Ansible Playbook Constructs
The Ansible playbook is at the heart of the Ansible Configuration Management and Automation System. Each playbook is made up of one or more plays. The concept of a playbook was derived from sporting references, where a coach would create a set of plays off the field and execute them during a game. The creators of Ansible leveraged this idea to create and successfully deliver an easy-to-use automation and Configuration Management solution. Playbook's are developed using YAML (more about this in the next section), and optionally Jinja2 for more comprehensive automation implementations.
Ansible playbook comprise a few specific structural and formatting elements, namely the following:
- YAML syntax (the language Ansible leverages for automation)
- Jinja2 (optional)
- The hosts section (which defines the host groups to target during execution)
- One or many configuration overrides (this section allows playbook developers to override configuration options or set specific playbook...