↓ Skip to main content
Samarthya
Samarthya
Linux

Ansible Configuration: `ansible.cfg`

·2 mins
Technical Ansible Configuration
Common ansible.cfg settings: inventory, remote_user, become, become_user, become_method, library, forks and file location
Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

ansible.cfg is the main configuration file for Ansible. It is used to customize Ansible’s behavior and includes a wide range of options, including the location of inventory files, the default SSH user, and the path to the module library.

The file can be placed in various locations, such as the current directory, user’s home directory, /etc/ansible/, and /etc/ansible/conf.d/.

Here are some frequently used properties in ansible.cfg:

  1. inventory: This specifies the location of the inventory file. By default, Ansible looks for an inventory file at /etc/ansible/hosts.
  2. remote_user: This specifies the default remote user to use when running Ansible commands. By default, this is set to the current user.
  3. become: This specifies whether to use privilege escalation or not. If set to true, Ansible will attempt to elevate privileges using sudo or su.
  4. become_user: This specifies the user to become when using privilege escalation.
  5. become_method: This specifies the method to use for privilege escalation. The default is sudo.
  6. module_name_mapper: This allows you to specify a custom mapping of module names to file names.
  7. library: This specifies the directory where Ansible looks for modules. By default, Ansible looks for modules in /usr/share/ansible/.
  8. forks: This specifies the maximum number of parallel processes to use when executing tasks. The default is 5.
  9. gathering: This specifies the method for gathering facts. By default, it is set to smart.
  10. fact_caching: This specifies whether to use fact caching or not. Fact caching can improve performance by caching facts between playbook runs.

Here’s an example ansible.cfg file:

[defaults]
inventory = /etc/ansible/hosts
remote_user = ansible
become = true
become_user = root
module_name_mapper = custom_module_name_mapper
library = /usr/local/lib/ansible/modules
forks = 10
gathering = smart
fact_caching = redis
fact_caching_timeout = 300

In this example, we’ve specified the inventory file location, set the default remote user to ansible, enabled privilege escalation, set the privilege escalation user to root, specified a custom module name mapper, set the module library location to /usr/local/lib/ansible/modules, increased the maximum number of forks to 10, set the fact gathering method to smart, and enabled fact caching with a timeout of 300 seconds.

Overall, ansible.cfg provides a lot of flexibility in configuring Ansible’s behavior to suit your needs.

Author
Samarthya
Engineer, learner, tinkerer. This is my trophy shelf of everyday work and leisure.

Related

Ansible: A thought

Ansible: A thought

·3 mins
Technical Ansible
Ansible is an open-source software platform for automating and managing IT infrastructure. It provides a simple and easy-to-learn method for automating and managing various IT processes such as provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment. Ansible uses YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) and playbooks written in YAML, which are a series of instructions that specify what actions need to be performed.
Ansible: Building Inventory

Ansible: Building Inventory

·2 mins
Technical Ansible Inventory
The blog is adapted from the information available here. — https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/ An Ansible inventory is a file that defines the hosts and groups of hosts that Ansible will manage. Inventory files are used to define the nodes (hosts) that will be managed by Ansible. These files can be in different formats, including INI and YAML.
Ansible: SSH Access

Ansible: SSH Access

·1 min
Technical Ansible Ssh
To set up SSH access for inventory hosts in Ansible, follow these steps: Generate an SSH key pair ssh-keygen -t rsa Copy the public key to the remote host ssh-copy-id user@hostname Test the connection to the remote host: ssh user@hostname Modify the ansible.cfg file to set the remote user, if necessary. Add the remote host to the Ansible inventory file. Run the Ansible playbook to execute the desired tasks on the remote host. Note: If you need to access multiple remote hosts, repeat steps 2-5 for each host.