Ansible playbook to Configure Reverse Proxy for Apache Web Server

3 min readMar 26, 2021

A Reverse Proxy is a server that sits in front of web servers and forwards client (e.g. web browser) requests to those web servers.
Reverse proxies are typically implemented to help increase security, performance, and reliability.

Task Description:

Creating an Ansible playbook to Configure Reverse Proxy i.e. HAProxy and update it’s configuration file automatically each time a new Managed node (Configured With Apache Webserver) join the inventory.

HAProxy:

HAProxy is a high-performance, open-source load balancer and reverse proxy for TCP and HTTP applications. Users can make use of HAProxy to improve the performance of websites and applications by distributing their workloads.

Steps to Follow:

~ Create an ansible configuration file .
~ Update Inventory
~ Create a HAProxy Configuration File
~Create a webpage folder and put all php code in it
~ Create an Ansible Playbook
~ Run the Playbook

Ansible Configuration File:- /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Update the IP in the inventory file: /root/ip.txt
-> LoadBalancer IP:- 192.168.185.7
-> WebServer IP :- 192.168.185.3 ,192.168.185.4

Check the connectivity using ping

ansible all -m ping

Create a HAProxy Configuration File: -

Make changes in the configuration file so that it can automatically update each time when a new Managed node come

Because we have to balance the load among the available servers, so we use a loop to dynamically retrieve the IP of servers each time a new Managed node (Configured With Apache Webserver) join the inventory.

Create an Ansible Playbook

loadbalancer.yml

- hosts: lb
  vars_prompt:
  - name: lb_port
    prompt: Enter load balancer port number
    private: notasks:
   - file:
          state: directory
          path: "/dvd1"
   - mount:
          src: "/dev/cdrom"
          path: "/dvd1"
          state: mounted
          fstype: "iso9660"
   - yum_repository:
          baseurl: "/dvd1/AppStream"
          name: "mydvd1"
          description: "dvd1 for pacakge"
          gpgcheck: no
   - yum_repository:
          baseurl: "/dvd1/BaseOS"
          name: "mydvd2"
          description: "dvd2 for package"
          gpgcheck: no- firewalld:
          port: "{{ lb_port }}/tcp"
          permanent: yes
          state: enabled
          immediate: yes- package:
          name: "haproxy"
          state: present
   - name: "copy file to conf file"
     template:
            src: "haproxy.cfg"
            dest: "/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg"
   - name: "start httpd service"
     service:
            name: "haproxy"
            state: started
            enabled: yes

2. myweb.yml

- hosts: myweb
  tasks:
  - name: "httpd service"
    package:
            name: "httpd"
            state: present
  - name: "php service"
    package:
            name: "php"
            state: present
  - copy:
          src: "/root/ansible_playbook/HaProxy/webpage/"
          dest: "/var/www/html/"- name: "start httpd service"
    service:
            name: "httpd"
            state: restarted

Create index.php page