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Chapter 7. Introduction to RHEL system roles

By using RHEL system roles, you can remotely manage the system configurations of multiple RHEL systems across major versions of RHEL.

Important terms and concepts

The following describes important terms and concepts in an Ansible environment:

Control node
A control node is the system from which you run Ansible commands and playbooks. Your control node can be an Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite, or a RHEL 9, 8, or 7 host. For more information, see Preparing a control node on RHEL 9.
Managed node
Managed nodes are the servers and network devices that you manage with Ansible. Managed nodes are also sometimes called hosts. Ansible does not have to be installed on managed nodes. For more information, see Preparing a managed node.
Ansible playbook
In a playbook, you define the configuration you want to achieve on your managed nodes or a set of steps for the system on the managed node to perform. Playbooks are Ansible’s configuration, deployment, and orchestration language.
Inventory
In an inventory file, you list the managed nodes and specify information such as IP address for each managed node. In the inventory, you can also organize the managed nodes by creating and nesting groups for easier scaling. An inventory file is also sometimes called a hostfile.

Available roles and modules on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 control node

Roles provided by the rhel-system-roles package:

  • ad_integration: Active Directory integration
  • aide: Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment
  • bootloader: GRUB boot loader management
  • certificate: Certificate issuance and renewal
  • cockpit: Web console installation and configuration
  • crypto_policies: System-wide cryptographic policies
  • fapolicy: File access policy daemon configuration
  • firewall: Firewalld management
  • ha_cluster: HA Cluster management
  • journald: Systemd journald management
  • kdump: Kernel Dumps management
  • kernel_settings: Kernel settings management
  • logging: Configuring logging
  • metrics: Performance monitoring and metrics
  • nbde_client: Network Bound Disk Encryption client
  • nbde_server: Network Bound Disk Encryption server
  • network: Networking configuration
  • podman: Podman container management
  • postfix: Postfix configuration
  • postgresql: PostgreSQL configuration
  • rhc: Subscribing RHEL and configuring Insights client
  • selinux: SELinux management
  • ssh: SSH client configuration
  • sshd: SSH server configuration
  • storage: Storage management
  • systemd: Managing systemd units
  • timesync: Time synchronization
  • tlog: Terminal session recording
  • vpn: Configuring IPsec VPNs

Roles provided by the ansible-collection-microsoft-sql package:

  • microsoft.sql.server: Microsoft SQL Server

Modules provided by the ansible-collection-redhat-rhel_mgmt package:

  • rhel_mgmt.ipmi_boot: Setting boot devices
  • rhel_mgmt.ipmi_power: Setting the system power state
  • rhel_mgmt.redfish_command: Managing out-of-band controllers (OOB)
  • rhel_mgmt.redfish_command: Querying information from OOB controllers
  • rhel_mgmt.redfish_command: Managing BIOS, UEFI, and OOB controllers

Additional resources

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