Mastering Ansible - Third Edition

Table of contents

1. Title Page
2. Copyright and Credits
   1. Mastering Ansible Third Edition
3. About Packt
   1. Why subscribe?
   2. Packt.com
4. Contributors
   1. About the authors
   2. About the reviewer
   3. Packt is searching for authors like you
5. Preface
   1. Who this book is for
   2. What this book covers
   3. To get the most out of this book
      1. Download the example code files
      2. Download the color images
      3. Code in Action
      4. Conventions used
   4. Get in touch
      1. Reviews
6. Section 1: Ansible Overview and Fundamentals
7. The System Architecture and Design of Ansible
   1. Technical requirements
   2. Ansible version and configuration
   3. Inventory parsing and data sources
      1. Static inventory
      2. Inventory ordering
      3. Inventory variable data
      4. Dynamic inventories
      5. Runtime inventory additions
      6. Inventory limiting
   4. Playbook parsing
      1. Order of operations
      2. Relative path assumptions
      3. Play behavior directives
      4. Execution strategies
      5. Host selection for plays and tasks
      6. Play and task names
   5. Module transport and execution
      1. Module reference
      2. Module arguments
      3. Module blacklisting
      4. Module transport and execution
         1. Task performance
   6. Variable types and location
      1. Variable types
      2. Magic variables
   7. Accessing external data
   8. Variable precedence
      1. Precedence order
      2. Variable group priority ordering
      3. Merging hashes
   9. Summary
8. Protecting Your Secrets with Ansible
   1. Technical requirements
   2. Encrypting data at rest
      1. Vault IDs and passwords
      2. Things Vault can encrypt
      3. Creating new encrypted files
         1. Password prompt
         2. Password file
         3. Password script
      4. Encrypting existing files
      5. Editing encrypted files
      6. Password rotation on encrypted files
      7. Decrypting encrypted files
      8. Executing Ansible-playbook with encrypted files
   3. Mixing encrypted data with plain YAML
   4. Protecting secrets while operating
      1. Secrets transmitted to remote hosts
      2. Secrets logged to remote or local files
   5. Summary
9. Ansible and Windows - Not Just for Linux
   1. Technical requirements
   2. Running Ansible from Windows
      1. Checking your build
      2. Enabling WSL
      3. Installing Linux under WSL
   3. Setting up Windows hosts for Ansible control
      1. System requirements for automation with Ansible
      2. Enabling the WinRM listener
      3. Connecting Ansible to Windows
   4. Handling Windows authentication and encryption
      1. Authentication mechanisms
      2. A note on accounts
      3. Certificate validation
   5. Automating Windows tasks with Ansible
      1. Picking the right module
      2. Installing software
      3. Extending beyond modules
   6. Summary
10. Infrastructure Management for Enterprises with AWX
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Getting AWX up and running
    3. Integrating AWX with your first playbook
       1. Defining a project
       2. Defining an inventory
       3. Defining credentials
       4. Defining a template
    4. Going beyond the basics
       1. Role-based access control (RBAC)
       2. Organizations
       3. Scheduling
       4. Auditing
       5. Surveys
       6. Workflow templates
       7. Notifications
    5. Summary
11. Section 2: Writing and Troubleshooting Ansible Playbooks
12. Unlocking the Power of Jinja2 Templates
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Control structures
       1. Conditionals
          1. Inline conditionals
       2. Loops
          1. Filtering loop items
          2. Loop indexing
       3. Macros
          1. Macro variables
             1. name
             2. arguments
             3. defaults
             4. catch_kwargs
             5. catch_varargs
             6. caller
    3. Data manipulation
       1. Syntax
       2. Useful built-in filters
          1. default
          2. count
          3. random
          4. round
       3. Useful Ansible provided custom filters
          1. Filters related to task status
          2. shuffle
          3. Filters dealing with path names
             1. basename
             2. dirname
             3. expanduser
          4. Base64 encoding
          5. Searching for content
       4. Omitting undefined arguments
       5. Python object methods
          1. String methods
          2. List methods
          3. int and float methods
    4. Comparing values
       1. Comparisons
       2. Logic
       3. Tests
    5. Summary
13. Controlling Task Conditions
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Defining a failure
       1. Ignoring errors
       2. Defining an error condition
    3. Defining a change
       1. Special handling of the command family
       2. Suppressing a change
    4. Error recovery
       1. Using the rescue section
       2. Using the always section
       3. Handling unreliable environments
    5. Iterative tasks with loops
    6. Summary
14. Composing Reusable Ansible Content with Roles
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Task, handler, variable, and playbook inclusion concepts
       1. Including tasks
          1. Passing variable values to included tasks
          2. Passing complex data to included tasks
          3. Conditional task includes
          4. Tagging included tasks
       2. Task includes with loops
       3. Including handlers
       4. Including variables
          1. vars_files
          2. Dynamic vars_files inclusion
          3. include_vars
          4. extra-vars
       5. Including playbooks
    3. Roles
       1. Role structure
          1. Tasks
          2. Handlers
          3. Variables
          4. Modules and plugins
          5. Dependencies
          6. Files and templates
          7. Putting it all together
       2. Role dependencies
          1. Role dependency variables
          2. Tags
          3. Role dependency conditionals
       3. Role application
          1. Mixing roles and tasks
          2. Role includes and imports
       4. Role sharing
          1. Ansible Galaxy
    4. Summary
15. Troubleshooting Ansible
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Playbook logging and verbosity
       1. Verbosity
       2. Logging
    3. Variable introspection
       1. Variable subelements
          1. Subelements versus Python object method
    4. Debugging code execution
       1. Playbook debugging
       2. Debugging local code
          1. Debugging inventory code
          2. Debugging playbook code
          3. Debugging executor code
          4. Debugging remote code
          5. Debugging the action plugins
    5. Summary
16. Extending Ansible
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Developing modules
       1. The basic module construct
       2. Custom modules
       3. Example – Simple module
          1. Documenting a module
          2. Providing fact data
          3. The check mode
             1. Supporting check mode
             2. Handling check mode
    3. Developing plugins
       1. Connection-type plugins
       2. Shell plugins
       3. Lookup plugins
       4. Vars plugins
       5. Fact-caching plugins
       6. Filter plugins
       7. Callback plugins
       8. Action plugins
       9. Distributing plugins
    4. Developing dynamic inventory plugins
       1. Listing hosts
       2. Listing host variables
       3. Simple inventory plugin
          1. Optimizing script performance
    5. Contributing to the Ansible project
       1. Contribution submissions
          1. The Ansible repository
          2. Executing tests
             1. Unit tests
             2. Integration tests
             3. Code-style tests
          3. Making a pull request
    6. Summary
17. Section 3: Orchestration with Ansible
18. Minimizing Downtime with Rolling Deployments
    1. Technical requirements
    2. In-place upgrades
    3. Expanding and contracting
    4. Failing fast
       1. The any_errors_fatal option
       2. The max_fail_percentage option
       3. Forcing handlers
    5. Minimizing disruptions
       1. Delaying a disruption
       2. Running destructive tasks only once
    6. Serializing single tasks
    7. Summary
19. Infrastructure Provisioning
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Managing cloud infrastructures
       1. Creating servers
          1. Booting virtual servers
          2. Adding to runtime inventory
       2. Using OpenStack inventory sources
    3. Managing a public cloud infrastructure
    4. Interacting with Docker containers
       1. Building images
       2. Building containers without a Dockerfile
       3. Docker inventory
    5. Ansible Container
       1. Using ansible-container init
       2. Using ansible-container build
       3. Using ansible-container run
    6. Summary
20. Network Automation
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Ansible for network manage ment
       1. Cross-platform support
       2. Configuration portability
       3. Backup, restore, and version control
       4. Automated change requests
    3. Handling multiple device types
       1. Researching your modules
       2. Configuring your modules
       3. Writing your playbooks
    4. Configuring Cumulus Networks switches with Ansible
       1. Defining our inventory
       2. Practical examples
       3. Best practices
          1. Inventory
          2. Gathering facts
          3. Jump hosts
    5. Summary
21. Other Books You May Enjoy
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