Generate SSH Keys Ansible Role

This Ansible role generates a unique public/private ssh keypair for each host (ssh client), and then copies the public key to an ssh server. This allows for quickly setting up ssh access to 1 server from many hosts in Ansible's inventory.

This would be useful when setting up ssh access for restic or borgbackup where you would need to setup many ssh clients with access to ssh into one target server.

Requirements

None

Role Variables

Required:

generate_ssh_keys_target_server: (required).  Note that this must match the name of an entry in your ansible inventory file.

Optional (default values)

generate_ssh_keys_server_user: "root" (user ssh client will be logging in as on server.  The public keys will be copied to this user's authorized keys file.)
generate_ssh_keys_client_user: "root" (user that you will be sshing from.  The public/private keypair will be generated as this user)
generate_ssh_keys_key_type: "ed25519" (can also choose "rsa")
generate_ssh_keys_key_bits: 4096 (ignored for ed25519, but will be used for rsa key type)
generate_ssh_keys_key_state: "present"

Dependencies

None

Example Playbook

generate-ssh-keys.yml

---
- hosts: clients
  roles:
    - role: ahnooie.generate-ssh-keys
      vars:
        generate_ssh_keys_target_server: "backups.example.com"

inventory

[remote-server]
backups.example.com

[clients]
host1.example.com
host2.example.com
host3.example.com
...

License

MIT

Author Information

Created by Benjamin Bryan