User Guide

1. Ansible Quickstart Guide
2. Ansible concepts
   • Control node
   • Managed nodes
   • Inventory
   • Collections
   • Modules
   • Tasks
   • Playbooks
3. Getting Started
   • Selecting machines from inventory
   • Connecting to remote nodes
   • Copying and executing modules
   • Resources
   • Next steps
4. Introduction to ad-hoc commands
   • Why use ad-hoc commands?
   • Use cases for ad-hoc tasks
5. Working with playbooks
   • Templating (Jinja2)
   • Advanced playbooks features
   • Playbook Example: Continuous Delivery and Rolling Upgrades
6. Intro to playbooks
   • Playbook syntax
   • Playbook execution
   • Ansible-Pull
   • Verifying playbooks
7. Tips and tricks
   • General tips
   • Playbook tips
   • Inventory tips
   • Execution tricks
8. Understanding privilege escalation: become
   • Using become
   • Risks and limitations of become
   • Become and network automation
   • Become and Windows
9. Loops
   • Comparing loop and with_*
   • Standard loops
   • Registering variables with a loop
   • Complex loops
   • Ensuring list input for loop: using query rather than lookup
   • Adding controls to loops
   • Migrating from with_X to loop
10. Controlling where tasks run: delegation and local actions
    • Tasks that cannot be delegated
    • Delegating tasks
    • Delegating facts
    • Local playbooks
11. Conditionals
    • Basic conditionals with when
    • Commonly-used facts
12. Tests
    • Test syntax
    • Testing strings
    • Vault
    • Testing truthiness
    • Comparing versions
    • Set theory tests
    • Testing if a list contains a value
    • Testing if a list value is True
    • Testing paths
    • Testing size formats
    • Testing task results
13. Blocks
    • Grouping tasks with blocks
    • Handling errors with blocks
14. Handlers: running operations on change
    • Handler example
    • Controlling when handlers run
    • Using variables with handlers
15. Error handling in playbooks
    • Ignoring failed commands
    • Ignoring unreachable host errors
    • Resetting unreachable hosts
    • Handlers and failure
    • Defining failure
    • Defining 'changed'
    • Ensuring success for command and shell
    • Aborting a play on all hosts
    • Controlling errors in blocks
16. Setting the remote environment
    • Setting the remote environment in a task
    • Working with language-specific version managers
17. Re-using Ansible artifacts
    • Creating re-usable files and roles
    • Re-using playbooks
    • Re-using files and roles
    • Re-using tasks as handlers
18. Roles
    • Role directory structure
    • Storing and finding roles
    • Using roles
    • Running a role multiple times in one playbook
    • Using role dependencies
    • Embedding modules and plugins in roles
    • Sharing roles: Ansible Galaxy
19. Including and importing
20. Tags
    • Adding tags with the tags keyword
    • Special tags: always and never
    • Selecting or skipping tags when you run a playbook
21. How to build your inventory
    • Inventory basics: formats, hosts, and groups
    • Adding variables to inventory
    • Assigning a variable to one machine: host variables
    • Assigning a variable to many machines: group variables
    • Organizing host and group variables
    • How variables are merged
    • Using multiple inventory sources
    • Connecting to hosts: behavioral inventory parameters
    • Inventory setup examples
22. Working with dynamic inventory
    • Inventory script example: Cobbler
    • Inventory script example: OpenStack
    • Other inventory scripts
    • Using inventory directories and multiple inventory sources
    • Static groups of dynamic groups
23. Patterns: targeting hosts and groups
    • Using patterns
    • Common patterns
    • Limitations of patterns
    • Advanced pattern options
    • Patterns and ansible-playbook flags
24. Connection methods and details
    • ControlPersist and paramiko
    • Setting a remote user
    • Setting up SSH keys
    • Running against localhost
    • Managing host key checking
    • Other connection methods
25. Working with command line tools
    • ansible
    • ansible-config
    • ansible-console
    • ansible-doc
    • ansible-galaxy
    • ansible-inventory
    • ansible-playbook
    • ansible-pull
    • ansible-vault
26. Using Variables
    • Creating valid variable names
    • Simple variables
    • When to quote variables (a YAML gotcha)
    • List variables
    • Dictionary variables
    • Registering variables
    • Referencing nested variables
    • Transforming variables with Jinja2 filters
    • Where to set variables
    • Variable precedence: Where should I put a variable?
    • Using advanced variable syntax
27. Discovering variables: facts and magic variables
    • Ansible facts
    • Information about Ansible: magic variables
28. Encrypting content with Ansible Vault
    • Managing vault passwords
    • Encrypting content with Ansible Vault
    • Using encrypted variables and files
    • Configuring defaults for using encrypted content
    • When are encrypted files made visible?
    • Speeding up Ansible Vault
    • Format of files encrypted with Ansible Vault
29. Using filters to manipulate data
    • Handling undefined variables
    • Defining different values for true/false/null (ternary)
    • Managing data types
    • Formatting data: YAML and JSON
    • Combining and selecting data
    • Randomizing data
    • Managing list variables
    • Selecting from sets or lists (set theory)
    • Calculating numbers (math)
    • Managing network interactions
    • Encrypting and checksumming strings and passwords
    • Manipulating text
    • Manipulating strings
    • Managing UUIDs
    • Handling dates and times
    • Getting Kubernetes resource names
30. Lookups
    • Using lookups in variables
31. Interactive input: prompts
    • Encrypting values supplied by vars_prompt
    • Allowing special characters in vars_prompt values
32. Module defaults
    • Module defaults groups
33. Validating tasks: check mode and diff mode
    • Using check mode
    • Using diff mode
34. Executing playbooks for troubleshooting
    • start-at-task
    • Step mode
35. Debugging tasks
    • Enabling the debugger
    • Resolving errors in the debugger
    • Available debug commands
    • How the debugger interacts with the free strategy
36. Controlling playbook execution: strategies and more
    • Selecting a strategy
    • Setting the number of forks
    • Using keywords to control execution
37. Asynchronous actions and polling
    • Asynchronous ad-hoc tasks
    • Asynchronous playbook tasks
38. Advanced Syntax
    • Unsafe or raw strings
    • YAML anchors and aliases: sharing variable values
39. Data manipulation
    • Loops and list comprehensions
    • Complex Type transformations
40. Blacklisting modules
41. Sample Ansible setup
    • Sample directory layout
    • Alternative directory layout
    • Sample group and host variables
    • Sample playbooks organized by function
    • Sample task and handler files in a function-based role
    • What the sample setup enables
    • Organizing for deployment or configuration
    • Using local Ansible modules
42. Working With Modules
    • Introduction to modules
    • Module Maintenance & Support
    • Return Values
43. Working With Plugins
    • Action Plugins
    • Become Plugins
    • Cache Plugins
    • Callback Plugins
    • Cliconf Plugins
    • Connection Plugins
    • Httpapi Plugins
    • Inventory Plugins
    • Lookup Plugins
    • Netconf Plugins
    • Shell Plugins
    • Strategy Plugins
    • Vars Plugins
    • Using filters to manipulate data
    • Tests
    • Blacklisting modules
44. Playbook Keywords
    • Play
    • Role
    • Block
    • Task
45. Ansible and BSD
    • Connecting to BSD nodes
    • Bootstrapping BSD
    • Setting the Python interpreter
    • Which modules are available?
    • Using BSD as the control node
    • BSD facts
    • BSD efforts and contributions
46. Windows Guides
    • Setting up a Windows Host
    • Windows Remote Management
    • Using Ansible and Windows
    • Desired State Configuration
    • Windows performance
    • Windows Frequently Asked Questions
47. Using collections
    • Installing collections
    • Downloading collections
    • Listing collections
    • Verifying collections
    • Using collections in a Playbook
    • Simplifying module names with the collections keyword

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