Cloudar Modules

Installation

Add this folder to your library path. You can do this as an environment variable, or in an Ansible config file. The config file can be an ansible.cfg file in the same directory as the playbook, or the global /etc/ansible.cfg

Environment variable

ANSIBLE_LIBRARY=/path/to/modules

Ansible.cfg

# config file for ansible -- http://ansible.com/
# ==============================================

[defaults]
# Use our own modules
library = /path/to/modules

Amazon Key Management Service (KMS) Module

The ’kms_decrypt’ module allows you to decrypt a ciphertext generated by Amazon KMS

Cloudar Automation Tag (CAT) Modules

These Ansible modules provide a flexible way to manage EC2 instances in AWS. By adding a JSON dictionary in a tag, instances can be started and stopped, snapshots can be created and old snapshots can be deleted.

A full explanation of why we build this can be found on the Cloudar blog

Some things to consider:

• The tag should always be valid JSON
• Dates and times are always interpreted as UTC
• JSON dictionaries can be combined. See the full example:

CAT Create snapshot

Automatically create a snapshot when the playbook is run between TIME and TIME + GRACE PERIOD

Tag structure

{
    "sn": TIME
}

or

{
    "sn": [
        TIME,
        TIME,
        TIME
    ]
}

Where TIME indicates when the action should be triggered.

TIME is formatted as 'military time'. So no punctuation and with leading zero. Examples: "1200" to trigger at noon, "0730" for half past seven in the morning and "1700" for five o'clock in the evening.

Usage in a playbook

- name: Create snapshots
  cat_create_snapshot:
    tag: CAT
    grace: 10

Examples

When you want a snapshot at 3:30AM CET (2:30AM UTC) every day, the automation tag looks like this:

{
    "sn": "0230"
}

If you want a snapshot at noon CET (11AM UTC) and midnight CET (11PM UTC), the tag looks like:

{
    "sn": [
        "1100",
        "2300"
    ]
}

CAT Prune snapshot

Delete old snapshots, but keep x amount of dailies; weeklies (7d), monthlies (30.4375d) and yearlies(365.25d). Snapshots younger then 1 day will always be kept.

Tag structure

{
    "ret": {
         "d": AMOUNT,
         "w": AMOUNT,
         "m": AMOUNT,
         "y": AMOUNT
    }
}

Where "d", "w", "m" and "y" stand for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly respectively. AMOUNT specifies how many daily, weekly, ... snapshots should be retained. If you don't want a type of snapshots to retain, you can skip the letter. If there is no "ret" key in the automation tag, all snapshots will be kept.

Usage in a playbook

- name: Prune old snapshots
  cat_prune_snapshot:
    tag: CAT

Example

Keep 7 daily snapshots, 5 weekly snapshots, 12 monthly snapshots and 6 yearly snapshots:

{
    "ret": {
         "d": "7",
         "w": "5",
         "m": "12",
         "y": "6"
    }
}

CAT Start and stop instances

Start (or stop) an instance when the current time is between TIME and TIME + GRACE_TIME

Tag structure

{
    "on": {
       DAYS: TIME,
       DAYS: TIME 
    },
    "off": {
        DAYS: TIME
    }
}

Where DAYS, and TIME indicate when the action should be triggered.

Usage in a playbook

- name: start and stop tagged instances
  cat_start_stop:
  tag: CAT
  grace: 10

Example

Start the instance at 9AM CET (so 8AM UTC) and stop it at 5PM CET (4PM UTC) on weekdays, start at 10AM and stop at 5PM on Saturday and do nothing on Sunday:

{
    "on": {
       "12345": "0800",
       "6": "0900" 
    },
    "off": {
        "123456": "1600"
    }
}

CAT Full Example

Combining all examples:

• Start the instance at 9AM CET (so 8AM UTC) and stop it at 5PM CET (4PM UTC) on weekdays
• Start at 10AM and stop at 5PM on Saturday
• Don't start or stop anything on Sunday
• Take a snapshot at noon CET (11AM UTC)
• Take a snapshot at midnight CET (11PM UTC)
• Keep 7 daily snapshots, 5 weekly snapshots, 12 monthly snapshots and 6 yearly snapshots:

Tag

{
    "on": {
       "12345": "0800",
       "6": "0900" 
    },
    "off": {
        "123456": "1600"
    },
    "sn": [
        "1100",
        "2300"
    ],
    "ret": {
         "d": "7",
         "w": "5",
         "m": "12",
         "y": "6"
    }
}

Playbook

---

- name: start and stop tagged instances
  cat_start_stop:
    tag: CAT
    grace: 10
- name: Create snapshots
  cat_create_snapshot:
    tag: CAT
    grace: 10
- name: Prune old snapshots
  cat_prune_snapshot:
    tag: CAT