Chapter 2. An Introduction to Ansible

This chapter will serve as a high-level overview of Ansible and the components that make up this open source configuration management tool. We will cover defining the Ansible components and their typical use, break down how to define variables for the roles, and defining and setting facts about the hosts for the playbooks. Next, we will transition into the ways with which you can define the host inventory used to run your playbooks against. Lastly, the chapter will wind up with a working example of a playbook that will confirm the required host connectivity needed to utilize Ansible. In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Ansible overview
• What are playbooks, roles, and modules?
• Variables and facts
• Defining the inventory