⚙️ Ansible

Automation Reference — Playbooks · Modules · Inventory · Variables · Roles

ansible Command (Ad-Hoc)

ansible all -m ping

Ping all hosts in inventory

ansible webservers -m ping -i hosts.ini

Ping group with specific inventory

ansible all -m setup

Gather all facts from hosts

ansible all -m setup -a "filter=ansible_os_family"

Gather specific fact

ansible db -m shell -a "uptime"

Run shell command on db group

ansible all -m command -a "df -h"

Run command (no shell interpretation)

ansible web01 -m copy -a "src=file dest=/tmp/file"

Copy file to remote host

ansible all -m package -a "name=vim state=present" -b

Install package with sudo (-b = become)

ansible all -m service -a "name=nginx state=restarted" -b

Restart a service on all hosts

ansible all -m user -a "name=alice state=present groups=sudo" -b

Create user and add to group

ansible all --list-hosts

List all hosts in inventory

ansible all -m debug -a "var=hostvars[inventory_hostname]"

Dump all host variables

Useful ansible-* Tools

ansible-inventory --list

Display inventory as JSON

ansible-inventory --graph

Display inventory tree

ansible-lint site.yml

Lint playbook for best practices

ansible-doc ansible.builtin.template

Show module documentation

ansible-doc -l

List all available modules

ansible-vault encrypt secrets.yml

Encrypt a file with vault password

ansible-vault decrypt secrets.yml

Decrypt vault-encrypted file

ansible-vault edit secrets.yml

Edit encrypted file in place

ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.nginx

Install role from Ansible Galaxy

ansible-galaxy collection install community.general

Install a collection

Feb 2012

Ansible Created by Michael DeHaanmilestone

Michael DeHaan, formerly of Red Hat and Puppet Labs, releases Ansible as an open-source project. Designed to be radically simpler than Puppet or Chef — no agents, no daemons, just SSH and Python. The name comes from Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction concept of an instantaneous communication device.

2012

Ansible 1.0 Releasedrelease

First stable release ships with core modules for command execution, file management, package installation, and service control. Playbooks use YAML syntax. The push-based SSH model instantly differentiates Ansible from agent-based tools. GitHub stars climb rapidly.

2013

AnsibleWorks Founded & Roles Introducedcompany

DeHaan founds AnsibleWorks, Inc. to commercialize the project. Ansible Roles are introduced — a structured way to organize playbooks and make them reusable. Ansible Galaxy, the community hub for sharing roles, launches alongside the roles feature.

2014

Ansible 1.6 — Vault & Accelerate Moderelease

Ansible Vault ships, allowing encrypted storage of secrets directly in playbooks and variable files. Accelerate mode (later superseded by pipelining) improves performance for large deployments. Cloud modules for AWS and OpenStack expand the ecosystem.

Oct 2015

Red Hat Acquires Ansible for $150Mcompany

Red Hat acquires AnsibleWorks for a reported $150 million — one of the largest open-source acquisitions at the time. The Ansible project remains open source under GPL. Red Hat integrates Ansible into its enterprise stack, accelerating adoption across data centers and government organizations.

2016

Ansible 2.0 — Blocks & New Module APIrelease

Major release introduces blocks for grouping tasks with rescue/always error handling, a new module API, and improved Windows support. Ansible Tower 2.0 (the enterprise GUI) ships simultaneously. The project surpasses Chef and Puppet in GitHub stars.

2018

Ansible 2.5 — Python 3 & Network Automationrelease

Full Python 3 support arrives. Network automation capabilities expand dramatically with modules for Cisco IOS, Juniper JunOS, Arista EOS, and F5 BIG-IP. Ansible becomes the dominant tool for network device configuration alongside server automation.

Sep 2019

Collections & Galaxy NGmilestone

Ansible Collections introduce a new distribution format for modules, plugins, and roles, allowing vendors to ship content independently of the core release cycle. Ansible Galaxy is redesigned as Galaxy NG. This fundamentally decouples community content from Ansible core.

2020

Ansible 2.9 → ansible-base Splitmilestone

The project splits into ansible-core (the engine) and community.general (the large collection of non-core modules). This reduces the core attack surface and speeds up releases. Ansible 2.9 is the last monolithic release; Ansible 2.10+ ships as a thin wrapper over ansible-base.

2021

Ansible Automation Platform 2.0company

Red Hat launches Ansible Automation Platform 2.0, replacing Ansible Tower. Introduces automation mesh for distributed execution across data centers and edge, automation hub as a private Galaxy, and execution environments (container images replacing Python virtualenvs).

2022

ansible-core 2.13 — Stable Architecturerelease

ansible-core stabilizes as the canonical engine. FQCN (Fully Qualified Collection Names) become mandatory for best practice. The split architecture proves successful — over 100 certified collections available on Automation Hub. Python 2 support dropped entirely.

2023

Ansible Lightspeed — AI Code Generationecosystem

Red Hat launches Ansible Lightspeed, an AI-powered assistant for writing playbooks, integrated into VS Code. Powered by IBM Watson Code Assistant trained on Ansible Galaxy content. Generates task YAML from natural-language descriptions.

2024

ansible-core 2.17 & AAP 2.5release

ansible-core 2.17 ships with performance improvements and expanded Windows/network module support. Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 deepens event-driven automation via Event-Driven Ansible (EDA) — rules-based triggers that respond to infrastructure events in real time without manual invocation.