10 Easy To Use Modules In Ansible

Ansible is all about using modules in its playbook.

Here are my top 10 commonly used modules:-

Before reading this blog I would like to explain some terminologies used below:-

1. test-servers:- It is the group of my hosts which I have written in my inventory file.

2. — m XYZ:- XYZ is the module name

3. -u ec2-user:- to define username that is ec2-user

4. SUCCESS:- means that my module has done its task on destination nodes.

5. Changed:- If it is true something is changed on destination nodes.

If it is false something is not changed on destination nodes.

Let’s start with modules:-

1. ping module:- Used when we want to check whether the connection with our hosts defined in my inventory file is established or not.

Command :- ansible test-servers -m ping -u ec2-user

ping changes to pong which means ssh connection is established.

2. Setup module:- Used when we want to see the information of our all the hosts their configuration and detailed information.

Command :- ansible test-servers -m setup -u ec2-user

This is the snapshot of the configuration of my machine running on AWS.

3. Copy module:- Often used in writing playbooks when we want to copy a file from remote server to destination nodes.
Example:- Suppose we want to copy a file from a remote server to all destination machines.

Command :- ansible test-servers -m copy -a 'src=/home/knoldus/Personal/blogs/blog3.txt dest=/tmp' -u ec2-user

4. Yum module:- To install a service we use Yum module

Command:- ansible test-servers -m yum -a 'name=httpd state=present' -become -u ec2-user

Apache2 will be installed in our machines.

The key point to note here is that we have to use -become which is new in 2.6 version before we have to use -s.

5. Shell module:- When we want to run UNIX commands then we use shell module

Command:- ansible test-servers -m shell -a 'ls -la' -u ec2-user

This will display all the files present in our machine with their permissions.

6. Service module:- When we want to ensure the state of a service that is service is running we use the service module.

Command:- ansible test-servers -m service -a 'name=httpd state=started' -become -u ec2-user

Apache2 is up on my machine.

7.Debug module:- To print a msg on hosts we use Debug module.

Command:- ansible test-servers -m debug -a 'msg=Hello' -u ec2-user

Hello, a message is printed on my machine.

8. Template module:- It is used to copy a configuration file from the local system to the host server.

It is the same as the copy module but it dynamically binds group variables defined by us.

Here I have vars in my source machine.

9. Include module:– When we want to include another playbook in our playbook then we use the Include module.

10. User module:- To add a particular user to our module we can use User module

Here we have added a user named Sachin to our module.

Originally published at blog.knoldus.com on October 12, 2018.