Understanding File Structure and Files
In order to get ansible to run you need playbooks. I have a basic setup and follow a very simple file structure. Here is what my structure looks like. If you installed from my blog then the some of these files and folders will be under /etc/ansible/
The first file we will focus on is the hosts file. The file will look something like this. The host file serves as a list of devices that you want to manage and are called out during the playbooks.
Items to know
- Group names must be between []
- Devices can be part of multiple groups
- Can use IP or full FQDN. FQDN should use upper case letters for domain
Next folder we will look at is /etc/ansible/group_vars/
This folder has YAML files that can contain usernames and password.
(NOTE: These files should be encrypted if they contain passwords)
The file names should match that of the groups that you put in the HOSTS file.
Here is an example of a Group_Vars YMAL file
With these basic files you should be now ready to create a basic playbook. In my next blog I will detail out a basic playbook.
Please note that there is plenty of information on the Ansible Website that will help you get started and add even more detail.
Ed_Tech_Jeff 