Ubuntu Desktop Remote VM Automation

Description

Ansible playbooks for creating virtual machines running Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 with remote desktop (NoMachine) on public clouds. The included remote role is quite opinionated with my favorite tools pre-installed, a dark theme and everything I enjoy with Ubuntu for having fun with the Cloud.

The remote desktop software in use is: NoMachine. NoMachine is an amazing software which is free for personal use. If you use this in a business environment, please pay for licenses and/or leverage their enterprise solutions.

Supported Cloud Providers

• Amazon Web Services
• DigitalOcean
• Google Cloud Platform
• Linode
• Microsoft Azure

How To

1. Install Ansible.
2. Setup you favorite Cloud credentials.
3. Run the ansible commands for your favorite Cloud provider (see examples below).
4. Install NoMachine and use its client to connect to your VM.
   1. Use the external IP assigned to your VM for the host.
   2. Use the user/pass given in your ansible commands (main_user and main_pass).
5. NoMachine will ask you to create a display, say yes.
6. Have fun.

Skip packages

To get a default Ubuntu setup without any extra software installed, simply skip the package tag:

ansible-playbook --skip-tags package [...]

To skip only cloud related tooling:

ansible-playbook --skip-tags package-cloud [...]

You may also skip any other tags in the main tasks YAML file.

Install locally or on specific hosts

Please use the target playbook, for example:

ansible-playbook target.yml -v --inventory "192.168.1.234," --extra-vars "ansible_user=sshuser ansible_ssh_pass=sshp4ss ansible_sudo_pass=sshp4ss main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd'"

Cloud Providers

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Requirements

• Boto and Boto3 libraries (pip install boto boto3)
• EC2 key pair
• VPC (default one is OK)

Example

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID='AAAA000AAAAAA0AAAAA0'
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY='aa0aaaa0aa00aaa00aa00a0aaa0aaaaaaaaa0aa0'

ansible-playbook aws.yml -v -u ubuntu --private-key ~/.ssh/private.pem --extra-vars "region=ca-central-1 keypair=remote vpc_id=vpc-aa0000a0 main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd'"

Variables

Mandatory

• keypair (SSH key pair name)
• main_user (main username)
• main_pass (main user password)
• region (AWS region)
• vpc_id (vpc object id)

Optional

• image (AWS AMI id)
• instance_type (instance type)
• nomachine_deb (deb installation package download url)
• reboot (skip reboot if set to false)
• security_group_name (security group object name)
• timezone (timezone name, ex: America/Toronto)

Digital Ocean

Requirements

• Digitalocean collection (ansible-galaxy collection install community.digitalocean)
• Access token
• Account SSH keys

Example

export DO_OAUTH_TOKEN='aaa0000000000a0a0a000a00aaa000aaaa0a0000a0a00aaa0a00a0000a000aaa'

ansible-playbook do.yml -v --user=root --private-key ~/.ssh/key --extra-vars "region=tor1 ssh_key_id=000000000 main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd'"

Variables

Mandatory

• main_user (main username)
• main_pass (main user password)
• pub_key (SSH public key file path)
• region (DigitalOcean region)
• ssh_key_id (global SSH key ID)

Optional

• image (Digital Ocean OS image name)
• nomachine_deb (deb installation package download url)
• reboot (skip reboot if set to false)
• timezone (timezone name, ex: America/Toronto)
• vm (vm object name)
• vm_size (vm size id)

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Requirements

• Python Google Authentication Library (pip install google-auth)
• Python HTTP requests library (pip install requests)
• GCP project
• Service account with proper permissions and JSON key

Example

ansible-playbook gcp.yml -v --extra-vars "region=northamerica-northeast1 zone=a project=yourgcpproject sa_key=service-account-key.json main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd'"

Variables

Mandatory

• main_user (main username)
• main_pass (main user password)
• project (GCP project)
• region (GCP region)
• sa_key (service account JSON key path)
• zone (GCP zone)

Optional

• disk (disk object name)
• gcp_cred_kind (authentication for creating objects)
• firewall (firewall object name)
• nomachine_deb (deb installation package download url)
• reboot (skip reboot if set to false)
• timezone (timezone name, ex: America/Toronto)
• vm (virtual machine object name)
• vm_size (hard disk size in GB)
• vm_type (instance type)

Linode

Requirements

• Python library for Linode API (pip install linode_api4)
• API access token
• SSH public/private keys

Example

export LINODE_ACCESS_TOKEN='00000aa00a00aaaa0a00a0a0aa0000a0aa0000aa000a0a0000000000aaa0aaa0'

ansible-playbook linode.yml -v --user=root --private-key ~/.ssh/key --extra-vars "region=ca-central root_pass='r00tp4ss#' pub_key=~/.ssh/key.pub main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd#'"

Variables

Mandatory

• main_user (main username)
• main_pass (main user password)
• pub_key (SSH public key file path)
• region (Linode region)
• root_pass (root user password)

Optional

• image (Linode image name)
• nomachine_deb (deb installation package download url)
• reboot (skip reboot if set to false)
• timezone (timezone name, ex: America/Toronto)
• vm (vm label/name)
• vm_plan (vm plan, you might want to change this one since set to shared cpu by default)

Microsoft Azure

Requirements

• Azure Libraries (pip install -r <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible-collections/azure/dev/requirements-azure.txt))
• Resource group
• Azure AD application and a service principal
• SSH public/private keys

Example

export AZURE_CLIENT_ID='0000a000-a000-0000-00a0-aa000000aa00'
export AZURE_SECRET='-secret-'
export AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID='000000aa-0aa0-0000-aa0a-a00a000000aa'
export AZURE_TENANT='000a0aa0-0000-0a0a-aa0a-000a0aaaa00a'

ansible-playbook azure.yml -v --user=azadmin --private-key ~/.ssh/key --extra-vars "resource_group=remoterg storage_account=remotesa pub_key=~/.ssh/key.pub main_user=yourusername main_pass='p4ssw0rd#'"

Variables

Mandatory

• main_user (main username)
• main_pass (main user password)
• pub_key (SSH public key file path)
• region (Azure region)
• resource_group (resource group object name)
• storage_account (storage account object name, needs to be unique across azure so pick wisely)

Optional

• admin_user (admin username)
• disk_size (disk size in GB)
• image_offer (os image offer name)
• image_publisher (os image publisher name)
• image_sku (os image SKU)
• image_version (os image version)
• network_interface (network interface object name)
• nomachine_deb (deb installation package download url)
• public_ip (public IP object name)
• reboot (skip reboot if set to false)
• security_group (security group object name)
• storage_type (storage type name)
• subnet (subnet object name)
• subnet_cidr (private subnet CIDR)
• timezone (timezone name, ex: America/Toronto)
• virtual_network (virtual network object name)
• vm (vm object name)
• vm_size (instance type)