Get started automating with playbooks
An Ansible Playbook is a blueprint for automation tasks, which are actions executed with limited manual effort across an inventory of solutions. Playbooks tell Ansible what to do on which devices.
A playbook automatically executes the same action across a specified inventory type, such as a set of routers, replacing manual repetitive work.
Playbooks are regularly used to automate IT infrastructure, such as operating systems, Kubernetes platforms, networks, security systems, and code repositories such as GitHub.
You can use playbooks to program applications, services, server nodes, and other devices, without the effort of creating everything from scratch. Playbooks, and the conditions, variables, and tasks within them, can be saved, shared, or reused indefinitely. This makes it easier for you to codify operational knowledge and ensure that the same actions are performed consistently.
- How do Ansible Playbooks work
Ansible Playbooks are lists of tasks that run automatically for your specified inventory or groups of hosts. One or more Ansible tasks can be combined to make a play, that is, an ordered grouping of tasks mapped to specific hosts. - Define which hosts to manage in an inventory file
Inventories organize managed nodes in centralized files that provide Ansible with system information and network locations. Using an inventory file, Ansible can manage a large number of hosts with a single command. - Create a simple playbook to connect to managed hosts
Learn how to create a playbook that pings your hosts and prints a “Hello world” message. - Gather and display network device info with a playbook
Learn how to create and run a simple Ansible Playbook that connects to a network device, gathers facts, and displays them. - Example: automate software updates
Ansible can communicate with many different device classifications, from cloud-based REST APIs, to Linux and Windows systems, networking hardware, and much more. The following is a sample of two Ansible modules automatically updating two types of servers.