Ansible Sample Exam for EX407/EX294

Posted on 07/05/2019 by Tomas
This is a sample Ansible exam that I’ve created to prepare for EX407. I have not taken the
EX407 exam yet.
You can also use it for the new RHCE 8 exam EX294.

As with the real exam, no answers to the sample exam questions will be provided.

Requirements
There are 18 questions in total.

You will need five RHEL 7 (or CentOS 7) virtual machines to be able to successfully complete
all questions.

One VM will be configured as an Ansible control node. Other four VMs will be used to apply
playbooks to solve the sample exam questions. The following FQDNs will be used throughout
the sample exam.

o ansible-control.hl.local – Ansible control node

o ansible2.hl.local – managed host
o ansible3.hl.local – managed host
o ansible4.hl.local – managed host
o ansible5.hl.local – managed host
There are a couple of requiremens that should be met before proceeding further:

o ansible-control.hl.local server has passwordless SSH access to all managed

servers (using the root user).
o ansible5.hl.local server has a 1GB secondary /dev/sdb disk attached.
o There are no regular users created on any of the servers.

Tips and Suggestions

I tried to cover as many exam objectives as possible, however, note that there will be no
questions related to dynamic inventory.

Some questions may depend on the outcome of others. Please read all questions before
proceeding.

Note that the purpose of the sample exam is to test your skills. Please don’t post your
playbooks in the comments section.

Sample Exam Questions

Note: you have root access to all five servers.

Task 1: Ansible Installation and Configuration

Install ansible package on the control node (including any dependencies) and configure the
following:
o Create a regular user automation with the password of devops. Use this user
for all sample exam tasks and playbooks, unless you are working on the task #2 that
requires creating the automation user on inventory hosts. You have root access to all
five servers.
o All playbooks and other Ansible configuration that you create for this sample exam
should be stored in /home/automation/plays.
Create a configuration file /home/automation/plays/ansible.cfg to meet the following
requirements:
o The roles path should include /home/automation/plays/roles, as well as any other
path that may be required for the course of the sample exam.
o The inventory file path is /home/automation/plays/inventory.
o Privilege escallation is disabled by default.
o Ansible should be able to manage 10 hosts at a single time.
o Ansible should connect to all managed nodes using the automation user.
Create an inventory file /home/automation/plays/inventory with the following:
o ansible2.hl.local is a member of the proxy host group.
o ansible3.hl.local is a member of the webservers host group.
o ansible4.hl.local is a member of the webservers host group.
o ansible5.hl.local is a member of the database host group.

Task 2: Ad-Hoc Commands

Generate an SSH keypair on the control node. You can perform this step manually.

Write a script /home/automation/plays/adhoc that uses Ansible ad-hoc commands to achieve

the following:
o User automation is created on all inventory hosts (not the control node).
o SSH key (that you generated) is copied to all inventory hosts for
the automation user and stored in /home/automation/.ssh/authorized_keys.
o The automation user is allowed to elevate privileges on all inventory hosts
without having to provide a password.
After running the adhoc script, you should be able to SSH into all inventory hosts using
the automation user without password, as well as a run all privileged commands.

Task 3: File Content

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/motd.yml that runs on all inventory hosts and
does the following:
o The playbook should replace any existing content of /etc/motd with text. Text
depends on the host group.
o On hosts in the proxy host group the line should be “Welcome to HAProxy server”.
o On hosts in the webservers host group the line should be “Welcome to Apache
server”.
o On hosts in the database host group the line should be “Welcome to MySQL
server”.

Task 4: Configure SSH Server

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/sshd.yml that runs on all inventory hosts and
configures SSHD daemon as follows:
o banner is set to /etc/motd
o X11Forwarding is disabled
o MaxAuthTries is set to 3

Task 5: Ansible Vault

Create Ansible vault file /home/automation/plays/secret.yml. Encryption/decryption
password is devops.
Add the following variables to the vault:

o user_password with value of devops

o database_password with value of devops
Store Ansible vault password in the file /home/automation/plays/vault_key.

Task 6: Users and Groups

You have been provided with the list of users below.

Use /home/automation/plays/vars/user_list.yml file to save this content.

---

users:

- username: alice

uid: 1201

- username: vincent

uid: 1202

- username: sandy

uid: 2201

- username: patrick

uid: 2202

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/users.yml that uses the vault

file /home/automation/plays/secret.yml to achieve the following:
o Users whose user ID starts with 1 should be created on servers in
the webservers host group. User password should be used from
the user_password variable.
o Users whose user ID starts with 2 should be created on servers in
the database host group. User password should be used from
the user_password variable.
o All users should be members of a supplementary group wheel.
o Shell should be set to /bin/bash for all users.
o Account passwords should use the SHA512 hash format.
o Each user should have an SSH key uploaded (use the SSH key that you created
previously, see task #2).
After running the playbook, users should be able to SSH into their respective servers without
passwords.
Task 7: Scheduled Tasks
Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/regular_tasks.yml that runs on servers in
the proxy host group and does the following:
o A root crontab record is created that runs every hour.
o The cron job appends the file /var/log/time.log with the output from
the date command.

Task 8: Software Repositories

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/repository.yml that runs on servers in
the database host group and does the following:
o A YUM repository file is created.
o The name of the repository is mysql56-community.
o The description of the repository is “MySQL 5.6 YUM Repo”.
o Repository baseurl is http://repo.mysql.com/yum/mysql-5.6-
community/el/7/x86_64/.
o Repository GPG key is at http://repo.mysql.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql.
o Repository GPG check is enabled.
o Repository is enabled.

Task 9: Create and Work with Roles

Create a role called sample-mysql and store it in /home/automation/plays/roles. The
role should satisfy the following requirements:
o A primary partition number 1 of size 800MB on device /dev/sdb is created.
o An LVM volume group called vg_database is created that uses the primary partition
created above.
o An LVM logical volume called lv_mysql is created of size 512MB in the volume
group vg_database.
o An XFS filesystem on the logical volume lv_mysql is created.
o Logical volume lv_mysql is permanently mounted on /mnt/mysql_backups.
o mysql-community-server package is installed.
o Firewall is configured to allow all incoming traffic on MySQL port TCP 3306.
o MySQL root user password should be set from the
variable database_password (see task #5).
o MySQL server should be started and enabled on boot.
o MySQL server configuration file is generated from the my.cnf.j2 Jinja2 template with
the following content:
[mysqld]

bind_address = {{ ansible_default_ipv4.address }}

skip_name_resolve

datadir=/var/lib/mysql

socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

symbolic-links=0
sql_mode=NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION,STRICT_TRANS_TABLES

[mysqld_safe]

log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log

pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/mysql.yml that uses the role and runs on hosts in

the database host group.

Task 10: Create and Work with Roles (Some More)

Create a role called sample-apache and store it in /home/automation/plays/roles. The
role should satisfy the following requirements:
o The httpd, mod_ssl and php packages are installed. Apache service is running
and enabled on boot.
o Firewall is configured to allow all incoming traffic on HTTP port TCP 80 and HTTPS
port TCP 443.
o Apache service should be restarted every time the file /var/www/html/index.html is
modified.
o A Jinja2 template file index.html.j2 is used to create the
file /var/www/html/index.html with the following content:
The address of the server is: IPV4ADDRESS

IPV4ADDRESS is the IP address of the managed node.

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/apache.yml that uses the role and runs on hosts

in the webservers host group.

Task 11: Download Roles From Ansible Galaxy and Use Them
Use Ansible Galaxy to download and install geerlingguy.haproxy role
in /home/automation/plays/roles.
Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/haproxy.yml that runs on servers in
the proxy host group and does the following:
o Use geerlingguy.haproxy role to load balance request between hosts in
the webservers host group.
o Use roundrobin load balancing method.
o HAProxy backend servers should be configured for HTTP only (port 80).
o Firewall is configured to allow all incoming traffic on port TCP 80.
If your playbook works, then doing “curl http://ansible2.hl.local/” should return
output from the web server (see task #10). Running the command again should return
output from the other web server.

Task 12: Security

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/selinux.yml that runs on hosts in
the webservers host group and does the following:
o Uses the selinux RHEL system role.
o Enables httpd_can_network_connect SELinux boolean.
o The change must survive system reboot.

Task 13: Use Conditionals to Control Play Execution

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/sysctl.yml that runs on all inventory hosts and
does the following:
o If a server has more than 2048MB of RAM, then parameter vm.swappiness is set
to 10.
o If a server has less than 2048MB of RAM, then the following error message is
displayed:
Server memory less than 2048MB
Task 14: Use Archiving
Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/archive.yml that runs on hosts in
the database host group and does the following:
o A file /mnt/mysql_backups/database_list.txt is created that contains the following
line: dev,test,qa,prod.
o A gzip archive of the file /mnt/mysql_backups/database_list.txt is created and
stored in /mnt/mysql_backups/archive.gz.

Task 15: Work with Ansible Facts

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/facts.yml that runs on hosts in
the database host group and does the following:
o A custom Ansible fact server_role=mysql is created that can be retrieved
from ansible_local.custom.sample_exam when using Ansible setup module.

Task 16: Software Packages

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/packages.yml that runs on all inventory hosts
and does the following:
o Installs tcpdump and mailx packages on hosts in the proxy host groups.
o Installs lsof and mailx and packages on hosts in the database host groups.

Task 17: Services

Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/target.yml that runs on hosts in
the webservers host group and does the following:
o Sets the default boot target to multi-user.

Task 18. Create and Use Templates to Create Customised

Configuration Files
Create a playbook /home/automation/plays/server_list.yml that does the following:
o Playbook uses a Jinja2 template server_list.j2 to create a
file /etc/server_list.txt on hosts in the database host group.
o The file /etc/server_list.txt is owned by the automation user.
o File permissions are set to 0600.
o SELinux file label should be set to net_conf_t.
o The content of the file is a list of FQDNs of all inventory hosts.
After running the playbook, the content of the file /etc/server_list.txt should be the
following:
ansible2.hl.local

ansible3.hl.local

ansible4.hl.local

ansible5.hl.local

Note: if the FQDN of any inventory host changes, re-running the playbook should update the
file with the new values.