Red Hat Ansible resources

Red Hat Ansible resources

Latest

• Documentation - Latest version
• User Guide - Latest Version
• Command Line Tools - Latest Version
• Working with Playbooks - Latest Version
• Playbooks Keywords - Latest Version
• Privilege Escalation - Latest Version
• Ansible Vault - Latest Version
• Working with Modules - Latest Version
• Module Index - Latest Version
• Working with Plugins - Latest Version
• Installation Guide - Latest Version

2.8.x version

• Documentation - 2.8.x
• User Guide - 2.8.x
• Command Line Tools - 2.8.x
• Working with Playbooks - 2.8.x
• Playbooks Keywords - 2.8.x
• Privilege Escalation - 2.8.x
• Ansible Vault - 2.8.x
• Working with Modules - 2.8.x
• Module Index - 2.8.x
• Working with Plugins - 2.8.x
• Installation Guide - 2.8.x

2.6.x version

• Documentation - 2.6.x
• User Guide - 2.6.x
• Command Line Tools - 2.6.x
• Working with Playbooks - 2.6.x
• Playbooks Keywords - 2.6.x
• Privilege Escalation - 2.6.x
• Ansible Vault - 2.6.x
• Working with Modules - 2.6.x
• Module Index - 2.6.x
• Working with Plugins - 2.6.x
• Installation Guide - 2.6.x

Training Classes - Videos

• How Ansible Works (DO007)
• Ansible Essentials - Simplicity in Automation (DO007)
• Ansible Best Practices for Startups to Enterprises
• Metric-Driven Development with Ansible
• Ansible OReilly Learning Path

Training - Books and Blogs

• Ansible: Up and Running, 2nd Edition
• Mastering Ansible - 3rd edition
• Ansible Quick Start

Ansible Essentials Notes

What is Ansible and the Ansible Way

• An automation language that can describe an IT application infrastructure in Ansible Playbooks
• An automation engine that runs Ansible playbooks
• Ansible is Simple
  • Human readable automation
  • No special coding skills needed
  • Tasks executed in order
• Ansible is Powerful
  • Application deployment
  • Configuration management
  • Workflow orchestration
  • Orchestrate the application life cycle
  • Multi-tier orchestration
  • Provisioning
• Ansible is Agentless
  • Agentless architecture
  • uses OpenSSH & WinRM
  • No agents to exploit or update
  • More efficient & more secure
• Ansible is Cross platform
  • Agentless support for all major OS variants, physical, virtual, cloud, and network
• Ansible comes bundled with over 450 modules
• Has a popular open source community
• Use Cases
  • Configuration Management
  • Security and Compliance
  • Application Deployment
  • Orchestration
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Provisioning

How Ansible Works

• Ansible’s Automation Engine
  • Inventory
    • Inventory is a collection of hosts (nodes) against which Ansible can work with
    • Hosts
    • Groups sources
    • Inventory - specific data
    • Static or Dynamic
    • Inventory can from from providers
  • Modules
    • Are tools in the toolkit
    • Python, Powershell, or any language
    • Extend functionality
  • API
    • …
  • Plugins
    • Code that plugs into the core engine
    • Adaptability for various uses & platforms
• commands (run commands modules - special modules)
  • command:
    • Takes the command and executes it
    • The most secure and predictable
  • shell:
    • Executes through a shell like /bin/sh
    • So you can use pipes,etc
  • script:
    • Runs a local script on a remote node after transferring it
  • raw:
    • Executes a command without going through the Ansible module subsystem
• Variable(s)
  • Ansible can work with metadata from various sources and manage their context in form of variables
  • Variable Precedence ```
    1. Extra Vars
    2. Task Vars (only for the task)
    3. Block vars (only for tasks in the block)
    4. Role and include vars
    5. Play vars_files
    6. Play vars_prompt
    7. Play vars
    8. Set_facts
    9. Registered vars
    10. Host facts
    11. Playbook host_vars
    12. Playbook group_vars
    13. Inventory host_vars
    14. Inventory group_vars
    15. Inventory vars
    16. Role defaults ```
• Tasks
  • Tasks are executed sequentially
  • Handler Tasks
    • Are special tasks that run at the end of a play if notified by another tasks
• Plays
  • Plays are ordered sets of tasks to execute host selections from your inventory
• Playbooks
  • A playbook is a file containing one or more plays
  • Playbooks are written in YAML
• Roles
  • Roles are packages of closely related Ansible content that can be shared more easily than plays alone