Introduction to Ansible

What is Ansible?
Ansible in DevOps World
What Ansible Automates
A short comparison of Ansible, Chef, Puppet and SaltStack
Ansible History
Installing Ansible

Hands-on Lab: Installing Ansible on the control node Running Ad Hoc Commands

Ansible Architecture
Automation Engine
Ansible Configuration File overview
Ansible command syntax explained
Authenticating Ansible Connections

Hands-on Lab: Testing Ansible connection to remote servers using password and key-based authentication methods by running Ad-Hoc commands. Host Inventories

Using a dedicated user
Configuring key-based authentication walkthrough
Working with static host inventories

Hands-on Lab: Performing a full setup of our hosts (create a dedicated user, authenticate the user with key-based authentication, give sudo permissions, static host inventory, set the “default” inventory, test “ansible” command) in order to be prepared for managing with Ansible playbooks. YAML Overview. Basic Playbooks

YAML overview
Modules, Tasks, Plays, Playbooks
General Playbook Structure
Commonly used Modules (Service, Copy, Debug, File, Git, User, etc.)
Task Results (OK vs changed vs failed)
Validating the Result
Writing Idempotent Tasks

Hands-on Labs:

Learn how to write and use Ansible Playbooks. Use Ansible to prepare hosts for Ansible
Commonly used modules: User and group modules, file module, copy module, lineinfile module
Raw vs Command vs Shell
Task results: OK vs Changed vs Failed

Basic Ansible Playbooks, Loops and Conditions

What are Facts
Fact Gathering
Turn off fact gathering
Custom facts
Variable definition
What are Loops
Using Conditions
Multiple Conditions
Combining Loops and Conditions

Hands-on Labs:

Reading and using Ansible facts. Facts vs variables. Loops and conditions
Installing a webserver using Ansible

Ansible Modules Deep Dive. Writing Idempotent Playbooks.

An in-depth approach to modules
Idempotent playbooks

Hands-on Lab: Ansible Modules Deep Dive Facts. Variables. Templates

Templates Basics
Template Module with examples
Filters
Checking a Template

Hands-on Labs:

Using Jinja2 templates in Ansible in order to apply custom modifications.
Using Jinja filters (number, IP address, hashing, random, shuffle, list filters)
Configuring webservers using Ansible

Ansible Vault. Roles. First Steps to Building Reusable Playbooks

Ansible Vault with encrypted files
Using Playbooks with Vault
Managing Vault Files
Roles. Organizing Ansible Contents
Directory Layout best practices
Role Structure, Variables and Location

Hands-on Labs:

Learn how to use Ansible Vault and how to manage sensitive data like passwords or keys in encrypted files.
Understand Ansible roles. Create a role for configuring a reverse proxy / load balancer for our webservers.

DO374 - Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform