Ansible Starter

This is a starter setup for learning Ansible on your workstation or laptop. It's intended as a companion to a Getting started with Ansible tutorial. There are many articles and tutorials for getting started, this doesn't try to reinvent that wheel.

Why this? Ansible has a number of file formats and organizations. The examples can be confusing until the variations are learned. Having a (mostly) complete starting point gives you one less thing to worry about when learning Ansible.

This is the setup I wish I'd started with.

These instructions assume a working knowledge of the command line and a little bit of knowledge of Ansible terminology.

Notes

• This is not intended as a best practice example. It's a starting point for learning and experimentation.
• Ansible defaults to /etc/ansible/host for the host inventory. This starter setup places the inventory in a user account directory because:
  • I didn't want to deal with permission issues in /etc
  • I didn't want a global inventory scope on what is essentially a sandbox
• If you don't want to set up an .ansible.cfg file to change the host inventory location, there's an environmental variable available: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/config.html#default-host-list

Installation

• Install Ansible if you haven't already: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/index.html
• Pick a name and location for the starter setup Ansible directory
  Examples: ~/ansible, ~/devops/ansible
• Place a copy of the ansible-starter repository files in your Ansible directory
  • Fork your own copy of the repo and clone it
  • Download as zip file
  • Clone a copy of this repo and delete the remote (git remote rm origin)
• Place a copy of the Ansible sample configuration file, https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/examples/ansible.cfg, in the file: .ansible.cfg in your home directory
  i.e.: ~/.ansible.cfg
• Update the .ansible.cfg inventory entry to match your configuration:
  • Edit ~/.ansible.cfg
  • Uncomment the inventory entry:
    [defaults]
#inventory = /etc/ansible/hosts
  • Set it to your host file path:
    inventory = {ansible_dir}/hosts
inventory = /home/dale/ansible/hosts
• When you start using roles, update the entry: roles_path

If the installation has succeeded the command ansible-inventory --list will give the following results:

$ ansible-inventory --list
{
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "host.com": {
                "a_var": "a_var value for host.com",
                "another_var": "another_var value for host.com",
                "ansible_host": "host.com",
                "ansible_user": "host_account",
                "variable_1": "This variable came from group_vars/all.yml"
            },
            "host.localhost": {
                "a_var": "a_var value for host.localhost",
                "another_var": "another_var value for host.localhost",
                "ansible_connection": "local",
                "ansible_host": "localhost",
                "ansible_user": "my_account_name",
                "variable_1": "This variable came from group_vars/all.yml"
            }
        }
    },
    "all": {
        "children": [
            "hosted_sites",
            "local_sites",
            "ungrouped"
        ]
    },
    "hosted_sites": {
        "hosts": [
            "host.com"
        ]
    },
    "local_sites": {
        "hosts": [
            "host.localhost"
        ]
    }
}

Configuring your inventory

• Update the hosts file with real hosts and delete the sample entries.
  • ansible_host, ansible_user, are the most important variables, they define how to connect to your host, think:
    ssh ansible_user@ansible_host
  • There's an ansible_port variable if your host uses a custom ssh port (.e.g.: 2222)
  • For localhost sites, the variable entry: ansible_connection: local bypasses ssh when connecting
• To test your inventory:
  ansible all -m ping
ansible hostname -m ping

Using your setup

Resources for learning Ansible are available at https://docs.ansible.com/