I went through the getting started material that the ansible community provides: [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting\_started/index.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting_started/index.html)
I also recommend Jeff Geerling's Ansible 101 class: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2\_OBreMn7FqZkvMYt6ATmgC0KAGGJNAN](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2_OBreMn7FqZkvMYt6ATmgC0KAGGJNAN)
I tried to follow this book last year but I couldn't get properly through it due to outdated playbooks etc. If you look at the issues section on his github you can see some posts about this that stay unanswered. It's a shame really. Nothing against Jeff, but I cannot recommend this book for this reason.
I learned by doing. Sitting down with a set of requirements, then with the Ansible documentation, learning how to accomplish these tasks.
Not ideal, perhaps, but it worked!
[docs.ansible.com](http://docs.ansible.com) - invaluable resource. The examples can be very educational.
Also, start small and build on small successes.
The RedHat Ansible training is quite expensive. Loads of content is available for free online. There are a lot of videos on YouTube or you can find content on udemy. I would recommend searching there.
This. I went from ansible is too much to learn for my 4 node Proxmox cluster to I'm using ansible for just about everything because I just tell ChatGPT4 what I want to do and I get a working playbook. I'm a retired coder, so I understand programming concepts well enough and find I can readily read the ansible playbooks and determine if they'll do what I need. Then it's a conversation with ChatGPT4 while I test and refine the playbook.
Dont spoil anyone please. ChatGPT only works then, when there is a working brain which understands how to ask questions and adapt new ones based on the answer provided by chatgpt =D cuz everyone will think it is a panacea in IT. chatgpt doesnt give full proper answer unless you give specific parameters and asking exactly proper question. saves time in 90% cases preventing me going to stackoverflow or any other resource
I got put in front of a repo full of Ansible code as part of an ops team, and I just studied it until I knew enough to start contributing as part of the dev team as well. I’m sure official training is good too, but in my opinion, Ansible is simple and easy enough to learn best by just getting started. Figured out *what* you want to do, then just take it step by step learning *how* to do it. “Do X Ansible” is probably the only google search phrase you’ll ever need.
I have som labs that start easy and explained a lot of Ansible here: [https://gitlab.com/eckholm/ansible-labs](https://gitlab.com/eckholm/ansible-labs)
I got some good feedback on these labs :) You only need a vm. If you want a reel vm you can get it thru [developers.redhat.com](http://developers.redhat.com) which also have multiple free labs for many of their products.
I started off with a udemy course (can't remember the name) but even YouTube courses are probably available for free which are just as good to teach you the basics
I self taught myself on this. I had previous Puppet and Chef experience, and thus I was ready with a lot of use cases. I attempted to do the same types of problems with Ansible. I found Ansible to be incredibly easily to come up to speed compared to others. I essentially made my own labs on this.
I read part 1 of this back in 2018
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/weekend-reading-ansible
Helped me use ansible to help build out a redis cluster back in the day.
+1 for anything tagged with Jeff Geerlings name on it
I did the official Red Hat training (Red Hat System Administration III: Linux Automation with Ansible) which I do not think exists in that form anymore since everything is AAP now. I honestly think it was not worth it, it was very very basic and spends way to much time on those basics, I think Jeff's Youtube playlist is way more valuable as it covers roughly the same topics (and more).
I was already subscribed to the Red Hat Learning Subscription through work for a while, and used the Red Hat official content there. It was very good, but I would not use it unless your company is paying for it already.
Believe it or not I use my local library and get access to some amazing training. Here in Maryland the library provides access to all the O’Reilly video courses and many of these would cost hundreds of dollars.
My company is also a Red Hat partner so we get access to their online course content. There is also a paid version which I was given once which costs 7.5k for one year and includes unlimited access to the full Redhat courses and gives five cert attempts.
The 7.5k price is retail so negotiate. If you’re lucky enough to have a lot of people sign up, you can bring that 7.5k number way down. I cannot say how low because it would be up to your company to barter the costs based on the number of people signing up.
Hi, I did DO374 Advanced Ansible etc. I took it thru something called Glasspaper in Norway but it was a RedHater who had the course and everything was with Red Hat. Labs etc. It is good training, but the trainer didn't use a mic so it was a little bit noisy when he talked. We mostly used Ansible-navigator and AAP in that training.
I have had many questions here regarding roles, collections, plays and project directory structure and that course didn't help me since they had some weird projects there, but I learned a lot.
I also did Openshift training on the red Hat Summit last year in person. That was really nice. Just a fast track course. After the summit we got access to all training and student guides.
I jumped straight into the fire. First playbook replaced /etc/hosts on 50(ish) systems with ipv4 only, and addresses like:
[`10.40.50.62`](http://10.40.50.62) `hostname.fq.dn hostname`
Plus a couple of other addresses I wanted accessible even if the local DNS was down. Like the SAN, since we were using remote profiles. I removed the existing file to a backup location, then used `lineinfile:` (this was before collections) to build the file with just the lines I wanted. I did not use loops, but instead a task for each line.
My point is to start with small jobs. Do them as simply as possible. Then, afterwards, refine the job until it's both as simple and elegant as possible, and reusable as possible. I ended up with an etc\_hosts role that was part of my deployment plays.
Edit: I just remembered, etchosts was second playbook. The first one was just a debug playbook where I got become and confirmed sudo for each host. Then I went around and manually worked on the hosts that didn't work.
I went through the getting started material that the ansible community provides: [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting\_started/index.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting_started/index.html) I also recommend Jeff Geerling's Ansible 101 class: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2\_OBreMn7FqZkvMYt6ATmgC0KAGGJNAN](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2_OBreMn7FqZkvMYt6ATmgC0KAGGJNAN)
+infinity for Jeff Geerling's 101 course. I think it's the gold standard at this point.
There is also a book for ansible for Devops and ansible for kubernetes. Both are from Jeff geerling. Can’t give him enough credit!
I tried to follow this book last year but I couldn't get properly through it due to outdated playbooks etc. If you look at the issues section on his github you can see some posts about this that stay unanswered. It's a shame really. Nothing against Jeff, but I cannot recommend this book for this reason.
Fairly sure he recently open-sourced Ansible for Devops, after RH closed RHEL code.
I learned by doing. Sitting down with a set of requirements, then with the Ansible documentation, learning how to accomplish these tasks. Not ideal, perhaps, but it worked!
This. Start by using it to solve a real life problem and refine your solutions.
And learn from all the open source projects that comes with Ansible code.
[docs.ansible.com](http://docs.ansible.com) - invaluable resource. The examples can be very educational. Also, start small and build on small successes.
The RedHat Ansible training is quite expensive. Loads of content is available for free online. There are a lot of videos on YouTube or you can find content on udemy. I would recommend searching there.
"RedHat Ansible training is quite expensive" would be an understatement. ;-)
True that is an understatement
Chatgpt help me fill the gap
This. I went from ansible is too much to learn for my 4 node Proxmox cluster to I'm using ansible for just about everything because I just tell ChatGPT4 what I want to do and I get a working playbook. I'm a retired coder, so I understand programming concepts well enough and find I can readily read the ansible playbooks and determine if they'll do what I need. Then it's a conversation with ChatGPT4 while I test and refine the playbook.
Dont spoil anyone please. ChatGPT only works then, when there is a working brain which understands how to ask questions and adapt new ones based on the answer provided by chatgpt =D cuz everyone will think it is a panacea in IT. chatgpt doesnt give full proper answer unless you give specific parameters and asking exactly proper question. saves time in 90% cases preventing me going to stackoverflow or any other resource
I got put in front of a repo full of Ansible code as part of an ops team, and I just studied it until I knew enough to start contributing as part of the dev team as well. I’m sure official training is good too, but in my opinion, Ansible is simple and easy enough to learn best by just getting started. Figured out *what* you want to do, then just take it step by step learning *how* to do it. “Do X Ansible” is probably the only google search phrase you’ll ever need.
I have som labs that start easy and explained a lot of Ansible here: [https://gitlab.com/eckholm/ansible-labs](https://gitlab.com/eckholm/ansible-labs) I got some good feedback on these labs :) You only need a vm. If you want a reel vm you can get it thru [developers.redhat.com](http://developers.redhat.com) which also have multiple free labs for many of their products.
I started off with a udemy course (can't remember the name) but even YouTube courses are probably available for free which are just as good to teach you the basics
I self taught myself on this. I had previous Puppet and Chef experience, and thus I was ready with a lot of use cases. I attempted to do the same types of problems with Ansible. I found Ansible to be incredibly easily to come up to speed compared to others. I essentially made my own labs on this.
I read part 1 of this back in 2018 https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/weekend-reading-ansible Helped me use ansible to help build out a redis cluster back in the day. +1 for anything tagged with Jeff Geerlings name on it
I did the official Red Hat training (Red Hat System Administration III: Linux Automation with Ansible) which I do not think exists in that form anymore since everything is AAP now. I honestly think it was not worth it, it was very very basic and spends way to much time on those basics, I think Jeff's Youtube playlist is way more valuable as it covers roughly the same topics (and more).
Thank you !
No one mentioned these free interactive labs, they are a good starting point. https://www.redhat.com/en/interactive-labs/ansible
I recommend Red Hat self paced.
Google and ChatGPT. I can't learn anything at all from Jeff Greeling for whatever reason. It's not terribly complicated.
I was already subscribed to the Red Hat Learning Subscription through work for a while, and used the Red Hat official content there. It was very good, but I would not use it unless your company is paying for it already.
Believe it or not I use my local library and get access to some amazing training. Here in Maryland the library provides access to all the O’Reilly video courses and many of these would cost hundreds of dollars. My company is also a Red Hat partner so we get access to their online course content. There is also a paid version which I was given once which costs 7.5k for one year and includes unlimited access to the full Redhat courses and gives five cert attempts. The 7.5k price is retail so negotiate. If you’re lucky enough to have a lot of people sign up, you can bring that 7.5k number way down. I cannot say how low because it would be up to your company to barter the costs based on the number of people signing up.
I actually understand what Ansible is which puts me ahead of many. How would one learn it?
Hi, I did DO374 Advanced Ansible etc. I took it thru something called Glasspaper in Norway but it was a RedHater who had the course and everything was with Red Hat. Labs etc. It is good training, but the trainer didn't use a mic so it was a little bit noisy when he talked. We mostly used Ansible-navigator and AAP in that training. I have had many questions here regarding roles, collections, plays and project directory structure and that course didn't help me since they had some weird projects there, but I learned a lot. I also did Openshift training on the red Hat Summit last year in person. That was really nice. Just a fast track course. After the summit we got access to all training and student guides.
I mostly go through roles published on the Internet to learn some tricks and ideas how to compose my roles and playbooks.
I jumped straight into the fire. First playbook replaced /etc/hosts on 50(ish) systems with ipv4 only, and addresses like: [`10.40.50.62`](http://10.40.50.62) `hostname.fq.dn hostname` Plus a couple of other addresses I wanted accessible even if the local DNS was down. Like the SAN, since we were using remote profiles. I removed the existing file to a backup location, then used `lineinfile:` (this was before collections) to build the file with just the lines I wanted. I did not use loops, but instead a task for each line. My point is to start with small jobs. Do them as simply as possible. Then, afterwards, refine the job until it's both as simple and elegant as possible, and reusable as possible. I ended up with an etc\_hosts role that was part of my deployment plays. Edit: I just remembered, etchosts was second playbook. The first one was just a debug playbook where I got become and confirmed sudo for each host. Then I went around and manually worked on the hosts that didn't work.
Jeff g stuff is good but a little outdated now. For ansible automation platform This is the guy now he work at jp Morgan https://www.ansiblepilot.com/
The docs. They have great examples