Ansible Collections

This repository contains ready-to-use Ansible collections for configuring a server with a specific runtime stack. Each collection installs and configures everything needed behind an Nginx reverse proxy — so you can set up a fully functioning server with a single command.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that lets you configure servers, run applications, and manage infrastructure — all without installing any agent on the target machine. You write tasks in simple YAML files called playbooks, and Ansible connects via SSH to execute them.

Instead of manually running commands on each server, you define once what your server should look like and let Ansible do the rest.

What is Ansible Galaxy?

Ansible Galaxy is the official hub for sharing Ansible collections and roles. It works like a package manager — you can download pre-built automation content published by the community or by vendors. This repo's collections are published on Galaxy, so you can install them directly with ansible-galaxy collection install.

Use Cases

These collections let you turn a blank VM or VPS into a fully configured server for your preferred runtime — whether that's for a web app, API, or backend service. Just pick the stack you need, run the playbook, and your server is ready to go. They're also great for learning how Ansible automates real-world server setup.

How It Works

graph LR
    A[Your Machine] -->|SSH| B[Target Server]
    A --> C[Ansible Playbook]
    C --> D[Collection Roles]
    D --> E[Install & Configure]
    E --> F[Nginx + App Stack Ready]

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Each collection contains a playbook that calls multiple roles to install and configure everything needed for a specific tech stack.

Available Collections

Collection	Stack	Link
node_app_server_bootstrap	Node.js + Nginx + PM2	galaxy
dotnet_app_server_bootstrap	.NET/C# + Nginx	galaxy
php_app_server_bootstrap	PHP + PHP-FPM + Nginx	galaxy
python_app_server_bootstrap	Python + Gunicorn + Nginx	galaxy
golang_app_server_bootstrap	Go + Nginx	galaxy
docker_bootstrap	Docker Engine + Docker Compose	galaxy
podman_bootstrap	Podman + Podman Compose	galaxy
kubernetes_helm_bootstrap	kubectl + Helm	galaxy
observability_bootstrap	Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + Promtail + Tempo + OpenTelemetry + Nginx	galaxy

CI/CD

Each collection has its own GitHub Actions workflow that runs on pushes and pull requests to main:

Collection	Status
dotnet_app_server_bootstrap
golang_app_server_bootstrap
node_app_server_bootstrap
php_app_server_bootstrap
python_app_server_bootstrap
docker_bootstrap
podman_bootstrap
kubernetes_helm_bootstrap
observability_bootstrap

Each workflow runs two jobs:

• syntax-check — Installs Ansible, builds the collection, and validates both install.yml and uninstall.yml with --syntax-check (runs on every push/PR).
• deploy — Triggered manually via workflow_dispatch. Takes host and ansible_user as inputs; the SSH private key is read from the SSH_PRIVATE_KEY repository secret for security.

Quick Start

1. Create an inventory file (inventory.ini) with your server IP:

   [webserver]
   192.168.1.10 ansible_user=root

2. Navigate to a collection folder, e.g. cd node_app_server_bootstrap
3. Run a playbook:

   ansible-playbook playbooks/<playbook>.yml -i inventory.ini

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed setup and publishing instructions.

Running Ansible from WSL / Docker / Podman

You don't need a Linux machine to run these playbooks — any environment with Ansible installed can SSH into a remote server.

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

# Install Ansible inside your WSL distro (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ansible

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/marcuwynu23/ansible-collections.git
cd ansible-collections

# Run a playbook
ansible-playbook node_app_server_bootstrap/playbooks/<playbook>.yml -i inventory.ini

Docker

# Run Ansible from an Alpine container with SSH access
docker run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:/workspace -w /workspace alpine:latest sh -c \
  "apk add --no-cache ansible openssh-client && sh"

# Inside the container, run:
# ansible-playbook node_app_server_bootstrap/playbooks/<playbook>.yml -i inventory.ini

Podman

# Same as Docker, but with Podman
podman run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:/workspace:Z -w /workspace alpine:latest sh -c \
  "apk add --no-cache ansible openssh-client && sh"

Guides

• Contributing
• Code of Conduct
• Security
• License