Ansible Glossary
The following Ansible specific terms are largely used throughout this guide:
- Control Node (Management Node): This is a system where Ansible is installed and configured to connect and execute commands on nodes.
- Managed Node (Target Node): a server controlled by Ansible.
- Inventory File: a file that contains information about the servers Ansible controls, typically located at
/etc/ansible/hosts
.
- Playbook: a file containing a series of tasks to be executed on a remote server.
- Role: a collection of playbooks and other files that are relevant to a goal, such as installing a web server.
- Play: a full Ansible run. A play can have several playbooks and roles, including a single playbook that acts as an entry point.
- Task: an action (invoked by Ansible).
Advantages to Ansible:
- Free, open-source, and backed by Red Hat.
- Minimal system requirements
- Agentless
- YAML Syntax (easy to read and understand for beginners)
- Developed in Python
- Strong community
How does it work?
- From the Control Node, Ansible connects and pushes modules to them. The modules are removed when they are done.