Ansible has huge potential, also working with docker. These slides give an introduction to how Ansible works and can be used to automate and improve your infrastructure setup.

2. Works on my machine!
“Everybody has a testing evironment.
Some people are lucky enough they
have a different one for production.”

3. Manual installation
• Not reproducible
• Hard to maintain
• Expensive
• Bugs, bugs, bugs!

4. Easy & documentation on the fly

5. No master, no agents
You
Server
Server
Server
SSH

7. Playbooks
Plays
Tasks
Inventories

8. Inventory
[web]
192.168.10.1
192.168.10.2
[db]
192.168.11.1
[cluster]
web
db
[web]
plas-web-[1:20]
[db]
plas-db-[a:c]
[east]
plas-web-[1:10]
{{database_east}}

9. Tasks
- name: ensure apache is at the latest version
yum: pkg=httpd state=latest
- shell: echo “Hello World!“
Modules!
module: param=arg [, ...]

10. Modules
• Cloud Modules
• Clustering Modules
• Commands Modules
• Database Modules
• Files Modules
• Inventory Modules
• Messaging Modules
• Monitoring Modules
• Network Modules
• Notification Modules
• Packaging Modules
• Source Control Modules
• System Modules
• Utilities Modules
• Web Infrastructure Modules
• Windows Modules
425 core modules!
(September 2015)

11. Not enough?
• Create your own!
http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/developing_modules.html
• Use the shell module:
- name: do what you want
shell: ./do_all_the_things.sh

12. Play
- name: ensure apache is at the latest version
yum: pkg=httpd state=latest
- name: write the apache config file
template: src=httpd.j2 dest=/etc/httpd.conf
notify:
- restart apache
- name: ensure apache is running
service: name=httpd state=started

13. Playbook
---
- hosts: web
remote_user: root
vars:
http_proxy=http://main-proxy.eu.company.corp:8080
tasks:
[...]
hosts: db
remote_user: root
tasks:
[...]

14. File structure
inventory
site.yml
roles/
common/
tasks/
main.yml
files/
foo.sh
vars/
web/
db/

15. Files
common/files/foo.sh
common/tasks/main.yml
- name: copy skript to server
copy: src=foo.sh dest=/tmp/foo.sh

16. Variables
common/vars/main.yml
app_dir:/my/app/dir
common/tasks/main.yml
- name: copy skript to server
command: mkdir –p {{ app_dir }}

17. Handlers
common/handlers/main.yml
- name: restart apache
service: name=httpd state=restarted
common/tasks/main.yml
- name: copy configuration
copy: src=httpd.conf dest=/etc/httpd.conf
notify: restart apache

18. Demo

19. Demo
Control Machine Requirements
• Python 2.6 or 2.7 (Windows isn’t supported for the control machine)
Managed Node Requirements
• Take Python 2.5 or newer

20. Demo
Adhoc-Command
(https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_adhoc.html)
ansible web –m ping
Playbook-Command
(http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_intro.html)
ansible-playbook ./playbook.yml
Examples
https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples

21. Ansible Tower
http://www.ansible.com/tower

22. Ansible Galaxy
https://galaxy.ansible.com/

23. Summary
• Easy to learn
• Easy to read
• Minimal requirements
• Everything you can imagine
• Documentation on the fly
• Works together with Docker