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Ansible

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool used for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation across multiple systems. It works by connecting to nodes (servers or devices) over SSH and executing tasks using YAML-based playbooks without requiring agents on the remote systems. Ansible is known for its simplicity, using a declarative language to describe desired states, and it’s especially popular for managing Linux environments.

Potential Links
  • tryhackme room | On-Premises IaC: https://tryhackme.com/room/onpremisesiac

Inventories

  • Configuration files that provide ansible with host information / network locations. These are things like endpoint IPs / FQDNs.
  • Can be created in .ini or .yaml format.
    • e.g. inventory.ini or inventory.yaml

.ini example

[myhosts]
192.0.2.50
192.0.2.51
192.0.2.52

.yaml example

myhosts:
  hosts:
    my_host_01:
      ansible_host: 192.0.2.50
    my_host_02:
      ansible_host: 192.0.2.51
    my_host_03:
      ansible_host: 192.0.2.52

Ansible Docs - Tips for building inventories
  • Ensure that group names are meaningful and unique. Group names are also case sensitive.
  • Avoid spaces, hyphens, and preceding numbers (use floor_19, not 19th_floor) in group names.
  • Group hosts in your inventory logically according to their What, Where, and When.

What
Group hosts according to the topology, for example: db, web, leaf, spine.

Where
Group hosts by geographic location, for example: datacenter, region, floor, building.

When
Group hosts by stage, for example: development, test, staging, production.

ad-hoc commands