{"id":51765,"date":"2020-01-15T15:19:03","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T20:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/?p=51765"},"modified":"2020-04-30T11:52:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T15:52:03","slug":"create-an-ansible-playbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/ansible\/create-an-ansible-playbook\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create an Ansible Playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now that we know more about how Ansible<\/a> works behind the scenes, let\u2019s create our first Ansible Playbook! The examples in this section were performed on a Linux Distribution, though the steps should be nearly the same on most Operating Systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step in creating your first Ansible Playbook is to create a working directory to house it, and entering the directory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$ mkdir my-playbook\n$ cd my-playbook<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
We recommend that you use some type of version control software (VCS), though this is optional. For our example, we will use Git to track revision history:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ git init\nInitialized empty Git repository in \/home\/<user>\/my-playbook\/.git\/<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Creating an Ansible Inventory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now we can start to define our inventory for this playbook. There are multiple strategies for managing an Ansible Inventory, though we\u2019ll use a single static inventory file for simplicity. If you are managing an inventory that changes frequently, you may want to consider using a Dynamic Inventory instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using your preferred text editor, create a file named \u2018inventory\u2019 in the \u2018my-playbook\u2018 directory we created earlier and add the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
# inventory.yml\nlamp:\n    www1:<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the above example of an inventory file, we are deploying to a single host that we are referring to by its IP address or domain name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creating a Task<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Create a site.yml file and put the following in it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
# site.yml\n- hosts: all\n\n  tasks:\n    - name: Install packages\n      package:\n        name: '{{ packages }}'\n        state: present<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Defining Variables<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ansible allows for configuring provided variables as well as defining your own. The following sources expand on the possible configuration options, as well as defining your own variables:<\/p>\n\n\n\n