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Introduction to Ansible

Ansible is a popular open-source automation tool used by IT professionals and DevOps engineers to automate the configuration, management, and deployment of applications across multiple servers.

Why Ansible?

  • Agentless: No need to install any agent software on target machines.
  • Simple syntax: Uses YAML for easy-to-read and write playbooks.
  • Powerful: Automate complex tasks, deploy applications, and orchestrate workflows.
  • Scalable: Manage anything from a few servers to thousands.
  • Flexible: Works with Linux, cloud platforms, containers, and more.

How Ansible Works

Ansible connects to your target machines over SSH and executes small programs called modules to perform tasks such as installing software, copying files, or restarting services.

Key components:

  • Inventory: A list of hosts to manage.
  • Playbooks: YAML files describing automation workflows.
  • Modules: Reusable units of work.
  • Roles: Collections of tasks, templates, and files for modular management.

Basic Example: Ping Test

Check if Ansible can reach all your hosts by running:

ansible all -i inventory.ini -m ping