Ansible

Agentless automation for configuration management, application deployment, and orchestration.

Documentation

Guide	Description
Ansible Fundamentals	Inventory, playbooks, roles, modules, Vault, Jinja2, Galaxy, exercises
Playbook Examples	Real-world playbooks: nginx, Docker, KVM, Windows, Vault, Vagrant
Command Cheat Sheet	80+ commands and modules — ad-hoc, playbook, vault, galaxy, debugging
Interview Questions	38 questions from beginner to advanced with detailed answers

Why Ansible?

• Agentless — Uses SSH, no agents to install
• YAML-based — Human-readable playbooks
• Idempotent — Safe to run multiple times
• Extensible — 3000+ modules available

Learning Path

1. Start with fundamentals — inventory, playbooks, roles, modules, Vault
2. Keep the cheat sheet handy — 80+ commands and modules
3. Practice interview questions — 38 Q&A with detailed explanations

Key Concepts

Concept	Description
Inventory	INI/YAML file with server information
Playbook	YAML file defining automation tasks
Role	Reusable collection of tasks, vars, templates
Module	Unit of work (e.g., apt, copy, service)
Vault	Encrypt sensitive data
Handler	Trigger service status changes
Facts	Global variables about the system

Quick Start

---
- name: Configure web servers
  hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install nginx
      apt:
        name: nginx
        state: present

    - name: Start nginx
      service:
        name: nginx
        state: started
        enabled: yes

# Run a playbook
ansible-playbook site.yml

# Check mode (dry run)
ansible-playbook site.yml --check

# Ad-hoc commands
ansible all -m ping
ansible webservers -m shell -a "uptime"

# Vault
ansible-vault encrypt secrets.yml

External Resources

Resource	Description
Ansible Documentation	Official Ansible docs
Ansible Modules Index	Complete module reference
Configuration Management 101	Writing Ansible Playbooks
Ansible with Docker	Using Ansible on Docker
Ansible Roles & Jenkins	Integration with Jenkins and EC2