Encrypting few variables and embedding them in playbook

Question

I have a playbook to bring up ec2 instance. I have two variables, specifying my aws access key and secret key. I know I can use ansible vault and encrypt the playbook. But is there a way where I can only encrypt those two variables? I do not want to encrypt the entire playbook.

Answer 1

Hey @Camron, you can just encrypt those two variables using the encrypt_sctring. 

Ansible Vault allows you to encrypt only specific variables. You can use the ansible-vault encrypt_string command for this.

ansible-vault encrypt_string

You'll be prompted to insert and then confirm the vault password. You can then start inserting the string value that you wish to encrypt. Press ctrl-d to end input. Now you can assign this encrypted value to a string in the playbook.

You can also achieve the same thing in a single line.

ansible-vault encrypt_string 'string' --name 'variable_name'

and then use this variable in your playbook.