Ansible is a Python-based open source automation tool for configuration management, application deployment, and intelligent automation. It has the following characteristics:
• Agentless: Ansible does not require any agents to be installed on the managed host, it is based on SSH.
• Declarative: Ansible uses human-readable YAML files to declare the steps to be executed.
• Modularity: Ansible provides a large number of modules to complete various tasks, such as apt (package management), service (service management), copy (file copy), etc.
• Very simple: Ansible's syntax is very clear and simple, and the learning curve is not steep.
• Security: Ansible connects to the managed host based on SSH, which can encrypt the transmission.
• Universal platform: Ansible supports most mainstream operating systems, including Linux, Unix, and Windows.
• Parallelism: Ansible can execute tasks in parallel, greatly improving efficiency.
Ansible mainly consists of the following components:
• Playbooks: Declaration files that describe how Ansible configures and manages servers. It uses YAML syntax.
• Modules: Code modules that provide specific functions, including common service management, software installation, file operations, etc.
• Inventory: Contains a list of managed hosts, describing host groups and variables.
• Ansible Engine: The engine for executing Playbooks, developed by Python.
• Roles: Provides a collection of related tasks as a reusable and independent unit.
• Plugins: An interface for developing and extending Ansible functions, including modules, list plugins, connection plugins, etc.
The main steps to use Ansible are:
1) Write Inventory, which contains a list of managed hosts.
2) Write Playbooks and use modules to complete specific tasks.
3) Run the Playbook, and Ansible Engine connects to the host through SSH to execute tasks.
Ansible is widely used in workflows such as server configuration management, application deployment, automated testing, and continuous deployment.
configuration management
Configuration management refers to the management and tracking of IT infrastructure