Ansible Cheat Sheet

Playbooks

ansible-playbook <YAML>                   # Run on all hosts defined
ansible-playbook <YAML> -f 10             # Run 10 hosts parallel
ansible-playbook <YAML> --verbose         # Verbose on successful tasks
ansible-playbook <YAML> -C                # Test run
ansible-playbook <YAML> -C -D             # Dry run
ansible-playbook <YAML> -l <host>         # Run on single host

Run Infos

ansible-playbook <YAML> --list-hosts
ansible-playbook <YAML> --list-tasks

Syntax Check

ansible-playbook --syntax-check <YAML>

Remote Execution

ansible all -m ping

Execute arbitrary commands

ansible <hostgroup> -a <command>
ansible all -a "ifconfig -a"

Debugging

List facts and state of a host

ansible <host> -m setup                            # All facts for one host
ansible <host> -m setup -a 'filter=ansible_eth*'   # Only ansible fact for one host
ansible all -m setup -a 'filter=facter_*'          # Only facter facts but for all hosts

Save facts to per-host files in /tmp/facts

ansible all -m setup --tree /tmp/facts

<?speakerdeck,dacfbe2fca344ffda3b93a5abcd155c7,Introduction to Ansible?>

Ansible Module

Ansible modules are standalone scripts that can be used inside an Ansible playbook. You can use these modules to run whatever commands it needs to get its job done.

Ansible modules are categorized into various groups based on their functionality. There are hundreds of Ansible modules are available. You should read Ansible Module for detail information of each module.

Playbook snippets

Using templating

 {{ MYSTR | b64decode }}        # base64 decode MYSTR
 {{ MYSTR.split('\n') }}        # string splitting

Capture shell output

  tasks:
  - name: some shell
    register: sh_out
    ignore_errors: yes
    become_user: root
    shell: |
      find /

  - name: "Print stdout"
    debug:
      msg: "{{ sh_out.stdout.split('\n') }}"
  - name: "Print stderr"
    debug:
      msg: "{{ sh_out.stderr.split('\n') }}"

Handling files

tasks:
- name: file operation
  file:
     path: <file path>
     state: file
     
     # optional attributes examples
     mode: '0755'                
     owner: <owner>            
     group: <group>              
     modification_time: now                                                
     access_time: '{{ "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S" | strftime(stat_var.stat.atime) }}'

Handling directories

tasks:
- name: Change directory
  file:
    path: <dir path>
    state: directory
    
    # optional attributes
    recurse: yes              # apply owner, group, mtime, atime, mode... recursively to all childs too
    
    <further attributes like given for files above!>

Deleting files & directories

tasks:
- name: rm
  file:
    path: <some path>
    state: absent
    recurse: yes        # optional

Operate on multiple files

For example multi file fetching

tasks:
- name: register files
  find: paths="somesrcpath" recurse=no patterns="*"
  register: myfiles

- debug: myfiles="{{ myfiles.files }}"

- name: perform file fetch
  fetch: src={{ item.path }} dest="somedestpath"
  with_items: "{{ myfiles.files }}"

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