Ansible 101 - Essentials

Agenda

Ansible Introduction

• Ansible definition
• Exploring modules
• Building a task
• Places to define Ansible vars
• hosts aka \"Inventory\"
• Creating a A play
• Looking at the “handler”
• Running a playbook
• Introduction to YAML
• Requirements for connecting to remote hosts

Installation

• Configuration requirements on the control machine
• Python requirements on the host
• Using ansible raw to install Python

Ansible Static Inventory

• Defining Hosts and Groups
• Host and Group variables
• Groups of Groups
• Default Groups

Ansible Tower / AWX

• What is Ansible Tower and AWX
• Why you should consider using Jenkins as a replacement for Ansible Tower
• Pushing and pulling playbooks from GitHub

Roles and Ansible Galaxy

• Why we need Ansible Roles
• Role Directory Structure
• Using Roles
• Role default variables
• Converting a Playbook to a Role
• Exploring Ansible Galaxy
• Running a role from Ansible Galaxy

YAML

• YAML Gotchas
• YAML Dictionary
• YAML list
• YAML list of dictionaries
• YAML Alternate format
• Relationship to JSON

Ansible Ad hoc commands

• Ad hoc command syntax
• Parallel Shell commands
• Managing packages
• Managing users and groups
• Gathering facts
• ad hoc cheat sheet

Writing a Simple Playbook

• Elements of a well written playbook
• A well-written Ansible play
• Using include files for tasks
• A well-written ansible variable file
• A well-written ansible inventory file

Ansible config file and directory structure

• ansible.cfg
• Best practices concerning directory structures and organization
• Host Inventory and ansible_vars
• Introduction to roles

Playbook Best Practices

• Directory Layout
• Use Dynamic Inventory With Clouds
• How to Differentiate Staging vs Production
• Group And Host Variables
• Top Level Playbooks Are Separated By Server Type

Ansible config file and directory structure

• ansible.cfg
• Ansible Inventory
• roles

Server Modules to Know

• Modules documentation
• setup / gather_facts
• copy
• apt / yum / pip
• command / shell
• git
• get_url
• debug
• lineinfile

Jinja2

• What is Jinja2?
• Jinja2 variables
• Jinja2 filters
• Jinja2 tests
• How to use templates
• Review of templates

Conditional and Looping Tasks

• Variables and Loops
• Using Complex Variables in Loop
• Variables and Templates
• Using variables in conditions
• Blocks
• Prompts
• Getting variables from the system
• Setting variables in playbooks
• Registered variables
• Getting variables from the command line
• Where is the best source to derive variables values?

Ansible Network Solutions

• Writing Cisco and Juniper playbooks
• Modules for Cisco
• Exploring Juniper solutions
• Built in Juniper modules
• Role based Juniper modules
• Installing a module from Juniper vendor
• Securing credentials
• Latest version of Ansible

Dynamic Inventory Management

• What is Dynamic Inventory?
• A review of static Inventory Practices
• Using JSON as an Inventory Source
• Using YAML as an Inventory Source
• Pulling Inventory from an API
• AWS EC2 Example
• OpenStack Example

OpenStack and AWS

• Overview of OpenStack
• Understanding the OpenStack client
• What is openstack-sdk
• clouds.yaml
• Installing openstack-sdk
• Using openstack-sdk
• OpenStack modules
• os_network
• os_subnet
• os_router
• os_server
• os_server_action
• os_security_group
• What is boto?
• Installing boto for AWS
• AWS modules
• ec2
• aws_s3_bucket_info
• redshift

Variables and Python

• Jinja Filters for variable manipulation
• Using Python within playbooks for variable manipulation
• Best practices for Variables
• Securing credentials with Ansible Vault
• Encrypting Playbooks with Ansible Vault