Ansible
In this section, we are going to introduce you to Ansible, our tool of choice when it comes to CaC.
Ansible is a tool written for managing the configuration of systems and devices. It is written in Python and its source code is freely available to anyone for downloading and modification (within the limits of its license, which is Apache License 2.0). The name “Ansible” comes from Ursula K. Le Guin’s book Rocannon’s World and denotes a device that allows instantaneous communication no matter the distance.
Some interesting characteristics of Ansible are set out here:
- Modularity: Ansible is not a monolithic tool. Rather, it’s a core program with each task it knows how to perform written as a separate module—a library, if you will. Since this was the design from the start, it produced a clean API that anyone can use to write their own modules.
- Idempotence: No matter how many times you perform a configuration, the result...
