Ansible Configured — Six Linux VMs

What I did

Completed the Ansible configuration Barrie had started but left unfinished. Created a dedicated SSH key, configured an ansible service account on each VM, wrote the inventory and ansible.cfg, and built an upgrade playbook that handles both Debian and Oracle Linux automatically.

The VMs

VM	OS Family	Hostname
kali-linux	Debian (Kali)	kali
DIS-UBUNTU-SERVER	Debian (Ubuntu)	dis-ubuntu-server
ORA-26AI-DB	Oracle Linux	ple-23ai-db
PLE-UP-WLS	Oracle Linux	ple-up-wls
PLE-UP-OAS	Oracle Linux	ple-up-oas
PLE-ORA-DB	Oracle Linux	ple-2012-db

What was set up on each VM

Created ansible user with /bin/bash shell
Granted passwordless sudo via /etc/sudoers.d/ansible
Installed SSH public key at /home/ansible/.ssh/authorized_keys
Unlocked account (set password field to * for key-only access)
Enabled SSH service on boot (Oracle Linux: sshd; Debian: ssh)

SSH key

Created a new passphrase-free ED25519 key specifically for Ansible:

~/.ssh/keys.d/id_ed25519_ansible

The key has no passphrase so Ansible can use it non-interactively. The existing id_ed25519 key (which has a passphrase) was not used.

Files created

~/ansible/inventory — VM list grouped by OS family
~/ansible/ansible.cfg — Ansible configuration (auto-loaded when run from ~/ansible/)
~/ansible/upgrade.yml — upgrade playbook

How it works

The upgrade playbook uses ansible_os_family to branch automatically:

Debian/Ubuntu → apt dist-upgrade with autoremove
Oracle Linux → dnf upgrade

Obstacles resolved

Kali SSH not running by default — enabled and started manually; set to auto-start on boot
SSH catch-all config offering too many keys — added a VM-specific Host block in ~/.ssh/config with IdentitiesOnly yes
Kali PAM two-factor requirement — added Match User ansible / AuthenticationMethods publickey to /etc/ssh/sshd_config on Kali
Account locked after creation without password — usermod -p '*' marks the account as key-only rather than locked
Existing SSH key had a passphrase — created a new dedicated key without one
Stale known_hosts entry — cleared with ssh-keygen -R ple-23ai-db
Wrong IPs in inventory — rewrote inventory to use hostnames (resolved via /etc/hosts) rather than IPs

Usage

# From ~/ansible/

ansible all_linux -m ping                          # Test all VMs
ansible-playbook upgrade.yml                       # Upgrade all six VMs
ansible-playbook upgrade.yml --limit kali          # One VM only
ansible-playbook upgrade.yml --limit oracle_linux  # Oracle Linux group only
ansible-playbook upgrade.yml --limit debian        # Debian group only