Ansible Role: Apache 2.x

An Ansible Role that installs Apache 2.x on RHEL/CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu.

Requirements

If you are using SSL/TLS, you will need to provide your own certificate and key files. You can generate a self-signed certificate with a command like openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout example.key -out example.crt.

Role Variables

Available variables are listed below, along with default values (see defaults/main.yml):

apache_enablerepo: ""

The repository to use when installing Apache (only used on RHEL/CentOS systems). If you'd like later versions of Apache than are available in the OS's core repositories, use a repository like EPEL (which can be installed with the geerlingguy.repo-epel role).

apache_listen_port: 80
apache_listen_port_ssl: 443

The ports on which apache should be listening. Useful if you have another service (like a reverse proxy) listening on port 80 or 443 and need to change the defaults.

apache_create_vhosts: true

If set to true, a vhosts file, managed by this role's variables (see below), will be created and placed in the Apache configuration folder. If set to false, you can place your own vhosts file into Apache's configuration folder and skip the convenient (but more basic) one added by this role.

apache_vhosts:
  # Additional optional properties: 'serveradmin, extra_parameters'.
  - {servername: "local.dev", documentroot: "/var/www/html"}

Add a set of properties per virtualhost, including servername (required), documentroot (required), serveradmin (optional: the admin email address for this server), and extra_parameters (you can add whatever you'd like in here).

apache_vhosts_ssl: []

No SSL vhosts are configured by default, but you can add them using the same pattern as apache_vhosts, with a few additional directives, like the following example:

apache_vhosts_ssl:
  - {
    servername: "local.dev",
    documentroot: "/var/www/html",
    certificate_file: "/home/vagrant/example.crt",
    certificate_key_file: "/home/vagrant/example.key",
    certificate_chain_file: "/path/to/certificate_chain.crt"
  }

Other SSL directives can be managed with other SSL-related role variables.

apache_ssl_protocol: "All -SSLv2 -SSLv3"
apache_ssl_cipher_suite: "AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH"

The SSL protocols and cipher suites that are used/allowed when clients make secure connections to your server. These are secure/sane defaults, but for maximum security, performand, and/or compatibility, you may need to adjust these settings.

apache_vhosts_filename: 'vhosts.conf'

The filename used for the vhost configuration.

apache_mods_enabled:
  - rewrite.load
  - ssl.load

(Debian/Ubuntu ONLY) Which Apache mods to enable (these will be symlinked into the apporopriate location). See the mods-available directory inside the apache configuration directory (/etc/apache2/mods-available by default) for all the available mods.

Dependencies

None.

Example Playbook

- hosts: webservers
  vars_files:
    - vars/main.yml
  roles:
    - { role: geerlingguy.apache }

Inside vars/main.yml:

apache_listen_port: 8080
apache_vhosts:
  - {servername: "example.com", documentroot: "/var/www/vhosts/example_com"}

License

MIT / BSD

Author Information

This role was created in 2014 by Jeff Geerling, author of Ansible for DevOps.