Ansible Playbook Structure Best Practices

Ansible Playbook Structure

Ansible Playbook structure is defined in official documentation but the recommended way to group hosts and apply roles is something that each user would have to decide for itself.

Define and apply a company-wide consistent structure for all your Ansible Playbooks that allows for easy understanding and maximum reutilization.

Avoid using individual hostnames to select hosts. In the cloud, all hosts should be treated as cattle, not as pets.
Create groups of hosts by:
- Operating System and major release
- Application and application release
- Environment
Give safe defaults to all roles and use the group_vars to redefine values
Use a single playbook definition file for each environment

Folder	Description
group_vars\all	Contains default values for variables that will be applied to all hosts, independently from its membership to other groups.
group_vars\tag_app_wp	Contains values to variables from hosts in group tag_app_wp (AWS tag app=wp).
group_vars\tag_environment_pre	Contains values to variables from hosts in group tag_environment_pre (AWS tag environment=pre).
group_vars\tag_environment_pro	Contains values to variables from hosts in group tag_environment_pre (AWS tag environment=pro).
inventory	Since we are using Ansible Dynamic Inventory, it has the ec2.ini and ec2.py files.
roles\	Root roles directory
roles\linux\add_packages	Role to install WordPress
roles\linux\host_name	Role to set the hostname of the instance
roles\linux\hosts_file	Role to modify local hosts file for resolver
roles\linux\pam_limits	Role to set various pam limits for kernel configuration
roles\linux\wordpress	Role to install WordPress
ansible.cfg	Local ansible configuration
ditwl_pro.sh	Sets environment variables for PRO environment
ditwl_pro.yml	Playbook for PRO environment

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Javier Ruiz

IT Wonder Lab tutorials are based on the diverse experience of Javier Ruiz, who founded and bootstrapped a SaaS company in the energy sector. His company, later acquired by a NASDAQ traded company, managed over €2 billion per year of electricity for prominent energy producers across Europe and America. Javier has over 25 years of experience in building and managing IT companies, developing cloud infrastructure, leading cross-functional teams, and transitioning his own company from on-premises, consulting, and custom software development to a successful SaaS model that scaled globally.

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Ansible Playbook Structure Best Practices