Ansible

Roadmap to learn Ansible.

1. Core Foundations (Must Know)

Even with experience, revisiting the fundamentals ensures strong conceptual grounding.

1.1 Basics

• Understand Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.

• Ansible architecture: Control node, Managed node, inventory, modules.

• Ad-hoc commands:

ansible all -m ping

Using --limit and tags.

• Inventory:

Static inventory (INI, YAML)

Dynamic inventory (AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware)

Inventory variables, host groups, group vars, host vars.

• Modules:

File, user, package, service, command, shell, template, copy.

Facts & Variables:

Built-in facts

Custom facts

Variable precedence (host vars, group vars, extra-vars, etc.)

• YAML mastery:

Anchors (&) and aliases (*)

Merge strategies (<<:)

1.2 Playbooks

• Basic structure: hosts, tasks, vars, handlers.

• Handlers & notifications.

• Loops:

with_items, with_dict, loop, loop_control.

• Conditionals: when

• Registering variables

• Tags and selective execution

• Error handling: ignore_errors, failed_when, block/rescue/always

2. Intermediate Skills

These separate a basic user from an experienced automation engineer.

2.1 Roles

• Creating modular roles (tasks, handlers, templates, vars, defaults, files, meta)

• Role dependencies

• Best practices for reusable roles

2.2 Jinja2 Templating

Expressions, filters, loops

Advanced filters (map, selectattr, rejectattr, combine)

Template inheritance

Dynamic inventory templating

Complex data manipulation

2.3 Vault & Secrets Management

Encrypting variables with Ansible Vault

Multiple vault files

Using vault in CI/CD pipelines

Integration with HashiCorp Vault / AWS Secrets Manager

2.4 Error Handling & Idempotency

Ensuring idempotent playbooks

block/rescue/always usage for advanced workflows

Handling failures gracefully

3. Advanced Topics

3.1 Collections & Custom Modules

Understanding Ansible Galaxy Collections

Installing, updating, and using collections

Writing custom modules in Python

Arguments spec

Returning results (changed, failed, msg)

Custom filters using Jinja2

Plugins:

Callback, inventory, lookup, strategy, and connection plugins

3.2 Dynamic Inventory

AWS EC2, Azure, GCP dynamic inventory scripts

VMware vCenter inventory

Writing custom dynamic inventory scripts in Python or YAML

Filtering and grouping hosts dynamically

3.3 Ansible Tower / AWX

Understanding Tower/AWX architecture

Jobs, workflows, and schedules

Credentials management

Surveys for job templates

RBAC and access controls

Notifications and logging

Workflows with approval steps

3.4 Complex Playbooks

Multi-tier deployments

Orchestration with dependencies

Multi-play execution

Running tasks on subset of hosts dynamically

Event-driven automation (listen and notify)

3.5 Performance & Optimization

strategy: free vs linear

Async & poll for long-running tasks

Reducing playbook execution time

Using delegate_to efficiently

Fact caching to reduce load

4. Integrations

A true senior-level engineer must know how Ansible interacts with other systems.

4.1 CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions / GitLab CI pipelines

Jenkins pipelines for Ansible playbooks

Triggering AWX/Tower jobs via API

Using ansible-lint and yamllint in CI

4.2 Cloud & Containers

Provisioning infrastructure via Ansible

AWS (EC2, S3, VPC, Security Groups)

Azure / GCP

Docker & Kubernetes management

Deploying images, containers, and services

Managing K8s resources using k8s module

Terraform + Ansible hybrid workflows

4.3 Monitoring & Logging

Centralized logging for Ansible runs

Callback plugins for Slack/Email notifications

Integrating with Splunk / ELK for Ansible execution logs

5. Security & Compliance Automation

CIS benchmarks automation

Patching servers

Ensuring configuration compliance

Role-based access control in Tower/AWX

Secret scanning

6. Troubleshooting & Debugging

Common pitfalls:

SSH connectivity issues

Variable precedence issues

Module version incompatibilities

Debugging techniques:

-vvv verbosity

Using debug and register

Checking task results for changed and failed

Handling idempotency failures

7. Expert/Enterprise-Level Skills

These skills distinguish a 4-year Ansible engineer from mid-level engineers.

Writing reusable enterprise-level roles and collections

Advanced orchestration with multiple playbooks

API automation with Tower/AWX REST API

Custom lookup plugins

Advanced workflow orchestration

Large-scale deployment:

Thousands of hosts

Efficient inventory management

Performance optimization

8. Recommended Tools

Linting & formatting: ansible-lint, yamllint

Testing: Molecule for role testing

Version Control: Git workflows for playbooks

Virtualization: Vagrant / Docker for testing playbooks

Monitoring: Tower/AWX or logging plugins