This document discusses Ansible and dynamic inventory. It explains that dynamic inventory retrieves host information from scripts instead of static inventory files, reducing human error. Ansible has inventory scripts for AWS EC2, OpenStack, Google Cloud. It also covers Ansible concepts like roles, tasks, variables, modules, templates and Ansible Vault for encrypting sensitive data. Overall it provides an overview of Ansible and demonstrates how to spawn AWS EC2 instances using dynamic inventory scripts.

1. Dynamic Inventory
Playbook
Roles
Tasks
Vars
Modules
Templates
 Ansible Vault
 Flexibility with ansible
 Demo of Spawning AWS EC2 instances

2.  Where we add and remove the host information very frequently then
keeping inventory always up-to-date become a little bit problematic
 In such case dynamic inventory comes into picture.
 Generally dynamic inventory written in scripts(python/shell)
 Dynamic inventory got benefits over static inventories.
 Reduce human error, as information is collected by scripts.
 Very less manual efforts for managing the inventories
 Ansible have inventory collection scripts for the below platforms
 AWS EC2 External Inventory Scripts, OpenStack, Google
 Example:
 ansible -i dynamic-inventory-ec.py -u ubuntu tag_Name_webserver1 –
m ping

3. Roles are ways of automatically loading certain
vars_files, tasks, and handlers based on a known file
structure.
Grouping content by roles also allows easy sharing of
roles with other users.
Using ansible-galaxy init will generate us a
standardised directory structure for our Role.

6. Variable enables more flexibility in playbooks and
roles
Variable can be used to loop through a set of given
values, access various information like the hostname
of a system and replace certain strings in templates
by system specific values
Ex:

7. Vault is a feature of ansible that allows keeping
sensitive data such as passwords or keys in encrypted
files, rather than as plaintext in your playbooks or
roles
These vault files can then be distributed or placed in
source control
To create a new encrypted data file, run the following
command
Example :
ansible-vault create foo.yml

8.  To edit an encrypted file in place, use the below command
 ansible-vault edit
 Should you wish to change your password on a vault-encrypted file or files,
you can do so with the rekey command
 ansible-vault rekey foo.yml foo1.yml
 If you have existing files that you wish to encrypt, use the below command
 ansible-vault encrypt command
 To run a playbook that contains vault-encrypted data files, you must pass
vault password
 ansible-playbook playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass

9. ansible-playbook playbook.yml --syntax-check
 Check for bad syntax
 Running a playbook in dry-run mode
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --check
 List all tasks in the playbook
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --list-tasks
 List the tags in the playbook
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --list-tags
 Skip the tags associated with specific tasks
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --skip-tags tag1,tag2
 Start the play from particular task
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --start-at-task=taskname

11.  Lets play with the playbooks

12. REQUIREMENTS :
Boto is a Python library that provides you with an
easy way to interact with and automate using various
Amazon Web Services
How to install Boto: Installing boto is very
straightforward, assuming your using an OS
with pip installed. If you do not currently have pip,
then do that first pip install boto
Python 2.5
Spawning AWS EC2 instances.