Simple Commands

# see all hosts
ansible --list-hosts all

# see hosts by Inventory
ansible -i dev --list-hosts all


# create ansible.cfg and define the [defaults] for Inventory
# to avoid the `-i dev`
ansible --list-hosts all
or
ansible --list-hosts "*"

# see all hosts for inventory group
ansible --list-hosts <group of the inventory>

eg.
ansible --list-hosts loadbalancer
ansible --list-hosts db01
ansible --list-hosts "app0*"
ansible --list-hosts database:control
ansible --list-hosts webserver[0]
ansible --list-hosts \!control

# ping module
ansible -m ping all

# command module, which is also the default
ansible -m command -a "hostname" all

Playbooks execution

ansible-playbook loadbalancer.yml

Roles

Create a scaffolding structure for your roles.

ansible-galaxy init control

Facts

Collect the facts for a host

ansible -m setup <yourhost>

Vault

ansible-vault create vault

Limit app to run

ansible-playbook site.yml --limit app01

List/Run/Skip tags

ansible-playbook site.yml --list-tags

Run by tag:

ansible-playbook site.yml --tags "packages"

Run and skip specific tags

ansible-playbook site.yml --skip-tags "packages"

Run by step

ansible-playbook site.yml --step


ansible-playbook site.yml --list-task # find all tasks


ansible-playbook site.yml --start-at-task "name of the task" # starts running from given task name

Syntax Checks

ansible-playbook --syntax-check site.yml


ansible-playbook --check site.yml # execution dry run