How to manage ssh key file when we want to execute ansible command with github actions

Question

I have a github repository, a docker repository and a Amazon ec2 instance. I am trying to create a CI/CD pipeline with these tools. The idea is to deploy a docker container to ec2 instance when a push happened to github repository master branch. I have used github actions to build the code, build docker image and push docker image to docker hub. Now I want to pull the latest image from docker hub to remote ec2 instance and run the same. For this I am trying to execute ansible command from github actions. But I need to specify .pem file as an argument to the ansible command. I tried to keep .pem file in github secretes, but it didn't work. I am really confused how to proceed with this. Here is my github workflow file

name: helloworld_cicd
on: 
  push:
    branches: 
      - master
jobs:

  build:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:

    - name: Check out code into the Go module directory
      uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: Go Build
      run: go build

    - name: Docker build
      run: docker build -t helloworld .

    - name: Docker login
      run: docker login --username=${{ secrets.docker_username }} --password=${{ secrets.docker_password }}

    - name: Docker tag
      run: docker tag helloworld vijinvv/helloworld:latest

    - name: Docker push
      run: docker push vijinvv/helloworld:latest

I tried to run something like

ansible all -i '3.15.152.219,' --private-key ${{ secrets.ssh_key }} -m rest of the command

but that didn't work. What would be the best way to solve this issue

Please check this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33795607/how-to-define-ssh-private-key-for-servers-fetched-by-dynamic-inventory-in-files — Smily, Nov 20 '19 at 13:42
You may as well benefit reading the following: https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your-workflow-with-github-actions/creating-and-using-encrypted-secrets — Zeitounator, Nov 20 '19 at 13:46
While I believe you are in good hands with the other commenters, I wanted to point out that a question containing "it didn't work" is never going to get you the help you desire. Please pay special attention to the [MCVE](https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example) page which has an explicit section saying to avoid that pattern — mdaniel, Nov 20 '19 at 21:26

smac89 · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-27T02:47:03.663

I'm guessing what you meant by "it didn't work" is that ansible expects the private key to be a file, whereas you are supplying a string.

This page on github actions shows how to use secret files on github actions. The equivalent for your case would be to do the following steps:

gpg --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 my_private_key.pem
Choose a strong passphrase and save this passphrase as a secret in github secrets. Call it LARGE_SECRET_PASSPHRASE
Commit your encrypted my_private_key.pem.gpg in git

Create a step in your actions that decrypts this file. It could look something like:

- name: Decrypt Pem
  run: gpg --quiet --batch --yes --decrypt --passphrase="$LARGE_SECRET_PASSPHRASE" --output $HOME/secrets/my_private_key.pem my_private_key.pem.gpg
  env:
   LARGE_SECRET_PASSPHRASE: ${{ secrets.LARGE_SECRET_PASSPHRASE }}

Finally you can run your ansible command with ansible all -i '3.15.152.219,' --private-key $HOME/secrets/my_private_key.pem

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '21 at 15:11

You can easily use webfactory/ssh-agent to add your ssh private key. You can see its documentation and add the following stage before running the ansible command.

# .github/workflows/my-workflow.yml
jobs:
  my_job:
    ...
    steps:
      - actions/checkout@v2
      # Make sure the @v0.5.2 matches the current version of the
      # action 
      - uses: webfactory/ssh-agent@v0.5.2
        with:
          ssh-private-key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
      - ... other steps

SSH_PRIVATE_KEY must be the key that is registered in repository secrets. After that, run your ansible command without passing the private key file.

How to manage ssh key file when we want to execute ansible command with github actions

2 Answers2