Ansible Tutorials

Ansible Tutorial Roadmap

Understanding Configuration Management:
- What is configuration management?
- Why is it important?
- Benefits (Consistency, Efficiency, Scalability, Reliability).
Introduction to Ansible:
- What is Ansible?
- History and Philosophy (Simple, Agentless, Powerful).
- Key Features (Idempotency, Modularity, Extensibility).
- Comparison with other tools (Puppet, Chef, SaltStack).
Ansible Architecture:
- Control Node vs. Managed Nodes.
- Modules.
- Plugins.
- Inventory.
- Playbooks.
- Roles.
Installation:
- Installing Ansible on the Control Node (Linux, macOS, Windows Subsystem for Linux).
- Prerequisites (Python, SSH).

Setting up the Inventory:
- Understanding the Inventory file (INI and YAML formats).
- Defining hosts and groups.
- Using variables in the Inventory.
Connecting to Managed Nodes:
- SSH connection setup.
- Using SSH keys.
- Handling different users (ansible_user).
- Privilege escalation (become - sudo, su).
- Testing connectivity (ansible all -m ping).
Running Ad-Hoc Commands:
- Understanding Ad-Hoc commands.
- Using common modules (ping, command, shell, copy, file, service, yum/apt).
- Targeting specific hosts or groups.
- Using patterns.

Understanding Playbooks:
- What are Playbooks?
- YAML syntax basics.
- Structure of a Playbook (Plays, Tasks).
Defining Plays:
- Targeting hosts.
- Setting up users and privilege escalation (become).
- Setting variables.
Defining Tasks:
- Using modules within tasks.
- Naming tasks.
- Understanding Idempotency in tasks.
Running Playbooks:
- Using the ansible-playbook command.
- Checking syntax (--syntax-check).
- Performing a dry run (--check).
- Limiting execution to specific tasks or hosts.
Working with Variables:
- Defining variables in Playbooks.
- Variable precedence.
- Using facts (gathered information about managed nodes).
Using Handlers:
- What are Handlers?
- Defining Handlers.
- Notifying Handlers from tasks.
- Use cases (restarting services).

Loops:
- Using loop for iterating over lists.
- Iterating over dictionaries.
- Using with_items (older syntax).
Conditionals:
- Using when to conditionally execute tasks.
- Working with facts in conditionals.
- Using Jinja2 filters in conditionals.
Templates (Jinja2):
- Understanding Templates.
- Using the template module.
- Jinja2 syntax for variables, loops, and conditionals within templates.
- Deploying configuration files using templates.
Vault:
- What is Ansible Vault?
- Encrypting and decrypting variables and files.
- Using Vault with Playbooks.
- Managing Vault passwords.
Roles:
- What are Roles?
- Structure of a Role.
- Creating and using Roles.
- Galaxy Roles (finding and using community roles).
- Organizing Playbooks with Roles.
Includes and Imports (Deprecated vs. Modern):
- Understanding the evolution of including tasks and playbooks.
- Using import_tasks, include_tasks, import_playbook, include_playbook.

Exploring Ansible Modules:
- Finding and understanding modules.
- Using module documentation.
- Common module arguments and options.
Working with Specific Module Categories:
- Package management (yum, apt, dnf).
- Service management (service, systemd).
- File management (copy, file, template, lineinfile).
- User and group management (user, group).
- Networking modules (brief introduction).
- Cloud modules (brief introduction).
Understanding Plugins:
- Types of Plugins (Inventory, Connection, Lookup, Callback, Filter, Test).
- How Plugins extend Ansible's functionality.
Using Lookup Plugins:
- Reading data from external sources (e.g., file, env, password).

Advanced Inventory Concepts:
- Grouping hosts.
- Parent/Child groups.
- Group variables (group_vars).
- Host variables (host_vars).
Understanding Dynamic Inventory:
- What is Dynamic Inventory?
- Why use Dynamic Inventory?
- Using built-in Inventory Scripts (e.g., cloud providers).
- Writing custom Dynamic Inventory scripts (brief overview).
Using the Inventory Plugin System:
- Understanding modern Inventory plugins.
- Configuring Inventory plugins.

Strategies for Testing Playbooks:
- Using --check and --diff.
- Idempotency testing.
- Writing Molecule tests (introduction).
Troubleshooting Playbook Execution:
- Understanding Ansible output.
- Using verbosity flags (-v, -vv, -vvv, -vvvv).
- Debugging tasks (debugger keyword).
- Handling errors (ignore_errors, failed_when).

Ansible Best Practices:
- Organizing Playbooks and Roles.
- Using descriptive names.
- Writing Idempotent tasks.
- Managing secrets with Vault.
Ansible Galaxy:
- Using and contributing to Ansible Galaxy.
- Managing role dependencies.
Ansible Tower / AWX (Introduction):
- What are Tower/AWX?
- Benefits of using a web UI for Ansible.
- Features (Scheduling, Inventory Sync, RBAC, API).
Custom Modules and Plugins (Brief Overview):
- When to write custom modules.
- Basic structure of a custom module.
Integrating Ansible with CI/CD:
- Using Ansible in pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions).
Scaling Ansible:
- Strategies for managing large environments.
- Parallelism and forks.

Basic Web Server Setup: Deploying Nginx or Apache.
Database Installation and Configuration: Setting up MySQL or PostgreSQL.
Application Deployment: Deploying a simple web application.
User and Permissions Management: Creating users and setting file permissions.
System Updates and Patching: Automating OS updates.