Book Image

Implementing DevOps with Ansible 2

By : Jonathan McAllister
Book Image

Implementing DevOps with Ansible 2

By: Jonathan McAllister

Overview of this book

Thinking about adapting the DevOps culture for your organization using a very simple, yet powerful automation tool, Ansible 2? Then this book is for you! In this book, you will start with the role of Ansible in the DevOps module, which covers fundamental DevOps practices and how Ansible is leveraged by DevOps organizations to implement consistent and simplified configuration management and deployment. You will then move on to the next module, Ansible with DevOps, where you will understand Ansible fundamentals and how Ansible Playbooks can be used for simple configuration management and deployment tasks. After simpler tasks, you will move on to the third module, Ansible Syntax and Playbook Development, where you will learn advanced configuration management implementations, and use Ansible Vault to secure top-secret information in your organization. In this module, you will also learn about popular DevOps tools and the support that Ansible provides for them (MYSQL, NGINX, APACHE and so on). The last module, Scaling Ansible for the enterprise, is where you will integrate Ansible with CI and CD solutions and provision Docker containers using Ansible. By the end of the book you will have learned to use Ansible to leverage your DevOps tasks.

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Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Title Page
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Customer Feedback
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
DevOps Fundamentals
DevOps Fundamentals
DevOps 101
The History of DevOps
DevOps in the Modern Software Organization
Summary
2
Configuration Management Essentials
Configuration Management Essentials
Understanding Configuration Management
Origins of Configuration Management
The Aims of Configuration Management
Basic Principles of Configuration Management
Configuration Management Best Practices
How Ansible Simplifies DevOps Implementations
Binary Artifact Management and Ansible
Summary
3
Installing, Configuring, and Running Ansible
Installing, Configuring, and Running Ansible
Installing Ansible
The Ansible Architecture
The Ansible Command-Line Interface
Configuring Ansible
The Ansible Inventory
Summary
4
Playbooks and Inventory Files
Playbooks and Inventory Files
Ansible Playbook Constructs
Ansible Play's and Task's
Variables and Variable Files
Hosts and Inventory
Targeting Infrastructure
Ansible Modules
Summary
5
Playbooks – Beyond the Fundamentals
Playbooks – Beyond the Fundamentals
playbook's and Conditional Logic
Iterators and Loops
Includes
Ansible Roles
Ansible Register Variables
Ansible Handlers
Summary
6
Jinja in Ansible
Jinja in Ansible
Introducing Jinja
Jinja2 Programming Constructs
Applying Jinja in Ansible Playbook's
Summary
7
Ansible Vault
Ansible Vault
The Ansible Vault Architecture
Basic Vault Usage
Real-world Ansible Vault Workflow
Summary
8
Ansible Modules and Libraries
Ansible Modules and Libraries
Introducing Ansible Modules
Integrating Ansible with Other Technologies
Summary
9
Integrating Ansible with CI and CD Solutions
Integrating Ansible with CI and CD Solutions
Overview of Continuous Integration
Overview of Continuous Delivery
Ansible's Role in CI->CD
Integrating Ansible with Jenkins
Integrating Ansible with Vagrant
Summary
10
Ansible and Docker
Ansible and Docker
Understanding Docker's Architecture
Managing Docker Containers with Ansible
Using Ansible to Create Docker Images
Managing Docker Images with Ansible
Gathering Facts About Docker Containers
Summary
11
Extending Ansible
Extending Ansible
Understanding Ansible Plugins and its Architecture
Setting Up the Ansible Module Development Environment
Developing Hello World Ansible Module
Setting up the Ansible Plugin Development Environment
Understanding the Different Types of Plugins
Summary
12
Ansible Galaxy
Ansible Galaxy
Ansible Galaxy Fundamentals
Summary

Variables and Variable Files

Variables are a critical part of any scripting or development language, and Ansible is no different. Variables act as named placeholders for data elements, important information, numerical values, and more. Ansible provides a vars section and a vars_files section, which are optionally included in a playbook. Variables defined here are playbook-centric and can be used within the playbook. These sections of the playbook allow us to define variables in two unique ways. Let's look at an example to better understand how variables are defined:

---
- hosts: all
  vars:
    myvar: helloworld
  vars_files:
    - /vars/my_vars.yml

As we can see from the example, we can be rather creative when defining variables that Ansible can use in its playbook. Variables can be specified via the vars section, the vars_files section, or even via the command line through the ExtraVars parameter. Let's take a look at the key/value implementation of variables as well as a vars_file implementation...

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