Chapter 4

Ansible Basics

You learned a little about Ansible in Chapter 1, “Types of Network Automation,” and saw some examples of using it in Chapter 3, “Using Data from Your Network.” Ansible is the number-one tool used in enterprise networking automation. You can use it for most of the use cases covered so far, including configuration, provisioning, monitoring, compliance, interaction, testing, and reporting.

This chapter covers the following facets of Ansible:

  • Main characteristics

  • Installation

  • Concepts such as variables, loops, and conditionals

  • Inventory

  • Playbooks

  • Roles

After you have finished this chapter, you should be able to understand, build, and execute your own playbooks.

Ansible Characteristics

Ansible is agentless and uses SSH ...

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