Using Ansible

Introduction to Ansible, an open-source automation tool for configuration management.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool used to configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate advanced workflows like application deployment and system updates. It allows system administrators to manage systems at scale without having to manually log into each machine. Unlike Salt, Ansible is agentless and uses SSH to connect to remote systems and execute tasks.

Key Concepts

Concept

Description

Control Node

The machine which you run Ansible CLI tools.

Managed Nodes

Also referred to as “hosts”, these are the systems that ansible connects to and configures.

Inventory

A list of hosts (and groups of hosts) that Ansible manages. Defined in a file called hosts.

Playbook

A YAML file that defines the desired state of one or more systems through “plays” and “tasks”.

Module

Small programs that perform specific tasks (install a package, copy a file, start a service).

Task

A single action defined in a playbook.

Role

A structured way to organize playbooks and reuseable automation code.

How Does Ansible Work?

  1. Inventory defines what systems to manage.

  2. Playbooks define what actions to take.

  3. Ansible connects to each system via SSH using the credentials provided.

  4. Tasks are executed through modules.

  5. The results are reported back in the terminal.

Using Vagrant as a Development Environment

Vagrant is a tool for managing virtual machine environments in a reproducible way using simple configuration files called Vagrantfile. Vagrant makes it easy to rebuild development environments, which is great for testing Ansible playbooks before applying them in production. Vagrant is also compatible with KVM environments. Learn more about using Vagrant with your KVM / Libvirt environment here.

Ansible Lab using Vagrant

Ansible Lab: This repository builds an ansible lab environment using Vagrant and Libvirt to create a small cluster of virtual machines for running playbooks, configuration management, and orchestration exercises.

Ansible Galaxy

Ansible Galaxy is a hub and command-line tool for sharing and downloading Ansible roles and collections. It allows you to quickly reuse automation content created by the community or your organization. Ansible Galaxy provides Roles, and Collections. Roles are a way to organize and group tasks into a single, reusable container. They provide a clean directory structure for performing a specific task. Collections are bundles of roles, playbooks, plugins, and modules, typically organized by vendor or topic. More information on installing and using Ansible Galaxy is available on their Community User Guide.

Resources