Installation

Easy mode

apt-get update
apt install -y ansible

Hard mode

Install Ansible

Run the following commands to install Ansible and the required dependencies in a virtual environment on a debian based system:

apt update
apt install -y python3-pip
pip install -y vitualenv
virtualenv ansible_venv
source ansible_venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml

"ansible-galaxy collection" installs the collections by default into ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections. This can be changed by setting the environment variable ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATHS.

Create Ansible Config file

You need to create a config file in ~/.ansible.cfg with:

ansible-config init --disabled > ~/.ansible.cfg

This will create a config file with all the defaults remarked out. You can then enable or change the options you want. For instance I would unremark and set nocows = 1 to disable the cowsay ascii art.

Quick start documentation for Ansible

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting_started/index.html
• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_reuse_roles.html

How to run the playbook

To run the update against all hosts in the inventory file, run the following command:

ansible-playbook -i servers.yml apt-update.yml --ask-become-pass

"--ask-become-pass" is used to ask for the sudo password. It was renamed from "sudo" to "become" to be more generic across OSs.

How to run the playbook on a specific host

ansible-playbook -i servers.yml apt-update.yml --ask-become-pass --limit <host>

OR

ansible-playbook -i servers.yml apt-update.yml --ask-become-pass --extra-vars "servers=<host or group name>"

"--extra-vars" is used to pass variables from the command line to the playbook. the variables are space delmited.

How to run a role

Usage example: ansible-playbook run_role.yml -i servers.yml --extra-vars="servers='ubuntu_server_1' role=fix_updates"