Ansible Tutorial for Beginners with Playbook Example

What is Ansible?

How to Install Ansible

Basic Ansible Terms

• Ansible server: The device where Ansible is installed
• Host: A remote machine or device managed by Ansible
• Group: A number of hosts grouped together in the inventory file
• Inventory: A list of all the hosts that Ansible manages. This file can be static or dynamic
• Modules: Blocks of code that Ansible uses to perform tasks
• Tasks: Defining what you want Ansible to do, used with a module which does the thing
• Playbooks: A list of tasks with all the parameters describing what you want to configure on a device
• Roles: Blocks of code that can be re-used within a task, which can also be shared

Ansible Inventory

The Ansible Inventory is a file which defines all the hosts that Ansible manages. By default it resides in /etc/hosts but it is an Ansible best practice to create a separate inventory file for each project within the project folder

Ansible Playbook