Knowledge Bank · DevOps & SRE

What Is Ansible?

By Karthick Selvam · Published · Updated

Ansible is an open-source automation tool for configuration management, application deployment and orchestration.

Agentless

It connects to machines over SSH (or WinRM for Windows) without installing agents.

Playbooks

Tasks are written in YAML playbooks using modules, and organised into roles.

Idempotency

Well-written tasks can run repeatedly and only change what is needed.

Ansible vs Terraform

Terraform typically provisions infrastructure; Ansible configures it. They are often used together.

Frequently asked questions

Who maintains Ansible?

It is an open-source project sponsored by Red Hat.

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