{"id":25985,"date":"2016-04-01T00:45:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T22:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=25985"},"modified":"2016-04-01T00:45:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T22:45:35","slug":"checking-out-ansible-sorry-puppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/04\/01\/checking-out-ansible-sorry-puppet\/","title":{"rendered":"Checking out Ansible. Sorry Puppet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s Thursday evening of a particularly difficult week at work. \u00a0Tomorrow is a public holiday, effectively making this\u00a0– a Friday. \u00a0My brain is blank and exhausted, so I can’t do anything productive. \u00a0And I’m too tired to go out. \u00a0But I can still learn a thing or two.<\/p>\n

First things first – cancel the external noise. \u00a0I want something loud, but not too intensive, and with no words in it. \u00a0So this 2 hour blues instrumental collection<\/a> comes in handy. \u00a0Start the playback, put the headphones on, and push the volume up.<\/p>\n

Now. \u00a0Here’s something I wanted to look into for quite some time – Ansible<\/a> configuration manager.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’ve been using Puppet<\/a>, an alternative configuration manager, for a few years now<\/a>. \u00a0It’s a great tool and I’m a big fan of it. \u00a0It literally saved me hundreds of hours. If not thousands. \u00a0And my sanity.<\/p>\n

I’ve deployed Puppet to multiple environments, managing dozens of servers, and even a few desktops. \u00a0I’ve used community modules and built my own. \u00a0I’ve ran it on machines big and small, old and new. \u00a0And I still love it.<\/p>\n

But my requirements have gradually changed. \u00a0Or maybe I’ve just learned more about configuration management, web hosting, and cloud computing. \u00a0 Puppet still works well for me, but I keep getting this feeling that there is a better, simpler way of doing things that I need doing.<\/p>\n

I’ve read about Ansible since a while back. \u00a0Then I’ve attended the session<\/a>\u00a0about it during the International PHP Conference 2014<\/a>, back in Berlin, Germany. \u00a0It was insightful, but not more than that. \u00a0Last year, my Linux distribution vendor of choice – Red Hat acquired Ansible<\/a>. \u00a0Which obviously spiked my interest – it’s only logical to expect Fedora, CentOS and Red Hat distributions\u00a0to do more with it and to push it forward. \u00a0But I didn’t have time to look at it. \u00a0And today I do.<\/p>\n

I’ve read through the Ansible Documentation<\/a> first. \u00a0It is quite an easy read – short enough, but not to condensed, with lots of examples, covering all the important bits. \u00a0I got immediately hooked. \u00a0Here are a few things that appealed to me.<\/p>\n