Lab preparation

For this chapter, we will continue to use the same lab topology we used in Chapter 4, The Python Automation Framework – Ansible Basics. We will also follow the best practice suggested with offloading the host variables in a host_vars directory. We will also use a few options on ansible.cfg such as disabling host_key_checking and Python interpreter discovery.

For more information on the ansible.cfg options: host_key_checking: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_getting_started.html#host-key-checking; and Python interpreter discovery: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/config.html.

We will follow the Ansible version and file structure as illustrated below:

$ ansible --version
ansible 2.8.5
$ tree host_vars/
host_vars/
├── ios-r1
└── ios-r2
<skip>

$ cat ansible.cfg 
[defaults]
host_key_checking...