Ansible Configuration Management - Second Edition

Leverage the power of Ansible to manage your infrastructure efficiently

• Configure Ansible on your Linux and Windows machines effectively
• Extend Ansible to add features such as looping, conditional executions, and task delegations
• Explore the capabilities of Ansible from basic to more advanced topics with the help of this step-by-step guide

This book is intended for anyone who wants to learn Ansible starting from the basics. Some experience of how to set up and configure Linux machines and a working knowledge of BIND, MySQL, and other Linux daemons is expected.

• Manage your Windows machines with Ansible
• Use Ansible's command-line tools to interrogate systems
• Interact with modules and deploy cloud infrastructures
• Process data inside Ansible and extend the functionality of Ansible
• Learn how to store secrets in Ansible's vault and discover other source code management techniques
• Build maintainable configurations for large environments
• Write custom Ansible plugins efficiently
• Extend the functionality of Ansible by writing your own modules

Ansible is an open source software platform for configuring and managing computers. It provides a clear and concise way to manage the configuration of your Linux infrastructure. This book is a step-by-step guide that provides you with the knowledge you require to effectively manage your systems in a simple, quick, and maintainable way, with real-world examples.

You will begin by learning the basics of Ansible and then move on to exploring more advanced topics. You will then learn the basic and complex operations of playbooks and interact with modules to manage Windows machines and deploy them. You will also get acquainted with Ansible's more advanced features such as serially updating machines, delegating tasks to other machines, advanced uses of variables, looping and conditions, copying whole directories, and using filters to process variables. Towards the end of the book, you will learn how to increase the functionality of Ansible itself by writing your own modules and plugins.