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Tutorial: Configure topics in Azure Service Bus using Ansible

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Important

Ansible 2.8 (or later) is required to run the sample playbooks in this article.

Azure Service Bus is an enterprise integration message broker. Service bus supports two types of communication: queues and topics.

Queues support asynchronous communications between applications. An app sends messages to a queue, which stores the messages. The receiving application then connects to and reads the messages from the queue.

Topics support the publish-subscribe pattern, which enables a one-to-many relationship between the message originator and the messager receiver(s).

In this article, you learn how to:

  • Create a topic
  • Create a subscription
  • Create a SAS policy
  • Retrieve namespace information
  • Retrieve topic and subscription information
  • Revoke a SAS policy

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription: If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Create the Service Bus topic

The sample playbook code creates the following resources:

  • Azure resource group
  • Service Bus namespace within the resource group
  • Service Bus topic with the namespace

Save the following playbook as servicebus_topic.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      location: eastus
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
  tasks:
    - name: Ensure resource group exist
      azure_rm_resourcegroup:
          name: "{{ resource_group }}"
          location: "{{ location }}"
    - name: Create a namespace
      azure_rm_servicebus:
          name: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
    - name: Create a topic
      azure_rm_servicebustopic:
          name: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
      register: topic
    - debug:
          var: topic

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_topic.yml

Create the subscription

The sample playbook code creates the subscription under a Service Bus topic. Azure Service Bus topics can have multiple subscriptions. A subscriber to a topic can receives a copy of each message sent to the topic. Subscriptions are named entities, which are durably created, but can optionally expire.

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      location: eastus
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
      subscription: servicebustestsubs
  tasks:
    - name: Create a subscription
      azure_rm_servicebustopicsubscription:
          name: "{{ subscription }}"
          topic: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
      register: subs
    - debug:
          var: subs

Save the following playbook as servicebus_subscription.yml:

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_subscription.yml

Create the SAS policy

A Shared Access Signature (SAS) is a claims-based authorization mechanism using tokens.

The sample playbook code creates two SAS policies for a Service Bus queue with different privileges.

Save the following playbook as servicebus_topic_policy.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
  tasks:
    - name: Create a policy with send and listen privilege
      azure_rm_servicebussaspolicy:
          name: "{{ topic }}-{{ item }}"
          topic: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          rights: "{{ item }}"
      with_items:
        - send
        - listen
      register: policy
    - debug:
          var: policy

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_topic_policy.yml

Retrieve namespace information

The sample playbook code queries the namespace information.

Save the following playbook as servicebus_namespace_info.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      namespace: servicebustestns
  tasks:
    - name: Get a namespace's information
      azure_rm_servicebus_facts:
          type: namespace
          name: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          show_sas_policies: yes
      register: ns
    - debug:
          var: ns

Before running the playbook, see the following notes:

  • The show_sas_policies value indicates whether to show the SAS policies under the specified namespace. By default, the value is False to avoid additional network overhead.

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_namespace_info.yml

Retrieve topic and subscription information

The sample playbook code queries for the following information:

  • Service Bus topic information
  • List of subscription details for the topic

Save the following playbook as servicebus_list.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
  tasks:
    - name: Get a topic's information
      azure_rm_servicebus_facts:
          type: topic
          name: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          show_sas_policies: yes
      register: topic_fact
    - name: "List subscriptions under topic {{ topic }}"
      azure_rm_servicebus_facts:
          type: subscription
          topic: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
      register: subs_fact
    - debug:
          var: "{{ item }}"
      with_items:
        - topic_fact.servicebuses[0]
        - subs_fact.servicebuses

Before running the playbook, see the following notes:

  • The show_sas_policies value indicates whether to show the SAS policies under the specified queue. By default, this value is set to False to avoid additional network overhead.

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_list.yml

Revoke the queue SAS policy

The sample playbook code deletes a queue SAS policy.

Save the following playbook as servicebus_queue_policy_delete.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
  tasks:
    - name: Delete a policy
      azure_rm_servicebussaspolicy:
          name: "{{ topic }}-policy"
          topic: "{{ topic }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          state: absent

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook servicebus_topic_policy_delete.yml

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, delete the resources created in this article.

Save the following code as cleanup.yml:

---
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
      resource_group: servicebustest
      namespace: servicebustestns
      topic: servicebustesttopic
      subscription: servicebustestsubs
  tasks:
    - name: Delete subscription
      azure_rm_servicebustopicsubscription:
          name: "{{ subscription }}"
          topic: "{{ topic }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          state: absent
    - name: Delete topic
      azure_rm_servicebustopic:
          name: "{{ topic }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          namespace: "{{ namespace }}"
          state: absent
    - name: Delete namespace
      azure_rm_servicebus:
          name: "{{ namespace }}"
          resource_group: "{{ resource_group }}"
          state: absent
    - name: Delete resource group
      azure_rm_resourcegroup:
          name: "{{ resource_group }}"
          state: absent
          force_delete_nonempty: yes

Run the playbook using ansible-playbook

ansible-playbook cleanup.yml

Next steps

Ansible on Azure