ovh_gridscale_test_task/README.md

Technical Writeup: OVH Gridscale, Caddy & Prometheus Infrastructure

Overview

This document provides a comprehensive technical writeup of the infrastructure deployment and configuration management workflow. The project provisions cloud resources on OVH / Gridscale using Terraform and automates host configuration using Ansible.

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1. Initial Infrastructure Setup & Technical Caveats

1.1 Terraform Provider & Resource Foundation

The initial configuration (main.tf, variables.tf, resources.tf) established authentication with the official Gridscale provider (gridscale/gridscale). Infrastructure resources were defined using the Debian 13 image template and SSH key authentication.

1.2 Key Failures & Solutions

During initial testing and deployment, several technical hurdles were encountered and resolved:

1. SSH Connection Timeouts (Public Network Requirement):

   • Issue: Initial attempts to connect via SSH to the server's public IPv4 address timed out (ssh: connect to host ... port 22: Operation timed out).
   • Root Cause & Fix: Gridscale instances require explicit attachment to the public network. Because no dynamic network UUID data lookup was provided in the task specification, the public network UUID (5557a73b-31ee-4b1f-aa15-7789ad6ae04c) was hardcoded directly into the server's network block in resources.tf.

2. Unpowered Server Instances:

   • Issue: Newly created instances remained offline and unreachable after terraform apply.
   • Root Cause & Fix: Gridscale creates servers in an unpowered state by default. Setting power = true explicitly in gridscale_server resources ensured servers automatically boot upon creation.

3. Ansible SSH Host Key Verification Failures:

   • Issue: Ansible fact-gathering failed with Host key verification failed.
   • Root Cause & Fix: Cloud IPs change dynamically on fresh deployments. Added ansible_ssh_extra_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null' to the [all:vars] block in inventory.tf to bypass interactive host key verification prompts seamlessly.

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2. Network Topology & Firewall Security

2.1 Multi-Server Topology

The architecture consists of two dedicated nodes:

• caddy01: Web server hosting Caddy.
• monitoring01: Telemetry node hosting Prometheus.

2.2 Dual-Interface Network Isolation & Inbound Firewall Rules

To secure management endpoints and telemetry data, instances were configured with dual network interfaces:

1. Public Network:

   • Attached to Gridscale public network UUID 5557a73b-31ee-4b1f-aa15-7789ad6ae04c.
   • Firewall Rules (rules_v4_in, rules_v6_in):
     • Allow TCP port 22 (SSH).
     • Allow TCP port 80 (HTTP).
     • Block all other inbound public traffic.

2. Private Network (gridscale_network.network_internal):

   • Internal DHCP subnet: 192.168.121.0/27 (Gateway: 192.168.121.1, DNS: 192.168.121.2, Reserved: 192.168.121.0/31).
   • Firewall Rules:
     • On caddy01, allows inbound TCP port 2019 (Caddy Admin API / Metrics) only from the internal CIDR 192.168.121.0/27. Public access to port 2019 is strictly denied at the firewall layer.

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3. Dynamic Ansible Inventory Generation

3.1 Automated Inventory Build (inventory.tf)

To eliminate manual IP tracking, Terraform's local_file resource generates inventory.ini dynamically upon terraform apply.

3.2 Dynamic IP Interpolation

• Extracts auto-assigned private IP addresses from resource state: ${gridscale_server.server_caddy.network[1].auto_assigned_ip}.
• Automatically exports host groups ([caddy], [monitoring]) and internal IP variables (privat_ip_caddy, privat_ip_monitoring) for Ansible playbooks.
• Exposes outputs caddy_public_ip, monitoring_public_ip, caddy_private_ip, and monitoring_private_ip in outputs.tf.

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4. Ansible Playbook Orchestration (playbook.yml)

4.1 Base System Maintenance & Idempotent Reboot (all)

• Package Updates: Executes apt update and upgrade: dist.
• Idempotent Reboot Check: Uses ansible.builtin.stat to check for /var/run/reboot-required. The reboot task triggers only when required (when: reboot_required_file.stat.exists == true), avoiding unnecessary reboot delays during repeat runs.
• Prerequisites: Installs debian-keyring, debian-archive-keyring, apt-transport-https, and curl.

4.2 Caddy Web Server Configuration (caddy)

• Official Deb822 Repository: Per Caddy official documentation, configured Caddy's Debian repository using ansible.builtin.deb822_repository (https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/deb/debian with official GPG key verification).
• Metrics & Admin API Security:
  • Configured Caddyfile with /metrics and bound the Admin API to :2019.
  • Set origins http://{{ privat_ip_caddy }}:2019 so Caddy validates origin headers and only processes authorized internal requests.
• Service Handlers: Uses Ansible handlers to restart the caddy service automatically upon Caddyfile updates.

4.3 Prometheus Monitoring Setup (monitoring)

• Installation: Installs the prometheus package on monitoring01.
• Private Scrape Target: Configured prometheus.yml to scrape Caddy metrics target {{ privat_ip_caddy }}:2019 strictly over the internal private network (192.168.121.0/27).
• Service Handlers: Triggers Restart Prometheus service automatically when prometheus.yml changes.

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5. Execution Guide

5.1 Provision Infrastructure (Terraform)

# Initialize Terraform providers
terraform init

# Apply infrastructure changes
terraform apply -auto-approve

5.2 Run Ansible Provisioning

# Provision Caddy Web Server
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini -l caddy playbook.yml

# Provision Monitoring Server
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini -l monitoring playbook.yml

# Provision All Servers
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini playbook.yml

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6. Modular Jinja2 Templating & Prometheus Alerting Rules

6.1 Refactoring Inline Configurations to Jinja2 Templates

To improve maintainability and separate configuration data from playbook logic, inline file content blocks in playbook.yml were refactored into dedicated Jinja2 template files located in the templates/ directory:

• templates/Caddyfile.j2: Contains Caddy server block definitions and metrics setup.
• templates/prometheus.yml.j2: Contains global scrape configuration and imports rule files via rule_files: [/etc/prometheus/alert_rules.yml].
• templates/alert_rules.yml.j2: Defines Prometheus alert rules for monitoring Caddy service availability and error rates.

The playbook tasks were updated to use ansible.builtin.template instead of ansible.builtin.copy.

6.2 Variable Naming Refactoring

Standardized variable naming from privat_ip_* to private_ip_* across:

• inventory.tf (Terraform dynamic inventory builder)
• inventory.ini (Generated inventory)
• playbook.yml & Jinja2 templates ({{ private_ip_caddy }})

6.3 Prometheus Alert Rules & Raw Jinja Escaping

Configured alerting rules in templates/alert_rules.yml.j2 using Jinja {% raw %} ... {% endraw %} blocks to prevent Ansible from misinterpreting Prometheus template variables (such as {{ $labels.instance }} and {{ $value }}):

1. Caddy Down: Triggers a critical alert if up{job="caddy"} == 0 for 1 minute.
2. CaddyHighHTTP4xxErrorRateService: Triggers a critical alert if the 4xx HTTP error rate exceeds 5% over a 3-minute window (with total request count > 0).
   • Source: Rule specification adapted from Awesome Prometheus Alerts (Caddy Rules).

6.4 Verification

Verified playbook execution and rule rendering:

uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini -l monitoring playbook.yml

6.5 Automated Playbook Execution via Terraform (null_resource)

To fully automate the end-to-end deployment, a null_resource provisioner was integrated into inventory.tf. It executes automatically as the final step of terraform apply after server creation and inventory file generation:

resource "null_resource" "ansible_provisioner" {
  depends_on = [
    local_file.ansible_inventory,
    gridscale_server.server_caddy,
    gridscale_server.server_monitoring
  ]

  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "uv run ansible-playbook -i ${local_file.ansible_inventory.filename} playbook.yml"
  }
}

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7. End-to-End Environment Setup & Deployment Workflow

7.1 Environment Prerequisites & Credentials (.env)

Copy the .env.example template and export your Gridscale API credentials into your shell session:

# Copy template environment file
cp .env.example .env

# Edit .env with your credentials, then export variables
source .env

7.2 Python Environment Initialization & Dependency Setup (uv)

Initialize Python environment and install Ansible using uv:

# Initialize uv virtual environment and lockfile
uv init --bare

# Add Ansible dependency
uv add "ansible>=14.2.0"

7.3 Infrastructure Provisioning & Automated Execution

Initialize Terraform and apply the configuration. Terraform will provision the servers, dynamically construct inventory.ini, and automatically trigger the Ansible playbook via the null_resource:

# Initialize Terraform providers
terraform init

# Apply infrastructure changes (automatically provisions servers & runs Ansible)
terraform apply -auto-approve

(Optional) Execute Ansible playbooks manually via uv:

# Run Ansible playbook for all hosts
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini playbook.yml

# Target specific host groups
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini -l caddy playbook.yml
uv run ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini -l monitoring playbook.yml