yml

# if configuring a desktop
ansible-playbook --ask-become-pass -i inventories/production --limit desktop_local site.yml

Without inventory file

All needed variables must be passed on the command line. Read Defining variables at runtime for more information.

Warning: Some roles will not work if their variables are not set.

Here are some simple examples:

# run the playbook against localhost
ansible-playbook -i 127.0.0.1, \
    --become --ask-become-pass \
    -e 'ansible_connection=local' \
    -e 'local_user_name=your_user_name' \
    site.yml

# run the playbook against the remote host 192.168.5.123
ansible-playbook -i 192.168.5.123, \
    --become --ask-become-pass \
    -e 'local_user_name=your_user_name' \
    site.yml

Development

When using Visual Studio Code as editor, add the Ansible VS Code Extension by Red Hat and install Ansible Lint:

sudo python3 -m pip install ansible-lint

Python modules

cd to the root directory of the repository and create a python virtual environment:

[ ! -d .venv ] && python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install psutil
deactivate

To test vscode_extension_installer.py :

# activate the venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# create a file to pass arguments to the vscode_extension_installer module
mkdir -p tmp
cat << 'EOF' > tmp/test_args.json
{
    "ANSIBLE_MODULE_ARGS": {
        "name": "redhat.ansible"
    }
}
EOF

# test the vscode_extension_installer module
python roles/vscode/library/vscode_extension_installer.py tmp/test_args.json

License

This repository is licensed under the terms of GNU GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE-GPLv3.txt file.