Ansible 11 The uri module with examples

 Hey DevSecOps Automation specialist, Welcome back to the DevOps Hunter blog. In this post, I made it for learning more about all possible parameters that we can use when an application validation is done with the Ansible 'uri' module. 

Why uri module?

Web Application returns status HTTPCode 200 for success, 404 for failures, and also for 503 for Server internal issues. When you work on the restart of a web application we need to know the status of the application to proceed with the next move. So this uri module is most important for reboot and restart of web applications using ansible.

The uri module parameters

Supported parameters include: attributes, backup, body, body_format, client_cert, client_key, content, creates, delimiter, dest, directory_mode, follow, follow_redirects, force, force_basic_auth, group, headers, http_agent, method, mode, owner, regexp, remote_src, removes, return_content, selevel, serole, setype, seuser, src, status_code, timeout, unix_socket, unsafe_writes, url, url_password, url_username, use_proxy, validate_certs

The Ansible uri module return the following parameters while working with given URL

headers add headers to your requests

body - insert a body in your request 

body_format - format of the body in JSON or raw

creates - doesnot run the task if a file exists

dest: where to create the new file 

follow_redirects - when https redirects to http returns 301 

force_basic_auth - you need to provide username, password to chedk url

method - REST api possible methods it will supports GET POST DELETE PUT HEAD PATCH TRACE 

Prerequisites

Ansible installed and managed nodes with application up and running

Alternatively, application test URL we can take this blog URL as well.

Usecase 1: Let's check out blog URL does the Ansible uri module can test?

- name: Check public domain URL
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - name: uri
    uri:
      url: https://devopshunter.blogspot.com
      method: GET
      validate_certs: False

Execute the playbook as

ansible-playbook urlcheck.yml

Usecase 2: Now we can test our project related application urls with the following playbook

- name: test apache url
  hosts: web
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - name: uri
    uri:
      url: http://{{ansible_host}}
      method: GET
      validate_certs: False
      status_code: 200

Testing the above web application testing test run as follows:
Image

Ansible uri module with GET method and status_code checking

Usecase 3: Checking for the multiple status code values 200, 201, 301

- name: Check status code public domain URL
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - name: Check uri in 200,201,301
      uri:
        url: https://httpbin.org/status/500
        method: POST
        status_code: [200,201,301]
        validate_certs: False

Execute the play and check what does 

ansible-playbook uri_multi_status_code.yml

Image: 

Ansible uri module multiple status code

Usecase 4: Getting the content of the given url

- name: Check content
  hosts: db
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - name: Show content of a given uri
    uri:
      url: http://httpbin.org/get
      return_content: yes
      method: GET
    register: __content

  - name: debug
    debug:
      var: __content.content

Execute play as follows:

ansible-playbook check_content.yml

Image

Content of given url usibng ansible uri module

Usecase 5: HTTP Application return body

# Filename uri_body.yml
- name: Get the body of the url
  hosts: db
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
  - name: Get the status, url from body from uri
    uri:
      url: http://httpbin.org/get
      method: GET
      return_content: yes
      validate_certs: False
      body_format: json
    register: __body
  - name: debug status, url
    debug:
      var: __body.status, __body.json.url
  - name: debug json block
    debug:
      var: __body.json

Execute play as follows:

ansible-playbook uri_body.yml

Note that URL passed here is the test URL, whereas in projects we need to pass this value of web applications that provide the REST service that can be used with the HTTP Get request object.

Ansible uri module example to get body parameter

Usecase 6: Basic authentication with user and password  parameters passing

# File: uri_basic_auth.yml
- name: Get the body of the url
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
  - name: uri module using user password
    uri:
      url: https://httpbin.org/basic-auth/vybhava/technologies
      user: "vybhava"
      password: "technologies"
      method: GET
      validate_certs: False  
  

Execution

ansible-playbook uri_basic_auth.yml

Image

Ansible uri module basic auth parameters user, password

interesting facts:

Basic auth testing on browser 

Have fun and enjoy experimenting with this uri module.

Good references on the get_url module