Lesson 2.2: Managing ansible configuration files

Creating Ansible Configuration file

# Create a file with predefined name ansible.cfg
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ pwd
/home/devops/playbooks
 
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ vi ansible.cfg
 
# The file path can be relative or absolute path
# The configuration file does not need lie in the same dir as inventory file, it could be anywhere. But the standard practice is shown below.
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ cat ansible.cfg
[defaults]
inventory=/home/devops/playbooks/inventory

Querying Inventory

[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible devservers --list-hosts
  hosts (2):
    192.168.208.102
    192.168.208.103
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible testservers --list-hosts
  hosts (1):
    192.168.208.104
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible testweb --list-hosts
  hosts (3):
    192.168.208.104
    192.168.208.102
    192.168.208.103
 
# Listing individual hosts
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible 192.168.208.102,192.168.208.103 --list-hosts
  hosts (2):
    192.168.208.102
    192.168.208.103
 
# Listing all 
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible all --list-hosts
  hosts (3):
    192.168.208.104
    192.168.208.102
    192.168.208.103
 
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible *.example.com --list-hosts
  hosts (1):
    sanjeeb.example.com
 
# Take action in those who has common host in different groups 
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible 'testservers:&devservers' --list-hosts
  hosts (1):
    sanjeeb.example.com
 
# Present in testservers but not in devservers 
[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible 'testservers:!devservers' --list-hosts
  hosts (1):
    192.168.208.104

Ansible Configuration Files Priority

Highest to Lowest Priority

1. $ANSIBLE_CONFIG
1. ./ansible.cfg
1. ~/.ansible.cfg
1. /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Checking the Ansible Configuration files

[devops@serverA playbooks]$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.14.17]
  config file = /home/devops/playbooks/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/devops/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/devops/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.9.18 (main, Sep  7 2023, 00:00:00) [GCC 11.4.1 20230605 (Red Hat 11.4.1-2)] (/usr/bin/python3)
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True