Ansible Datadog Role

The Ansible Datadog role installs and configures the Datadog Agent and integrations. Version 4 of the role installs the Datadog Agent v7 by default.

Setup

Requirements

• Requires Ansible v2.6+.
• Supports most Debian and RHEL-based Linux distributions, and Windows.

Installation

Install the Datadog role from Ansible Galaxy on your Ansible server:

ansible-galaxy install datadog.datadog

To deploy the Datadog Agent on hosts, add the Datadog role and your API key to your playbook:

- hosts: servers
  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog, become: yes }
  vars:
    datadog_api_key: "<YOUR_DD_API_KEY>"

Role variables

Integrations

To configure a Datadog integration (check), add an entry to the datadog_checks section. The first level key is the name of the check, and the value is the YAML payload to write the configuration file. Examples are provided below.

Process check

To define two instances for the process check use the configuration below. This creates the corresponding configuration files:

• Agent v6 & v7: /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/process.d/conf.yaml
• Agent v5: /etc/dd-agent/conf.d/process.yaml

    datadog_checks:
      process:
        init_config:
        instances:
          - name: ssh
            search_string: ['ssh', 'sshd']
          - name: syslog
            search_string: ['rsyslog']
            cpu_check_interval: 0.2
            exact_match: true
            ignore_denied_access: true

Custom check

To configure a custom check use the configuration below. This creates the corresponding configuration files:

• Agent v6 & v7: /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/my_custom_check.d/conf.yaml
• Agent v5: /etc/dd-agent/conf.d/my_custom_check.yaml

    datadog_checks:
      my_custom_check:
        init_config:
        instances:
          - some_data: true

Autodiscovery

When using Autodiscovery, there is no pre-processing nor post-processing on the YAML. This means every YAML section is added to the final configuration file, including autodiscovery identifiers.

The example below configures the PostgreSQL check through Autodiscovery:

    datadog_checks:
      postgres:
        ad_identifiers:
          - db-master
          - db-slave
        init_config:
        instances:
          - host: %%host%%
            port: %%port%%
            username: username
            password: password

Learn more about Autodiscovery in the Datadog documentation.

Tracing

To enable trace collection with Agent v6 or v7 use the following configuration:

datadog_config:
  apm_config:
    enabled: true

To enable trace collection with Agent v5 use the following configuration:

datadog_config:
  apm_enabled: "true" # has to be a string

Live processes

To enable live process collection with Agent v6 or v7 use the following configuration:

datadog_config:
  process_config:
    enabled: "true" # type: string

The possible values for enabled are: "true", "false" (only container collection), or "disabled" (disable live processes entirely).

Variables

The following variables are available for live processes:

• scrub_args: Enables the scrubbing of sensitive arguments from a process command line (defaults to true).
• custom_sensitive_words: Expands the default list of sensitive words used by the command line scrubber.

System probe

The Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) system probe is configured under the system_probe_config variable. Any variables nested underneath are written to the system-probe.yaml.

Note: The system probe only works on Linux with the Agent v6+.

Example configuration

datadog_config:
  process_config:
    enabled: "true" # type: string
    scrub_args: true
    custom_sensitive_words: ['consul_token','dd_api_key']
system_probe_config:
  enabled: true
  sysprobe_socket: /opt/datadog-agent/run/sysprobe.sock

Once modification is complete, follow the steps below:

1. Start the system-probe: sudo service datadog-agent-sysprobe start Note: If the service wrapper is not available on your system, run this command instead: sudo initctl start datadog-agent-sysprobe.
2. Restart the Agent: sudo service datadog-agent restart.
3. Enable the system-probe to start on boot: sudo service enable datadog-agent-sysprobe.

For manual setup, refer to the NPM documentation.

Agent v5

To enable live process collection with Agent v5, use the following configuration:

datadog_config:
  process_agent_enabled: true
datadog_config_ex:
  process.config:
    scrub_args: true
    custom_sensitive_words: "<FIRST_WORD>,<SECOND_WORD>"

Additional tasks

pre_tasks and post_tasks folders are available to run user defined tasks. pre_tasks run before executing any tasks from the Datadog Ansible role, and post_tasks run after execution of the role.

Installation tasks on supported platforms register the variable datadog_agent_install, which can be used in post_tasks to check the installation task's result. datadog_agent_install.changed is set to true if the installation task did install something, and false otherwise (for instance if the requested version was already installed).

Versions

By default, the current major version of the Datadog Ansible role installs Agent v7. The variables datadog_agent_version and datadog_agent_major_version are available to control the Agent version installed.

For v4+ of this role, when datadog_agent_version is used to pin a specific Agent version, the role derives per-OS version names to comply with the version naming schemes of the supported operating systems, for example:

• 1:7.16.0-1 for Debian and SUSE based
• 7.16.0-1 for Redhat-based
• 7.16.0 for Windows.

This makes it possible to target hosts running different operating systems in the same Ansible run, for example:

Note: If the version is not provided, the role uses 1 as the epoch and 1 as the release number.

Agent v5 (older version):

The Datadog Ansible role includes support for Datadog Agent v5 for Linux only. To install Agent v5, use datadog_agent_major_version: 5 to install the latest version of Agent v5 or set datadog_agent_version to a specific version of Agent v5. Note: The datadog_agent5 variable is obsolete and has been removed.

Repositories

Linux

When the variables datadog_apt_repo, datadog_yum_repo, and datadog_zypper_repo are not set, the official Datadog repositories for the major version set in datadog_agent_major_version are used:

To override the default behavior, set these variables to something else than an empty string.

If you previously used the Agent v5 variables, use the new variables below with datadog_agent_major_version set to 5 or datadog_agent_version pinned to a specific Agent v5 version.

Windows

When the variable datadog_windows_download_url is not set, the official Windows MSI package corresponding to the datadog_agent_major_version is used:

To override the default behavior, set this variable to something else than an empty string.

Upgrade

To upgrade from Agent v6 to v7, use datadog_agent_major_version: 7 to install the latest version or set datadog_agent_version to a specific version of Agent v7. Use similar logic to upgrade from Agent v5 to v6.

Integrations

Available for Agent v6.8+

Use the datadog_integration resource to install a specific version of a Datadog integration. Keep in mind, the Agent comes with all the integrations already installed. This command is useful for upgrading a specific integration without upgrading the whole Agent. For more details, see Integration Management.

Available actions:

• install: Installs a specific version of the integration.
• remove: Removes an integration.

Syntax

  datadog_integration:
    <INTEGRATION_NAME>:
      action: <ACTION>
      version: <VERSION_TO_INSTALL>

To install third party integrations, set third_party to true:

  datadog_integration:
    <INTEGRATION_NAME>:
      action: <ACTION>
      version: <VERSION_TO_INSTALL>
      third_party: true

Example

This example installs version 1.11.0 of the ElasticSearch integration and removes the postgres integration.

 datadog_integration:
   datadog-elastic:
     action: install
     version: 1.11.0
   datadog-postgres:
     action: remove

To see the available versions of Datadog integrations, refer to their CHANGELOG.md file in the integrations-core repository.

Downgrade

To downgrade to a prior version of the Agent:

1. Set datadog_agent_version to a specific version, for example: 5.32.5.
2. Set datadog_agent_allow_downgrade to yes.

Notes:

• Downgrades are not supported for Windows platforms.

Playbooks

Below are some sample playbooks to assist you with using the Datadog Ansible role.

The following example sends data to Datadog US (default), enables logs, and configures a few checks.

- hosts: servers
  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog, become: yes }
  vars:
    datadog_api_key: "<YOUR_DD_API_KEY>"
    datadog_agent_version: "7.16.0"
    datadog_config:
      tags:
        - "<KEY>:<VALUE>"
        - "<KEY>:<VALUE>"
      log_level: INFO
      apm_config:
        enabled: true
      logs_enabled: true  # available with Agent v6 and v7
    datadog_checks:
      process:
        init_config:
        instances:
          - name: ssh
            search_string: ['ssh', 'sshd' ]
          - name: syslog
            search_string: ['rsyslog' ]
            cpu_check_interval: 0.2
            exact_match: true
            ignore_denied_access: true
      ssh_check:
        init_config:
        instances:
          - host: localhost
            port: 22
            username: root
            password: <YOUR_PASSWORD>
            sftp_check: True
            private_key_file:
            add_missing_keys: True
      nginx:
        init_config:
        instances:
          - nginx_status_url: http://example.com/nginx_status/
            tags:
              - "source:nginx"
              - "instance:foo"
          - nginx_status_url: http://example2.com:1234/nginx_status/
            tags:
              - "source:nginx"
              - "<KEY>:<VALUE>"

        #Log collection is available on Agent 6 and 7
        logs:
          - type: file
            path: /var/log/access.log
            service: myapp
            source: nginx
            sourcecategory: http_web_access
          - type: file
            path: /var/log/error.log
            service: nginx
            source: nginx
            sourcecategory: http_web_access
    # datadog_integration is available on Agent 6.8+
    datadog_integration:
      datadog-elastic:
        action: install
        version: 1.11.0
      datadog-postgres:
        action: remove
    system_probe_config:
      enabled: true

Agent v6

This example installs the latest Agent v6:

- hosts: servers
  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog, become: yes }
  vars:
    datadog_agent_major_version: 6
    datadog_api_key: "<YOUR_DD_API_KEY>"

Configuring the site

If using a site other than the default datadoghq.com, set the datadog_site var to the appropiate URL (eg: datadoghq.eu, us3.datadoghq.com).

This example sends data to the EU site:

- hosts: servers
  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog, become: yes }
  vars:
    datadog_site: "datadoghq.eu"
    datadog_api_key: "<YOUR_DD_API_KEY>"

Windows

On Windows, remove the become: yes option so the role does not fail. Below are two methods to make the example playbooks work with Windows hosts:

Inventory file

Using the inventory file is the recommended approach. Set the ansible_become option to no in the inventory file for each Windows host:

[servers]
linux1 ansible_host=127.0.0.1
linux2 ansible_host=127.0.0.2
windows1 ansible_host=127.0.0.3 ansible_become=no
windows2 ansible_host=127.0.0.4 ansible_become=no

To avoid repeating the same configuration for all Windows hosts, group them and set the variable at the group level:

[linux]
linux1 ansible_host=127.0.0.1
linux2 ansible_host=127.0.0.2

[windows]
windows1 ansible_host=127.0.0.3
windows2 ansible_host=127.0.0.4

[windows:vars]
ansible_become=no

Playbook file

Alternatively, if your playbook only runs on Windows hosts, use the following in the playbook file:

- hosts: servers
  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog }
  vars:
    ...

Note: This configuration fails on Linux hosts. Only use it if the playbook is specific to Windows hosts. Otherwise, use the inventory file method.

Troubleshooting

Debian stretch

On Debian Stretch, the apt_key module used by the role requires an additional system dependency to work correctly. The dependency (dirmngr) is not provided by the module. Add the following configuration to your playbooks to make use of the present role:

---
- hosts: all
  pre_tasks:
    - name: Debian Stretch requires the dirmngr package to use apt_key
      become: yes
      apt:
        name: dirmngr
        state: present

  roles:
    - { role: datadog.datadog, become: yes }
  vars:
    datadog_api_key: "<YOUR_DD_API_KEY>"

CentOS 6/7 with Python 3 interpreter

The yum Python module, which is used in this role to install the Agent on CentOS-based hosts, is only available on Python 2. When a Python 3 interpreter is detected on a target host, the dnf package manager and the dnf Python module are used instead.

However, dnf and the dnf Python module are not installed by default on CentOS-based hosts before CentOS 8. In this case, it is not possible to install the Agent when a Python 3 interpreter is used. This role will fail early when this situation is detected to indicate that a Python 2 interpreter is needed when installing the Agent on CentOS / RHEL < 8.

To bypass this early failure detection (for instance, if dnf and the python3-dnf package are available on your host), set the datadog_ignore_old_centos_python3_error variable to true.

Windows

Due to a critical bug in Agent versions 6.14.0 and 6.14.1 on Windows, installation of these versions is now blocked (starting with version 3.3.0 of this role).

NOTE: Ansible fails on Windows if datadog_agent_version is set to 6.14.0 or 6.14.1. Use 6.14.2 or above.

If you are updating from 6.14.0 or 6.14.1 on Windows, use the following steps:

1. Upgrade the present datadog.datadog Ansible role to the latest version (>=3.3.0).
2. Set the datadog_agent_version to 6.14.2 or above (defaults to latest).

For more details, see Critical Bug in Uninstaller for Datadog Agent 6.14.0 and 6.14.1 on Windows.