User:Tom/RHCS EX407

Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation exam

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex407-red-hat-certified-specialist-in-ansible-automation-exam

Exam based on RedHat 7.3. and Ansible 2.3.

Objectives

• Using Ansible inventories to define groups of hosts
• Creating Ansible playbooks
• Using Ansible playbooks to configure systems to a specified state
• Creating and using Ansible templates to create customized configuration files for hosts
• Creating Ansible roles
• Using Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data
• Installing Ansible Tower and using it to manage systems

Study points for the exam

To help you prepare, the exam objectives highlight the task areas you can expect to see covered in the exam. Red Hat reserves the right to add, modify, and remove exam objectives. Such changes will be made public in advance.

Candidates should have the following skills and abilities: Understand core components of Ansible Inventories Modules Variables Facts Plays Playbooks Configuration files

Run ad-hoc Ansible commands Use both static and dynamic inventories to define groups of hosts Utilize an existing dynamic inventory script Create Ansible plays and playbooks Know how to work with commonly used Ansible modules Use variables to retrieve the results of running a commands Use conditionals to control play execution Configure error handling Create playbooks to configure systems to a specified state Selectively run specific tasks in playbooks using tags

Create and use templates to create customized configuration files Work with Ansible variables and facts Create and work with roles Download roles from an Ansible Galaxy and use them Manage parallelism Use Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data Install Ansible Tower and use it to manage systems Use provided documentation to look up specific information about Ansible modules and commands

Training

• Course introduction

Introduce and review the course.

• Introduce Ansible

Describe the terminology and architecture of Ansible.

• Deploy Ansible

Install Ansible and run ad hoc commands.

• Implement playbooks

Write Ansible plays and execute a playbook.

• Manage variables and inclusions

Describe variable scope and precedence, manage variables and facts in a play, and manage inclusions.

• Implement task control

Manage task control, handlers, and tags in Ansible playbooks.

• Implement Jinja2 templates

Implement a Jinja2 template.

• Implement roles

Create and manage roles.

• Configure complex playbooks

Configure connection types, delegations, and parallelism.

• Implement Ansible Vault

Manage encryption with Ansible Vault.

• Troubleshoot Ansible

Troubleshoot the Ansible control machine and managed nodes.

• Implement Ansible Tower

Implement Ansible Tower.

• Implement Ansible in a DevOps environment

Implement Ansible in a DevOps environment using Vagrant.

• Comprehensive review

Review tasks from the Automation with Ansible course

Zoekuit

This study guide attempts to cover topics for study in the Red Hat EX407 Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Ansible Automation exam

Understand core components of Ansible

Inventories

Supply inventory with -i flag with commands

ansible -i inventory -m shell -a “hostname"

Can be set in ansible.cfg

inventory = /etc/ansible/hosts

Static inventory

defined in ini style [router] hostname1 ansibe_host=192.168.1.1 [webserver] hostname2 ansibe_host=192.168.1.2 [database] hostname3 ansibe_host=192.168.1.3 [appserver] hostname4 ansible_host=192.168.1.4

Dynamic inventory

returns json {

 "all": {
   "hosts": [
     "slaves_slave1"
   ]
 },
 "_meta": {
   "hostvars": {
     "slaves_slave1": {
       "ansible_host": "192.168.121.74"
     }
   }
 }

}

Modules

file, stat, lineinfile etc

file module example

Module usage file:

 path: /etc/config.cnf
 state: absent

Short hand file: path=”/etc/config.cnf” state=”absent”

Variables

Variable can be used in inventories, playbooks, roles, defaults

Facts

Hostvars

Setup module to retrieve facts

Debug module to verify facts

Plays

Individual roles

Playbooks

File with a collection of roles/plays

Configuration files

/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Run ad-hoc Ansible commands ansible [groupname] [-i inventory-file] [-m module] [-a arguments] ansible all -i inventory -m shell -a “hostname”

Use both static and dynamic inventories to define groups of hosts

Static inventory take single hosts by line or ini format

Dynamic inventories return information from outside sources like AWS to gather facts about the inventory

Example for creating dynamic inventories

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/creating-custom-dynamic-inventories-ansible

Utilize an existing dynamic inventory script

./inventory.py {} ./inventory.py --list {"all": {"hosts": ["slaves_slave2", "slaves_slave3", "slaves_slave4", "slaves_slave1", "slaves_slave5"]}, "_meta": {"hostvars": {"slaves_slave5": {"ansible_host": "192.168.121.32"}, "slaves_slave4": {"ansible_host": "192.168.121.29"}, "slaves_slave1": {"ansible_host": "192.168.121.218"}, "slaves_slave3": {"ansible_host": "192.168.121.34"}, "slaves_slave2": {"ansible_host": "192.168.121.119"}}}} ./inventory.py --host { "all": { "hosts": [ "slaves_slave1" ] }, "_meta": { "hostvars": { "slaves_slave1": { "ansible_host": "192.168.121.218" } } } }

Create Ansible plays and playbooks

Know how to work with commonly used Ansible modules

Use variables to retrieve the results of running a commands

Use conditionals to control play execution

Configure error handling

fail module - fail:

   msg: "The system may not be provisioned according to the CMDB status."
 when: cmdb_status != "to-be-staged"

Create playbooks to configure systems to a specified state

Selectively run specific tasks in playbooks using tags

Create and use templates to create customized configuration files

Work with Ansible variables and facts

Create and work with roles

Download roles from an Ansible Galaxy and use them

Manage parallelism

Use Ansible Vault in playbooks to protect sensitive data

Install Ansible Tower and use it to manage systems

Use provided documentation to look up specific information about Ansible modules and commands

List of modules

Module example

Roles

Create the role directorystructure for role nscd with command "ansible-galaxy init nscd"

[root@atlas roles]# pwd 
/root/ansible/playbooks/roles
[root@atlas roles]# ansible-galaxy init nscd
- nscd was created successfully
[root@atlas roles]# tree
.
└── nscd
    ├── defaults
    │   └── main.yml
    ├── files
    ├── handlers
    │   └── main.yml
    ├── meta
    │   └── main.yml
    ├── README.md
    ├── tasks
    │   └── main.yml
    ├── templates
    ├── tests
    │   ├── inventory
    │   └── test.yml
    └── vars
       └── main.yml

9 directories, 8 files
[root@atlas roles]#