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Ansible Cheat Sheet

  • Date June 8, 2022
Set & Check Hosts Connection
Command What does it do?
sudo nano /etc/ansible/hosts Set up hosts by editing the hosts’ file in the Ansible directory
ansible –m ping <hosts> Ansible’s ping module allows you to check whether Ansible is connecting to hosts
ansible -m ping server name To check on servers individually
ansible -m ping servergroupname To check a particular server group

 

Example Inventory File
Default location for host file

$ /etc/ansible/hosts
#To define location for inventory, in CLI
-i<path>

#example host file
ungrouped.example.com                        #Anungrouped host

[webservers]                           #a group called webservers
beta.example.com ansible_host = 10.0.0.5      #ssh to 10.0.0.5
github.example.com ansible_ssh_user = abc     #ssh as user abc

[clouds]
cloud.example.com fileuser = alice            #fileuser is a host variable

[moscow]
beta.example.com                           #host (DNS will resolve)
telecom.example.com                        #host(DNS will resolve)

[dev1:children]                          #dev1 is a group containing
webservers                            #all hosts in group webservers
clouds                                  #all hosts in group clouds in 

 

Parallelism & Shell Commands
Command What does it do?
ansible europe -a “/sbin/reboot” -f 20 To use SSH with a password instead of keys, you can use –ask-pass (-K)
ansible europe -a “/usr/bin/foo” -u username To run /usr/bin/ansible from a user account, not the root
ansible europe -a “/usr/bin/foo” -u username –become [–ask-become-pass] To run commands through privilege escalation and not through user account
ansible europe -a “/usr/bin/foo” -u username –become –become-user otheruser [–ask-become-pass] If you are using password less method then use  –ask-become-pass (-K)

 

File Transfer
Command What does it do?
ansible europe -m copy -a “src=/etc/hosts dest=/tmp/hosts” Transfer a file directly to many servers
ansible webservers -m file -a “dest=/srv/foo/b.txt mode=600 owner=example group=example” To change the ownership and permissions on files 
ansible webservers -m file -a “dest=/path/to/c mode=755 owner=example group=example state=directory” To create directories 
ansible webservers -m file -a “dest=/path/to/c state=absent” To delete directories (recursively) and delete files

 

Manage Packages
Command What does it do?
ansible webservers -m apt -a “name=acme state=present” To ensure that a package is installed, but doesn’t get updated
ansible webservers -m apt -a “name=acme-1.5 state=present” To ensure that a package is installed to a specific version
ansible webservers -m apt -a “name=acme state=latest” To ensure that a package at the latest version
ansible webservers -m apt -a “name=acme state=absent” To ensure that a package is not installed

 

Manage Services
Command What does it do?
ansible webservers -m service -a “name=httpd state=started” To ensure a service is started on all web servers
ansible webservers -m service -a “name=httpd state=restarted” To restart a service on all web servers
ansible webservers -m service -a “name=httpd state=stopped To ensure a service is stopped

 

Sample Playbook
#Every YAML file starts with —

—

– hosts: webservers
  vars:
    http_port: 80
    max_clients: 200
  remote_user: root

  tasks:
  – name: ensure apache is at the latest version
    apt: name=httpd state=latest
  – name: write the apache config file
    template: src=/srv/httpd.j2 dest=/etc/httpd.conf
    notify:
    – restart apache
  – name: ensure apache is running (and enable it at boot)
    service: name=httpd state=started enabled=yes

  handlers:
    – name: restart apache
      service: name=httpd state=restarted

#Running a playbook
ansible-playbook <playbook-name>
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