Ansible

Ansible is an Open Source tool that automates deployments, orchestration and cloud provisioning. It uses playbooks to execute commands that are written in a human-readable language called YAML.

With Ansible, users can easily define infrastructure as code, making it easy to manage and track changes over time. Ansible also supports a wide range of platforms and operating systems, making it a versatile tool that can be used to automate tasks across multiple environments.

Features

1. Agentless - No Agent Installation is needed.

2. Feature Rich - Built on Python.

3. Secure - Uses SSH.

4. Push-Based Architecture - Changes can be pushed all at once simultaneously.

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Ansible Architecture

• Users: Those who are responsible for creating Ansible Playbooks and have a connection with the Ansible automation engine.

• Playbooks: A set of commands to be executed on either one or many hosts. Generally used to automate repetitive tasks.

• Inventory: List of IP addresses of all the hosts.

• Modules: A reusable piece of code that performs a specific task such as installing packages, creating users, copying files, and running commands on a remote host.

• API's: Collection of programming interfaces that allow Ansible to be used as an automation engine from other software applications or systems.

• Plugins: A piece of code that extends or modifies Ansible's core functionality. Plugins can be used to customize or extend Ansible's behavior, or to add new features and capabilities to the tool.

• CMDB (Configuration Management DataBase): It is a database that stores information about the configuration items.

• Hosts: They refer to the machines like Linux or Unix machines which are getting automated using Ansible.

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Used in

• App Deployment

• Orchestration

• Configuration Management

• Provisioning

• Security and Compliance

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Sample Playbook

The following is a sample playbook to install Apache2.

---
- name: Install Apache
  hosts: all
  become: true

  tasks:
  - name: Update apt cache
    apt:
      update_cache: yes

  - name: Install Apache
    apt:
      name: apache2
      state: present

  - name: Start Apache
    service:
      name: apache2
      state: started
      enabled: true
---

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Installing Ansible

After getting a brief introduction to Ansible, if you do wish to install it, then you can follow the commands to do so.

1. sudo apt-get update

1. sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

2. sudo apt-get-repository ppa: ansible/ansible

3. sudo apt-get update

4. sudo apt-get install ansible

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Resources

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Conclusion

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