Ansible playbooks

Ansible playbooks are written in YAML text files and define actions to execute against host/devices, check official Ansible playbook introduction: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/user_guide/playbooks_intro.html

Task definitions or Playbooks

Task definitions are defined in text files, called playbooks in Ansible terminology, in YAML format. Execution of task definitions or playbooks are make using ansible-playbook command followed by your desired playbook to execute. Playbooks can also use Jinja templates to enable dynamic expressions and access to variables.

Ansible Playbook execution:

• ansible-playbook my_new_created_playbook.yml
• ansible-playbook my_new_created_playbook.yml -f 10 -f 10 parallelize 10 executions

-f forks

Create "Executable" Playbooks

Add the following line #!/usr/bin/env ansible-playbook at the beginning of your playbooks and make it executable chmod +x /path/to/your/playbook.yml to execute without calling ansible-playbook binary.

Ansible Playbooks Examples

Create a new file touch /tmp/test_file.txt, REMOTE_SERVER should be already present in your Ansible inventory:/etc/ansible/host

Playbook using module file:

#!/usr/bin/env ansible-playbook

- hosts: REMOTE_SERVER_HOSTNAME
  tasks:
  - name: Ansible create a new file called test_fle.txt in /tmp directory
    file:
      path: "/tmp/test_file.txt"
      state: touch

Important Note: dash symbol (-) and indentation has to be properly formatted.

Additional examples:

• Installing sysstat using Ansible

Errors

A playbook must be a list of plays

Variables

You can use variables in your playbooks, check official documentation for further information: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/user_guide/playbooks_variables.html

Activities

1. Read Ansible introduction to playbooks: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/user_guide/playbooks_intro.html
2. Review different options for running playbooks, including: --limit
3. Review --check option
4. Review Ansible playbooks examples

See also

• Ansible: modules, plugins, Playbooks (examples) ansible-playbook, ansible-vault, ansible-inventory, ansible-config, Ansible Tower, Ansible Galaxy (Roles) (ansible-galaxy), ansible-cmdb, gather facts, ansible.cfg, Ansible Molecule, Ansible collections, register, template, --ask-pass, --ask-become-pass, remote_user:, /etc/ansible/hosts, ansible-doc, ansible-lint, .ansible/, --forks, --start-at-task, changelog, inventory, Notify:, ansible HOSTNAME -m ping, gathering, /usr/bin/ansible, ansible -m ping, ansible.builtin, hosts: (Ansible), set fact:, when:, blockinfile:, become method:, include:, git:, AWX, ansible --help, Tags, Ansible variables, versions

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