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Ansible Setup Guide

This guide covers the deployment of Ansible on the Raspberry Pi 5 "Master"

Part 1: Ansible Orchestration

Step 1 — Install Ansible on Pi 5

Run this on your Pi 5 Master to install the orchestration engine.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible sshpass -y

Note

sshpass is used for initial password authentication. Once SSH keys are exchanged, it can be removed.

Step 2 — Create Your Inventory

The inventory file tells Ansible which nodes to control.

mkdir ~/pi-cluster && cd ~/pi-cluster
nano hosts.ini

Paste the following configuration (update IPs to match your specific nodes):

[workers]
worker1 ansible_host=192.168.1.101
worker2 ansible_host=192.168.1.102
worker3 ansible_host=192.168.1.103
worker4 ansible_host=192.168.1.104
# Add other working nodes here...

[workers:vars]
ansible_user=pi
ansible_ssh_pass=raspberry
ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'

Step 3 — Connection Test ("The First Salute")

Verify connectivity to your nodes using the Ansible ping module:

ansible workers -i hosts.ini -m ping
  • SUCCESS (Green): The node is ready.
  • UNREACHABLE (Red): Check network connectivity or passwords.

Step 4 — Configure SSH Key-Based Authentication

To improve security and speed, move from passwords to a "digital handshake."

Generate the key on Pi 5:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519

Push the key to workers (repeat for each worker IP):

ssh-copy-id pi@192.168.1.101

Tip

Once keys are copied, you may remove ansible_ssh_pass from your hosts.ini.