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Added FAQ page (limited space in menu, so trimmed some topics on lesser used bits) + docs build
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<li><a href="index.html"
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@ -205,6 +206,23 @@ you with questions about Ansible.</p>
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<h1>Contents<a class="headerlink" href="#contents" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
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<div class="toctree-wrapper compound">
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<ul>
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<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html">Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#what-inspired-ansible">What inspired Ansible?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#comparisons">Comparisons</a><ul>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#vs-func">vs Func?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#vs-puppet">vs Puppet?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#vs-chef">vs Chef?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#vs-capistrano-fabric">vs Capistrano/Fabric?</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#other-questions">Other Questions</a><ul>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#how-does-ansible-scale">How does Ansible scale?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#are-transports-other-than-ssh-supported">Are transports other than SSH supported?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="faq.html#what-are-some-ideal-uses-for-ansible">What are some ideal uses for Ansible?</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="gettingstarted.html#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="gettingstarted.html#developer-requirements">Developer Requirements</a></li>
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible-modules</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible-modules" lang="en"><a id="id345526"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible-modules — stock modules shipped with ansible</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p>Ansible ships with a number of modules that can be executed directly on remote hosts or through
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible-modules</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible-modules" lang="en"><a id="id327777"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible-modules — stock modules shipped with ansible</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p>Ansible ships with a number of modules that can be executed directly on remote hosts or through
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ansible playbooks.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="IDEMPOTENCE"><a id="_idempotence"></a><h2>IDEMPOTENCE</h2><p>Most modules other than command are idempotent, meaning they will seek to avoid changes
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unless a change needs to be made. When using ansible playbooks, these modules can
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trigger change events, as described in <span class="strong"><strong>ansible-playbooks</strong></span>(5).</p><p>Unless otherwise noted, all modules support change hooks.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="command"><a id="_command"></a><h2>command</h2><p>The command module takes the command name followed by a list of arguments, space delimited.
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible-modules</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible-modules" lang="en"><a id="id514998"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible-playbook — format and function of an ansible playbook file</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p>Ansible ships with <span class="emphasis"><em>ansible-playbook</em></span>, a tool for running playbooks.
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible-modules</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible-modules" lang="en"><a id="id358599"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible-playbook — format and function of an ansible playbook file</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p>Ansible ships with <span class="emphasis"><em>ansible-playbook</em></span>, a tool for running playbooks.
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Playbooks can represent frequent tasks, desired system configurations,
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or deployment processes.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="FORMAT"><a id="_format"></a><h2>FORMAT</h2><p>Playbooks are written in YAML.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="EXAMPLE"><a id="_example"></a><h2>EXAMPLE</h2><p>See:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem">
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<a class="ulink" href="https://github.com/mpdehaan/ansible/blob/master/examples/playbook.yml" target="_top">https://github.com/mpdehaan/ansible/blob/master/examples/playbook.yml</a>
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible" lang="en"><a id="id377235"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible — run a command somewhere else</p></div><div class="refsynopsisdiv" title="Synopsis"><a id="_synopsis"></a><h2>Synopsis</h2><p>ansible <host-pattern> [-f forks] [-m module_name] [-a args]</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p><span class="strong"><strong>Ansible</strong></span> is an extra-simple tool/framework/API for doing 'remote things' over
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>ansible</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="./docbook-xsl.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div xml:lang="en" class="refentry" title="ansible" lang="en"><a id="id471170"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>ansible — run a command somewhere else</p></div><div class="refsynopsisdiv" title="Synopsis"><a id="_synopsis"></a><h2>Synopsis</h2><p>ansible <host-pattern> [-f forks] [-m module_name] [-a args]</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="DESCRIPTION"><a id="_description"></a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p><span class="strong"><strong>Ansible</strong></span> is an extra-simple tool/framework/API for doing 'remote things' over
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SSH.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="ARGUMENTS"><a id="_arguments"></a><h2>ARGUMENTS</h2><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">
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<span class="strong"><strong>host-pattern</strong></span>
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Frequently Asked Questions
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==========================
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What inspired Ansible?
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----------------------
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Back when I worked for Red Hat and working on Cobbler, several of us identified a gap between
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provisioning (Cobbler) and configuration management solutions (cfengine, Puppet, etc).
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There was a need for a way to do ad-hoc tasks efficiently, and various parallel
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SSH scripts were not API based enough for us. So we (Adrian Likins, Seth Vidal, and I)
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created Func -- a secure distributed command framework.
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I always wanted to have a configuration management system built on Func, but never
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built it due to needing to spend time on Cobbler and other projects.
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In the meantime, a John Eckersberg developed Taboot,
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a deployment framework of sorts that sat on top of Func, using a YAML syntax very
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much like what Ansible now has.
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After trying to get Func running again recently at a new company, I got tired
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of some SSL and DNS issues and decided to create something a bit simpler, taking
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all of the good ideas from Func, and merging them with experience I learned from
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working at Puppet Labs. I wanted something that was easy to pick up and was installable
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without any bootstrapping, and didn't suffer from the "I don't want to learn X" mentality
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that often impacted adoption of tools like Puppet and Chef among certain ops teams.
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I also spent some time working with a couple of sites that needed to do large webapp deployments,
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and noticed how complex various configuration management and deployment tools were to these
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companies, compared with what they actually needed. Release processes were too complex
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and needed something simple to straighten them out -- but I really didn't want to train
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all the dev(ops) on Puppet or Chef, and they really didn't want to learn them either.
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I kept thinking, is there a reason for these programs to be so large and complicated?
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Well, systems management is a little complicated, but no. Not really.
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Can I build something that a sysadmin can
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figure out in 15 minutes and get going, and then extend in any language he knows?
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That's how Ansible was born. It sheds 'best practices' for 'you know your infrastructure
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best', and distills all of the ideas behind all of these other tools to the core.
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Not only is Ansible very simple and easy to learn/extend, it's configuration management, deployment, and ad-hoc tasks all in one app. And I think that makes it pretty powerful. It hasn't really been done before.
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I'd like to know what you think of it. Hop by the mailing list and say hi.
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Comparisons
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-----------
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vs Func?
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++++++++
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Ansible uses SSH by default instead of SSL and custom daemons, and requires
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no extra software to run on managed machines. You can also write modules
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in any language as long as they return JSON. Ansible's API, of course, is
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heavily inspired by Func. Some features, like delegation hierarchies, are
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not supported, but Ansible does have an async mode. Ansible also adds
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a configuration management and multinode orchestration layer that Func didn't have.
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vs Puppet?
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++++++++++
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First off, Ansible wouldn't have happened without Puppet. Puppet took configuration
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management ideas from cfengine and made them sane. However, I still think they can
|
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be simpler.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible playbooks ARE a complete configuration management system. Unlike Puppet, playbooks
|
||||
are implicitly ordered (more like Chef), but still retain the ability to signal
|
||||
notification events (like Puppet). This is kind of a 'best of both worlds' thing.
|
||||
|
||||
There is no central server to promote scaling, and Ansible is
|
||||
also designed with multi-node deployment in mind from day-one -- something that is difficult
|
||||
for Puppet because of the pull architecture. Ansible is push based,
|
||||
so you can do things in an ordered fashion, addressing batches of servers
|
||||
at one time, and you do not have to contend with the DAG. It's also extensible in any language
|
||||
and the source is designed so that you don't have to be an expert programmer to submit a patch.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible's resources are heavily inspired by Puppet, with the "state" keyword being a more or less
|
||||
direct port of "ensure" from Puppet. Unlike Puppet, Ansible can be extended in any language,
|
||||
even bash ... just return some output in JSON format. You don't need to know Ruby.
|
||||
|
||||
Unlike Puppet, hosts are taken out of playbooks when they have a failure. It encourages
|
||||
'fail first', so you can correct the error, instead of configuring as much of the system
|
||||
as it can. A system shouldn't be half correct, especially if we're planning on configuring
|
||||
other systems that depend on that system.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible also has a VERY short learning curve -- but it also has less language constructs and
|
||||
does not create it's own programming language. What constructs Ansible does have should be enough to cover 80% or so of the cases of most Puppet users, and it should scale equally well (not having a server is
|
||||
almost like cheating).
|
||||
|
||||
I also suspect some Ansible users will actually use Ansible to trigger Puppet -- using the git
|
||||
module to checkout a Puppet module hierachy from source, and the command module to run
|
||||
'puppet apply'. That's ok too, but you may find playbooks do all you need.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible does support gathering variables from 'facter', if installed, and Ansible templates
|
||||
in jinja2 in a way just like Puppet does with erb.
|
||||
|
||||
vs Chef?
|
||||
++++++++
|
||||
|
||||
Much in the ways Ansible is different from Puppet. Chef is notoriously hard
|
||||
to set up on the server, and requires that you know how to program in Ruby to
|
||||
use the language. As such, it seems to have a pretty good following mainly
|
||||
among Rails coders.
|
||||
|
||||
Like Chef (and unlike Puppet), Ansible executes configuration tasks in the order
|
||||
given, rather than having to manually specify a dependency graph. Ansible extends
|
||||
this though, by allowing triggered notifiers, so Apache can, be restarted if needed,
|
||||
only once, at the end of a configuration run.
|
||||
|
||||
Unlike Chef, Ansible's playbooks are not a programming language. This means
|
||||
that you can parse Ansible's playbooks and treat the instructions as data. It also
|
||||
means working on your infrastructure is not a development task and testing is easier.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible can be used regardless of your programming language experience. Both
|
||||
Chef and Puppet are around 60k+ lines of code, while Ansible is a much simpler
|
||||
program. I believe this strongly leads to more reliable software and a richer
|
||||
open source community -- the code is kept simple so it is easy for anyone to
|
||||
submit a patch or module.
|
||||
|
||||
Just like with puppet, some users may wish to use Ansible to trigger chef-solo to
|
||||
avoid using the server, after checking out some chef content using Ansible's git
|
||||
support.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible does support gathering variables from 'ohai', if installed.
|
||||
|
||||
vs Capistrano/Fabric?
|
||||
+++++++++++++++++++++
|
||||
|
||||
These tools aren't really well suited to doing idempotent configuration and are
|
||||
typically about pushing software out for web deployment and automating steps.
|
||||
|
||||
Meanwhile Ansible is designed for other types of configuration management, and contains some
|
||||
advanced scaling features.
|
||||
|
||||
The ansible playbook syntax is documented within a page of text and also has a MUCH lower learning curve. And because Ansible is designed for more than pushing webapps, it's more generally
|
||||
useful for sysadmins (not just web developers), and can also be used for firing off ad-hoc tasks.
|
||||
|
||||
Other Questions
|
||||
---------------
|
||||
|
||||
How does Ansible scale?
|
||||
+++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||||
|
||||
Whether in single-execution mode or using ansible playbooks, ansible can
|
||||
run multiple commands in seperate forks, thanks to the magic behind
|
||||
Python's multiprocessing module.
|
||||
|
||||
If you need to address 500 machines you can decide if you want to try
|
||||
to contact 5 at a time, or 50 at a time.
|
||||
It's up to you and how much power you can throw at it, but it's heritage
|
||||
is about handling those kinds of use cases.
|
||||
|
||||
There are no daemons so it's entirely up to you. When you are aren't using
|
||||
Ansible, it is not consuming any resources.
|
||||
|
||||
If you have 10,000 systems, running a single ansible playbook against all of
|
||||
them probably isn't always appropriate, but most users shouldn't have any problems.
|
||||
If you want to kick off an async task/module, it's probably fine.
|
||||
|
||||
If you'd like to discuss scaling, please hop on the mailing list.
|
||||
|
||||
Are transports other than SSH supported?
|
||||
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||||
|
||||
Currently SSH is the only one, though the intent is to make this entirely
|
||||
pluggable very soon so if you wanted to build a message bus or XMPP (or even
|
||||
sneaker net?) adapter ansible will let you do that. Stay tuned!
|
||||
|
||||
What are some ideal uses for Ansible?
|
||||
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||||
|
||||
One of the best use cases? Complex multi-node cloud deployments using playbooks. Another good
|
||||
example is for configuration management where you
|
||||
are starting from a clean OS with no extra software installed, adopting systems
|
||||
that are already deployed.
|
||||
|
||||
Ansible is also great for running ad-hoc tasks across a wide variety of Linux, Unix, and *BSDs.
|
||||
Because it just uses the basic tools available on the system, it is exceptionally cross platform
|
||||
without needing to install management packages on each node.
|
||||
|
||||
It also excels for writing distributed
|
||||
scripts and ad-hoc applications that need to gather data or perform arbitrary
|
||||
tasks -- whether for a QA sytem, build system, or anything you can think of.
|
||||
|
|
@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ Contents
|
|||
.. toctree::
|
||||
:maxdepth: 3
|
||||
|
||||
faq
|
||||
gettingstarted
|
||||
patterns
|
||||
examples
|
||||
|
|
Loading…
Reference in a new issue