Ansible 101 - Episode 1 - Introduction to Ansible

Jeff Geerling (geerlingguy) introduces Ansible in the first episode of a new live-streaming series "Ansible 101 with Jeff Geerling."
Jeff walks through installing Ansible, running tasks on a remote AWS EC2 instance using Ansible ad-hoc tasks, integrating Ansible with Vagrant to build local Virtual Machines (VMs), and then teaches you how to write your first Ansible playbook!
This video follows material from chapters 1 and 2 in the bestselling Ansible book, Ansible for DevOps.
Buy Ansible for DevOps: www.ansiblefordevops.com
Sponsor Jeff on GitHub: github.com/sponsors/geerlingguy
Support Jeff on Patreon: / geerlingguy
Contents:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:47 - Preface and Info about Ansible for DevOps
00:07:51 - Ansible Background
00:17:43 - Installing Ansible
00:20:55 - Connecting to a Server with Ansible
00:26:50 - Using an ansible.cfg file
00:28:57 - Running ad-hoc commands
00:33:36 - Vagrant Intro
00:45:24 - First Ansible Playbook
00:51:47 - Idempotence
00:56:56 - Importance of naming tasks
01:01:18 - Chat questions answered
01:02:56 - Outtro

[@komalthecoolk]

He deserves all the sponsors that he can get, just considering the amazing content he's putting out in this KZbin series for free!!

[@mihaiblebea1940]

First 60+ mins video I watch on youtube. Really good content. Great job!

[@kikomon8652]

Wow! Thank you for doing this! It is straight forward. Clear. Precise. Outstanding work. Kudos!

[@geoptus]

Thanks for putting together such a great tutorial, very enjoyable to follow and understandable with your clear, structured explanations. It's the first time I've used ansible and vagrant, and it all worked 😃 Look forward to getting on with the rest of the series - awesome stuff dude!!

[@AngelaAndrews]

What a great episode. Thanks for going over your book in this way. I've never sat still for an hour KZbin video before. Thanks for keeping it engaging and thanks for always praying.

[@JeffGeerling]

Thanks so much, glad you liked it!

[@T313COmun1s7]

Been interested in Ansible for a while. I just did a basic introduction course and realized how much the paradigm aligns so well with what I would do if I built it. So I decided to watch this. I enjoy your other videos. You showed a Pi 4, and I could help but think, wow, back when you could just buy them.

[@rajun6713]

This is so good, you took time to make videos of the chapters you wrote in your book. Your so awesome. Started with ep1, it going good till now. Love the content.

[@Lehi0001]

Good on you sir. This is a life saver, as I just took an offer that I'm expected to learn Ansible in depth, and I'll be buying the book too just to support. Thank you!

[@JeffGeerling]

Good luck!

[@christiaansteenkamp5617]

Just bought your book. Thanks for being such a awesome guy I stumbled onto one of your old raspberry pi videos and now Im down the rabbit hole.

[@AlyWhits]

Missed the live stream, but just finished watching the recording. Thank you for this series. Looking forward to Ep 2! :)

[@nemakalsudhirchakravarthi4311]

The most awaited Video from Jeff Geerling... Thanks a lot.

[@daviddemoss7731]

Awesome videos. Been trying to come up to speed on ansible using your resources. So far ansible seems to have a high learning curve, but your resources are incredible! thanks for making this all available!

[@felix30471]

Thanks a ton for producing these videos and making them available for free! This has helped me understand more about Ansible and using it than I could in like three hours of reading docs (ok, maybe I'm just bad at that...), and on top of that you even did a bit of Vagrant!

[@jonghunpark1403]

This is awesome!! Thank you so much for putting this series out.

[@Billklinefelter]

I’ve used several of your Ansible galaxy roles so when I saw this I knew it would be good. Thank you for doing this!!

[@jerikho04]

Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to record your book and publish it for free. All the best, sir

[@babarbasharat196]

Thanks Jeff. These Videos supplement your book quite well. You are doing such an amazing job !

[@bretthansen633]

Thank you so much for this! So helpful!!! You mentioned the coronavirus and it reminded me how much things have changed! In late February 2020 both my parents got it so bad that I woke up in a cold sweat realizing I may have to plan 2 funerals... Thank God they both got through it!! My mom I still dealing with long haul covid but things have gotten much better. Anyway I love your videos they are soooo helpful! I've been working on/staying in a crazy upgraded 1974 GMC Motorhome for 3 or so years now. Thanks to you and a few others I've got my old motorhome almost fully automated!!! Thanks!!! Now I'm leaning this to do a 10 odroid n2+ cluster to replace my T420 dell server lol

[@cgarafulic]

Thank you Jeff, amazing video in the technical area, and thank you for your positive mind set so together as humans as a whole will overcome and defeat the current pandemic as you mentioned.

[@ssmytheYT]

Great intro to Ansible and I wish you the best of success with the book! :-D I am grateful for all your contributions to the open source world and look forward to your future works!

[@JeffGeerling]

@Oliver Davies asked during the stream "Any reason for using yum module over 'package' module?" - In this case, not really; package is convenient for multi-platform playbooks. Sometimes it is good to specify yum/dnf/apt/pacman/etc. instead of the generic 'package' module if you need to specify distro-specific options, or if playbook is intended to only work on one platform/distro.

[@dominick253]

Just made two playbooks. One to update all of my servers and the second for CI for my website to automatically update on my server! It's amazing it updates in a second!!! Automatically with a webhook! Like magic! Used to be at least a 5 minute operation to update the website and now it's automagically done ✅

[@JeffGeerling]

Automate all the things!

[@ExtremeSquared]

39:50 "Centos versions are supported practically forever." Whoops.

[@DaPanda19]

Lmao

[@mastershake156]

why whoops? what happened?

[@ExtremeSquared]

​@@mastershake156 In a nutshell, RedHat retroactively revoked long term support for Centos, Centos was superseded by 'Centos Stream', and traditional Centos was functionally replaced by other projects -- Rocky, I think. I'm not a Centos expert, though. Team Debian Stable.

[@minhajabidin]

What a gem of a person!. Loved the tutorial aswell.

[@aki_tomato_]

i just got a new job. From doing desktop support to automating linux servers with ansible... This series really helped me a lot. And I bought your book too! Thank you for saving me!!

[@conallogribin]

looking forward to watching this series. Thanks for the effort , Jeff.

[@wquayle9229]

A year later, and the virus is still a thing. I've been a systems guy for 35 years. It's about time I added Ansible to my toolbox. Thanks very much for this fine book and video series.

[@trevorbrant9535]

I'm just getting started with the Software Defined Networking side of things - currently studying for the CCNA. This is super helpful. Thanks so much, Jeff!!

[@ThomasRStevenson]

Just bought your book on Amazon. Can't wait to get it. Thanks!

[@berkanyldrm2107]

Awesome staff. Thanks from Turkey 🇹🇷

[@lordofenron]

Hi Jeff.. I found out about Ansible about two years ago but didn't have the energy to learn anything, so now I'm back after two years and ready to learn. I started with videos on pluralsight, and they were pretty bad, but yours is pretty amazing :D I already learned a lot more than the last two hrs spent om pluralsight. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that you seem like the best guy ever :) All your comments about helping others, giving the book away for free and "I'm gonna pray for you whether you like it or not". I mean, it's pretty heartwarming :) Thanks.

[@lucasherculano5161]

Amazing stuff. Learning a lot with you! Cheers from Brazil.

[@brentonasmith]

Well done Jeff, like the format of watching “over your shoulder” so to speak, quick way to learn by watching others.

[@danielstoddart]

I agree, the 'over the shoulder' style of producing tech videos, especially developer videos, is the way to go. I find myself learning more, and learning it more quickly, this way.

[@MeTube3]

Still three years later I can't thank Jeff enough.

[@kshitizsingh8149]

Great introduction stream. Will definitely watch the full series. subscribed .

[@hexploit2736]

What a hero, thank you so much Jeff for doing this!

[@Gilgwathir]

Thank you for the great tutorial :-) I only watched this first one, and I can already tell this will be a good series.

[@sahdevchauhan]

Thank you for this series. It's great to learn from you.

[@enriqueperez3208]

bought your book last year and was pretty worthed :). Good to see who was behind it

[@almazkharrasov]

I was shocked when I saw your name in the Recommended Reading section of the Unix and Linux system administration handbook. You're awesome!

[@ajayshahi2003]

Thanks for the series. Awesome way to contribute to community.

[@janpoulsen498]

What a nice and coherent presentation. It's a joy watching.

[@JeffGeerling]

It's a joy having you watch!

[@AliHussein-go9qx]

Thank you for the perfect explanation for every think.

[@minecraftchest1]

Mentioned Enders Game and I was hooked.

[@homiwong]

A instant buy for your book! Great job!!!

[@pythonautomation8016]

Thank you for making your book's content into wonderful videos! I am going to enjoy the whole series!

[@Ollital]

Thanks your videos. I know have playbooks for setting up a new pi, dist-upgrade all my pis and upgrade my servers. This makes these tasks a lot easier.

[@atulsharma-zy6nq]

Thanks Jeff suddenly things started looking easy

[@MohammadMahro]

Thanks for the initiative, very helpful

[@cloudkemitafropt5879]

Hey Jeff I love what you do. You are great for Professionals.

[@andreas-fefe]

Thanks Jeff. I received my fresh copy of the book

[@Xatinni]

Thanks Jeff.. great intro into Ansible, looking forward to watching the rest of the series..

[@JeffGeerling]

Good luck, and thanks for watching!

[@lazyprogrammer.7435]

Thanks a lot for the amazing content you put on KZbin for free.

[@dominikp6073]

you are amazing! Thank you so much for the book, thats exactly what i needed!

[@deepakdeepsdeepak]

excellent tutorial , thank you Jeff !

[@jeremys6003]

repping this series at AnsibleFest 2021 for you Jeff! People have already seen it or will be watching soon!

[@hotrodhunk7389]

Love your videos! I also love technology something that's one or two clicks for one person can be an hour of troubleshooting for another 😅😂

[@madj0312]

im not sure whether you gonna see this comment, but here it is, Its less than 3hours to a new year 2024 and im watching your ansible series and reading along with the book for a better 2024. thanks for the content

[@romanlipin3518]

you are amazing! thank you for your knowledge and contribution!

[@grahammccann8554]

Thank you for the video Jeff.

[@getHornbied]

"Cent OS should be supported for years" /s. Excellent video!

[@wekiwa7055]

Much enjoy reviewing your "live stream" vids Jeff.

[@LucGeurts61]

Great content. Thx for putting this up!

[@jimlosinsky5548]

Fantastic Ansible Tutorial 🙏😀❤️🎄🎄🎄

[@the-common-man5795]

Great job!! Much appreciated.

[@najoejoe3907]

Thanks for the book!

[@pradeepkumarpanda4611]

Great fan from india jeff. I started following you by downloading your ansible roles from Galaxy..

[@pedrohakia1]

Hey Jeff, I'm Catholic too, and I loved it " I'm going to pray for you, either you like it or not"hahahahahaha made my day!

[@azizayyildiz3771]

Thank you for this series

[@kristhiantiu4317]

thank you jeff! good resource!

[@dilan7112]

Really good video. Thanks man!

[@Forkentiney]

Heyyy Jeff the "Ansible" exists in Ender's Game (1985), yes, but the idea really comes from Le Guin's novel called "Rocannon's World" from 1966, and expanded upon in 1977 with "The Dispossessed". Le Guin revolutionized science fiction and loads of stuff from her is often misattributed to other artists (see James Cameron's "Avatar" and Le Guin's "The World For World is Forest")

[@VoislavVasiljevski]

Great content Jeff!

[@francoisyengue6195]

Just got the channel you rock Jeff thank you, subbed!!!

[@emmanuelchukwu1691]

Just bought the book.....It's my own way of supporting you mate....

[@rahulmendonca8755]

Awesome lesson

[@geraldcurren]

Wow! Very impressive!

[@maxluong2]

Thanks Jeff!

[@JosephHiatt-gh4tf]

Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel Rocannon's World. The word was a contraction of "answerable", as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances.

[@anthonyrussano]

Thank you Jeff!

[@MaxCreatesCode]

Great series!

[@rubodsingh7555]

very good lesson...even better than cloud guru ..i guess !! Can't wait for next ones !!

[@EsronDtamar]

Thankyou for this content.

[@nikhuge6580]

Great content......thank u Jeff

[@ESquared42]

Omg Ender's Game is an absolute classic!! That's actually the first "big" book i finished when I was in like 6th grade. Ender's Shadow is a wonderful book too, its the whole story from Bean'a perspective.

[@sysadminsean]

This got suggested on the r/ansible subreddit. Looking forward to watching it

[@JeffGeerling]

Good luck on your automation journey!

[@DiaaKasem0]

Jeff You are amazing

[@KaliszAd]

@JeffGeerling For those on Windows, you can use Chocolatey.org package manager (the installation is copy&paste of one PowerShell line) with 'choco install virtualbox vagrant -y' and have the environment available in no time. In a directory of your choosing, you can then run 'vagrant init geerlingguy/ubuntu1804', 'vagrant up' and 'vagrant ssh' and have an environment for just playing with Ansible. You can always use Ansible on the local machine, just use 'localhost' as the host. On Windows, it is a bit harder to then spin up other machines, that you can talk to. You might want to have a look at private networking in your Vagrantfiles or just use the Windows Subsystem for Linux for Ansible and vagrant to spin up your test machines. You might also use so called nested virtualization, but that can make stuff more complex stil. If you are interested in that, here is a great video by David Bombal: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gH63Y6Sfoq5_b7M

[@DarrensTechTutorials]

Thanks Jeff.

[@jptechnical]

I don't usually comment on these things, but I find it funny that future watchers might not know what COVID was, but you say that CentOS will last forever. It just hit me as ironic since CentOS (as we know it) was announced it is going away but I'm quarantining because of COVID!

[@soewin2011]

thank for your sharing ansible 1010

[@chickenonaraft4941]

You are a Saint, and I am buying your book

[@laurensdehaan2202]

Super video! I applauded for $5.00 👏👏

[@chkltcow]

Checking in on March 6, 2022 to say that "The craziest timeline of your life" has managed to get crazier. Fun further note for anyone watching a decade into the future.

[@ahmedelshafaie]

Actually appreciate your effort

[@omegabk]

Be blessed!

[@anushkuladeepa]

You're so humble :)

[@rajitpaul678]

Big Ups!! Thank you! Cheers :D

[@seddikalaouiismaili]

good job jeff

[@charlesstepp129]

Speaking of germs, a few books to set your knowledge on a good basis. "I Contain Multitudes" - Ed Yong "A Planet of Viruses" - Carl Zimmer "The Immune System: A Very Short Introduction" - Paul Klenerman