Ansible on Samarthya

A Maintainable Ansible Playbook Structure

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My first Ansible playbook was a single file. It installed packages, created users, copied configuration, and restarted services. It was a reasonable starting point. The problem began when every change required editing the same file, which had quietly become a miniature operating system.

Ansible Loops

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Ansible offers powerful looping mechanisms that can significantly enhance your playbooks’ efficiency and readability. In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into Ansible loops, exploring various elements and providing practical examples to help you master this essential feature.

Privilege Escalation: How a `remote_user` and a `become_user` works

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

One of its Ansible’s features is the ability to execute tasks with elevated privileges, often necessary for managing system configurations. This process is known as privilege escalation.

Ansible Magic Variables: Useful Context Without Guesswork

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The first time I saw hostvars inside a Jinja expression I thought Ansible had become much cleverer than I was. It was useful, but it also made the playbook harder to read. After a few such expressions, I went back and learned what Ansible calls magic variables.

Ansible Configuration: Make the Defaults Explicit

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When I first used Ansible, I was happy that it worked without a configuration file. Later, the same playbook behaved differently depending on which folder I ran it from. That was the point at which I stopped treating the defaults as magic and created a small project-level ansible.cfg.

Non root `podman` and `molecule`

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

On my Centos8 I was facing issue when I was trying to run Molecule on a centos machine which is running podman as a non root user. Also, I am using the driver – docker and not podman, so to overcome the aliases and references issues I have installed podman-docker.

Getting Started with Ansible: From One Command to a Playbook

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I had been writing shell commands for every small infrastructure change. It worked, until I needed to repeat the same change on another machine and could no longer remember which command I had run first. That was my reason for starting with Ansible.

Async/Poll & Notify: Ansible Long running process

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

ASYNC & Poll

Ansible Variables

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

Ansible Variables

`lookup`: Ansible

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Ansible’s lookup plugin allows you to access data from a variety of sources, including files, templates, and external programs. You can use lookup to fetch data dynamically at runtime and use it in your playbooks and roles.

Python Virtual Enviroments

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

Using a virtual environment like venv is a best practice when working with Python-based projects like Ansible, Molecule, and Playbooks.

Continuing from the blog, Virtual environments are isolated Python environments that allow you to manage dependencies separately for each project, providing a controlled and reproducible environment for development, testing, and production.

VENV: Ansible

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

Ansible and Molecule are popular tools for configuration management and testing in the world of DevOps. To avoid conflicts between different projects and their dependencies, it is recommended to use a virtual environment for each project. In this blog post, we’ll show you how to set up and use a virtual environment using Python’s built-in venv module on macOS and CentOS 7.

Ansible Configuration: `ansible.cfg`

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Ansible: A thought

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

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

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

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

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Ansible: Templates

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

Templates in Ansible are a type of file that contain configuration information or scripts written in a Jinja2 templating language.

Ansible: Variables

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Ansible Variables are used to store values that can be reused throughout an Ansible playbook. They can be set in a number of ways, including being passed as command-line options, defined in an inventory file, or defined in a playbook itself. Variables can be used to store values such as file paths, user-defined parameters, and results of tasks.

Ansible: Structure of a playbook?

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

The structure of an Ansible playbook includes the following elements:

Ansible: Refresher

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Recreated in October 2026 from the post; the original image was lost

What is Ansible?
#

Ansible is an open-source software platform for automating and configuring computer systems. It allows you to manage, deploy and orchestrate applications, infrastructure, and network devices using a simple, human-readable language. Ansible uses a push-based architecture, where tasks are executed on remote hosts from a central control machine, and does not require agents to be installed on target systems.

Ansible: Notes

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Official documentation notes (Self Read)

 Getting Started
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="1"
 data-tab-label="Playbooks">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Playbooks
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="2"
 data-tab-label="Control Node">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Control Node
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="3"
 data-tab-label="Managed Node">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Managed Node
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="4"
 data-tab-label="Inventory">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Inventory
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="5"
 data-tab-label="Modules">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Modules
 </span>
 </button><button
 class="tab__button px-3 py-2 text-sm font-semibold border-b-2 border-transparent rounded-t-md hover:bg-neutral-200 dark:hover:bg-neutral-700 "
 role="tab"
 aria-selected="false"
 data-tab-index="6"
 data-tab-label="Tasks">
 <span class="flex items-center gap-1">
 
 Tasks
 </span>
 </button></div>

Control node
Managed nodes
Inventory
Modules
Tasks
Playbooks

Building blocks for Ansible.

 </div><div class="tab__panel " data-tab-index="1">
 <div class="lead text-neutral-500 dark:text-neutral-400 !mb-9 text-xl">

A playbook is composed of one or more ‘plays’ in an ordered list. — Official documentation

Ordered lists of tasks, saved so you can run those tasks in that order repeatedly.
Expressed in YAML format
It offers a multi-machine configuration & deployment system for complex applications that is
- Repeatable
- Re-usable &
- Simple

Controller machine

Has the Ansible executable installed (+Python)

 </div><div class="tab__panel " data-tab-index="3">
 <ul>

List of nodes/hosts that will be managed by control node

 </div><div class="tab__panel " data-tab-index="4">
 <ul>

List of nodes

Can specify information like IP address for each managed node.

An inventory can also organise managed nodes in groups e.g. [webserver]

 </div><div class="tab__panel " data-tab-index="5">
 <ul>

The units of code Ansible executes.

 </div><div class="tab__panel " data-tab-index="6">
 The units of action in Ansible
 </div></div>

Ansible on Samarthya

A Maintainable Ansible Playbook Structure

Ansible Loops

Privilege Escalation: How a `remote_user` and a `become_user` works

Ansible Magic Variables: Useful Context Without Guesswork

Ansible Configuration: Make the Defaults Explicit

Non root `podman` and `molecule`

Getting Started with Ansible: From One Command to a Playbook

Async/Poll & Notify: Ansible Long running process

Ansible Variables

`lookup`: Ansible

Python Virtual Enviroments

VENV: Ansible

Ansible Configuration: `ansible.cfg`

Ansible: A thought

Ansible: Building Inventory

Ansible: SSH Access

Ansible: Templates

Ansible: Variables

Ansible: Structure of a playbook?

Ansible: Refresher

What is Ansible? #

Ansible: Notes

What is Ansible?
#