Chapter 2: Introducing Ansible

Understand what Ansible is, why it matters, how it is put together, and get a working control node with automation content navigator.

What you will learn

• Explain why automation beats manual administration, and what Infrastructure as Code means.
• Describe the Ansible architecture: control node, managed hosts, inventory, playbooks, plays, tasks and modules.
• Distinguish community Ansible, ansible-core in RHEL, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.
• Install ansible-navigator and pull an automation execution environment.

Sections

1. Why automate Linux administration
2. What Ansible is
3. Core concepts and architecture
4. Ansible distributions and AAP 2
5. Preparing the control node and managed hosts
6. Exercise: Installing Ansible
7. Ansible basics quiz
8. Ansible basics cheat sheet
9. Check your Linux foundations