Enterprise Automation with Ansible

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that simplifies the management of complex IT systems. It allows administrators to automate provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, and orchestration.

In this lesson, we will explore how to leverage Ansible for enterprise automation, focusing on key concepts, installation, writing playbooks, and best practices.

2.1 Definitions

• Playbook: A YAML file containing a series of tasks to be executed on a set of hosts.
• Inventory: A file that defines the hosts and groups of hosts upon which Ansible operates.
• Module: A piece of code that Ansible runs on a target system to perform specific tasks.
• Task: A single action to be performed, defined within a playbook.

2.2 Architecture

Ansible operates in a simple architecture where it communicates with target systems over SSH (for Linux) or WinRM (for Windows), executing modules directly on the machines without requiring any agent installation.

3.1 Prerequisites

Before installing Ansible, ensure you have:

• Python 2 (version 2.7) or Python 3 installed on your machine.
• Access to the target systems (SSH for Linux, WinRM for Windows).

3.2 Installation Steps

To install Ansible on a Linux system, use the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible

For macOS users, Ansible can be installed using Homebrew:

brew install ansible

4.1 Structure of a Playbook

A basic playbook structure is as follows:

- hosts: webservers
  tasks:
    - name: Install Nginx
      apt:
        name: nginx
        state: present
    - name: Start Nginx
      service:
        name: nginx
        state: started

4.2 Running a Playbook

To execute a playbook, use the command:

ansible-playbook playbook.yml

When using Ansible, consider the following best practices:

• Use version control for your playbooks and inventory files.
• Organize your playbooks into roles for better maintainability.
• Test your playbooks in a staging environment before deploying to production.
• Document your playbooks and roles for clarity and future reference.