Ansible – Configuration Management

Module 1: Ansible Architecture & Setup

• Agentless architecture: SSH and WinRM
• Ansible vs Puppet vs Chef vs Terraform
• Installing Ansible on Linux control node
• Inventory: INI and YAML host file formats
• ansible.cfg: key configuration options
• First ad-hoc command: ping, shell, copy

Module 2: Playbooks & Tasks

• YAML playbook structure: plays and tasks
• Commonly used modules: package, service, file, copy, template
• Handlers: notify and triggered actions
• Tags: selective task and play execution
• Playbook variables: vars, vars_files, extra-vars
• Running playbooks: options and verbosity

Module 3: Variables & Facts

• Variable precedence: all 22 levels
• group_vars and host_vars directory conventions
• register: capturing task output as variable
• Ansible facts: system info via setup module
• Custom facts in /etc/ansible/facts.d
• Ansible Vault: encrypting secrets at rest

Module 4: Jinja2 Templating

• Jinja2 expressions: {{ variable }} syntax
• Filters: default, upper, lower, replace, join
• when: conditional task execution
• loop and with_items for iteration
• Template module: dynamic config file deployment
• Complex filters: selectattr, map, json_query

Module 5: Roles

• Role directory structure convention
• ansible-galaxy init: scaffolding a role
• Role variables: defaults vs vars
• Role dependencies in meta/main.yml
• Ansible Galaxy: sharing and consuming roles
• Molecule: role testing framework

Module 6: Collections & Advanced Modules

• Ansible Collections: namespaced content
• Installing collections from Galaxy and Automation Hub
• AWS collection: ec2_instance, s3_bucket, rds_instance
• Network collections: cisco.ios, arista.eos
• Windows modules: win_service, win_package
• Community collections for cloud and databases

Module 7: Ansible Automation Platform

• AWX: open-source web UI for Ansible
• Job templates: GUI-based playbook execution
• Workflows: chaining templates with conditions
• Credentials: secure storage for secrets
• RBAC: organisations, teams, and permissions
• Scheduling and webhook triggers

Module 8: Best Practices & CI/CD

• Idempotency: writing safe repeatable playbooks
• Directory structure for large projects
• ansible-lint: enforcing code quality
• Molecule: full role testing with Docker
• GitHub Actions integration for Ansible
• Dynamic inventory: AWS, Azure, GCP plugins

IT Infrastructure & Monitoring Specialists Our IT Infrastructure and Monitoring instructors are certified systems engineers and DevOps practitioners with extensive experience designing, deploying, and managing enterprise infrastructure at scale. They have worked across on-premise data centres, hybrid cloud environments, and containerised platforms — bringing hands-on expertise in network administration, virtualisation, observability, and incident response.