Executing the Ansible command line to check connectivity

The simplest form in which we can use Ansible with Ansible ad hoc command line tool. We can execute the tasks using modules without actually writing code in the file. This is great for quick testing or for one off tasks but we should not turn this into a habit since this type of usage is not easily documented and auditable.

How to do it...

We just have to use the Ansible command and pass the ping module as an argument to parameter -m. A successful execution will return the string pong. It signifies that Ansible can reach the server and execute tasks, subject to the authorization level of the user, of course:

$ ansible localhost -m ping
localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false,
    "failed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
}