Ansible Vault Tutorial

Introduction to Ansible Vault

Ansible Vault is a feature that allows you to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data within Ansible projects. It is particularly useful for keeping secrets such as passwords, API keys, and other sensitive information secure.

Installing Ansible Vault

Ansible Vault is included as part of the Ansible package. If you have Ansible installed, you already have Ansible Vault.

Creating an Encrypted File

You can create an encrypted file using the ansible-vault create command.

This command will prompt you to enter a password and then open an editor to create the file.

Encrypting an Existing File

If you already have a file that you want to encrypt, you can use the ansible-vault encrypt command.

This will prompt you for a password and then encrypt the file.

Editing an Encrypted File

To edit an encrypted file, you can use the ansible-vault edit command.

This will prompt you for the password and then open the file in your default editor.

Decrypting a File

If you need to decrypt a file, you can use the ansible-vault decrypt command.

This will prompt you for the password and then decrypt the file.

Rekeying an Encrypted File

If you need to change the password for an encrypted file, you can use the ansible-vault rekey command.

This will prompt you for the old password and then the new password.

Using Vault in Playbooks

You can use encrypted files within your playbooks. Ansible will prompt you for the password when running the playbook.

---
- name: Example playbook
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: Print secret message
      debug:
        msg: "{{ lookup('file', 'secret.yml') }}"
                    

Best Practices

Here are some best practices for using Ansible Vault:

• Use strong, unique passwords for each vault file.
• Store vault passwords securely, such as in a password manager.
• Regularly change your vault passwords.
• Avoid committing vault passwords to version control.