The mission is this Lab is to create genuine hands-on experience for hands-on learnings who want to learn to use Ansible to create auto-installing Ubuntu ISOs and use them to stand up a server lab in Oracle VirtualBox.

Mission:

• Install Ansible and other required packages on a new Ubuntu system
• Prepare ssh keys for managing the Ansible servers
• Install VirtualBox using Ansible
• Customize the user-data for unattended installation
• Create a custom Ubuntu server ISO that automatically installs
• Deploy our first Ubuntu VM to OracleBox
• Test our first Ubuntu VM
• Delete our first Ubuntu VM
• Deploy our first fleet of VMs
• Deploy an application to our fleet of VMs

Materials:

• NUC
  • Recommend a more powerful NUC with 16GB RAM and 500GB disk space

References:

• https://rutgerblom.com/2020/07/27/automated-ubuntu-server-20-04-installation-with-ansible/ (Gitlab)
• https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/ubuntu-22-04-server-autoinstall-iso/

Before starting the Lab, you might review Preparing NUCs for Labs. The will help you prepare all the NUCs for use.

You will need to set up a large-ish Ubuntu system. This will be home to the Oracle VirtualBox virtual machines (VM's). I used a NUC but you can use any Ubuntu system. This system will also be the Ansible controller.

It's a good idea to use a minimal installation for this Lab.

Make sure virtualization is enabled in BIOS.

For example on a NUC: Advanced > Security > Security Features

• Intel® Virtualization Technology
• Intel® VT for Directed I/O

See Tutorial: Install Ubuntu Desktop

1. Add repository for Ansible
   • sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
2. Install required packages
   • sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
   • sudo apt install vim p7zip xorriso ansible -y
3. Create the user ansible and switch to the user (learn more at this link)
   • sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash ansible
   • sudo passwd ansible
   • su - ansible
4. Create the ssh key ansible will use to connect to your VMs
   • ssh-keygen -o
   • accept default settings and do not enter a passphrase
5. Use cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to get your public key
   • Looks like “ssh-rsa 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 ansible@labbox”
   • Save this, you will use it when you create the custom Ubuntu ISO

Follow steps here: Install Oracle VirtualBox using Ansible

Note: There are many references out there if you don't want to use Ansible to install VirtualBox (e.g., https://linuxconfig.org/install-virtualbox-on-ubuntu-22-04-jammy-jellyfish-linux)

Follow steps here: Customize user-data for Ubuntu Unattended Install

Follow steps here: Generate Custom Unattended Ubuntu Install ISO

Follow steps here: Deploy Ubuntu unattended uninstall image to Oracle VirtualBox using Ansible

1. Log in directly using Ansible
2. Update packages on the VM using Ansible playbook