ansible

Ansible

Ansible is an automation engine for configuration management, application deployment, and task orchestration.
This stack runs the official Ansible container image for executing playbooks against remote hosts.

How it works

flowchart LR
    User([User]) -->|CLI| Ansible[Ansible Container]
    Ansible -->|Playbooks| Playbooks[data/playbooks/]
    Ansible -->|Inventory| Inventory[data/inventory/]
    Ansible -->|SSH| Web1[web1<br/>192.168.1.10]
    Ansible -->|SSH| Web2[web2<br/>192.168.1.11]
    Ansible -->|SSH| DB1[(db1<br/>192.168.1.20)]

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Playbook execution flow:

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Ansible as Ansible Container
    participant Web1 as web1 (192.168.1.10)
    participant Web2 as web2 (192.168.1.11)
    participant DB1 as db1 (192.168.1.20)

    User->>Ansible: ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml
    Ansible->>Web1: SSH - Gather Facts
    Ansible->>Web2: SSH - Gather Facts
    Ansible->>DB1: SSH - Gather Facts
    Web1-->>Ansible: Facts OK
    Web2-->>Ansible: Facts OK
    DB1-->>Ansible: Facts OK
    Ansible->>Web1: Execute Task (install nginx)
    Ansible->>Web2: Execute Task (install nginx)
    Ansible->>DB1: Execute Task (install nginx)
    Web1-->>Ansible: changed / ok
    Web2-->>Ansible: changed / ok
    DB1-->>Ansible: changed / ok
    Ansible-->>User: Play Recap

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1. Place your Ansible playbooks in data/playbooks/ and inventory files in data/inventory/.
2. Start the container — it runs in the background, ready to execute commands.
3. Use docker compose exec to run ansible-playbook or other Ansible CLI commands.
4. Ansible connects to target hosts defined in your inventory via SSH or WinRM.

Stack details in this repo

• Image: ansible/ansible:latest
• Working directory inside container: /playbooks
• Persistent data:
  • ./playbooks/ — maps to /playbooks (your playbooks)
  • ./inventory/ — maps to /inventory (your inventory files)

How to run

From the repository root:

cd ansible
docker compose up -d

Useful commands:

docker compose exec ansible ansible-playbook -i /inventory/hosts playbook.yml
docker compose exec ansible ansible-inventory -i /inventory/hosts --list
docker compose exec ansible ansible all -i /inventory/hosts -m ping
docker compose logs -f
docker compose down

Example files

The repository includes example files to get started:

• ./playbooks/main.yml — playbook that installs and starts nginx
• ./inventory/inventory.ini — sample inventory with [web] and [db] groups

Notes

• Create your own playbooks and inventory files under data/ — the folder is gitignored-friendly and easy to back up.
• For Windows targets, adjust ansible_connection in the inventory to winrm.
• The container does not run playbooks on startup; it is designed for interactive CLI use via docker compose exec.