Chapter 1. Introduction

Procedure

1. Create a file named inventory.ini in the ansible_quickstart directory that you created.

2. Add a new [myhosts] group to the inventory.ini file and specify the IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of each host system.

   [myhosts]
   192.0.2.50
   192.0.2.51
   192.0.2.52

3. Verify your inventory, using:

   ansible-inventory -i inventory.ini --list

4. Ping the myhosts group in your inventory, using:

   'ansible myhosts -m ping -i inventory.ini`

   Pass the -u option with the Ansible command if the username is different on the control node and the managed node(s).

   192.0.2.50 | SUCCESS => {
       "ansible_facts": {
           "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
       },
       "changed": false,
       "ping": "pong"
   }
   192.0.2.51 | SUCCESS => {
       "ansible_facts": {
           "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
       },
       "changed": false,
       "ping": "pong"
   }
   192.0.2.52 | SUCCESS => {
       "ansible_facts": {
           "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
       },
       "changed": false,
       "ping": "pong"
   }

   You have successfully built an inventory.

Procedure

1. Create a file named playbook.yaml in your ansible_quickstart directory, with the following content:

   - name: My first play
     hosts: myhosts
     tasks:
      - name: Ping my hosts
        ansible.builtin.ping:
   
      - name: Print message
        ansible.builtin.debug:
         msg: Hello world

2. Run your playbook, using the following command:

   ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini playbook.yaml

3. Ansible returns the following output:

   PLAY [My first play] ****************************************************************************
   
   TASK [Gathering Facts] **************************************************************************
   ok: [192.0.2.50]
   ok: [192.0.2.51]
   ok: [192.0.2.52]
   
   TASK [Ping my hosts] ****************************************************************************
   ok: [192.0.2.50]
   ok: [192.0.2.51]
   ok: [192.0.2.52]
   
   TASK [Print message] ****************************************************************************
   ok: [192.0.2.50] => {
       "msg": "Hello world"
   }
   ok: [192.0.2.51] => {
       "msg": "Hello world"
   }
   ok: [192.0.2.52] => {
       "msg": "Hello world"
   }
   
   PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************
   192.0.2.50: ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
   192.0.2.51: ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
   192.0.2.52: ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

   In this output you can see:

   • The names that you give the play and each task. Always use descriptive names that make it easy to verify and troubleshoot playbooks.
   • The Gather Facts task runs implicitly. By default Ansible gathers information about your inventory that it can use in the playbook.
   • The status of each task. Each task has a status of ok which means it ran successfully.
   • The play recap that summarizes results of all tasks in the playbook per host. In this example, there are three tasks so ok=3 indicates that each task ran successfully.