Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Have you ever found yourself wrestling
Speaker 1: with repetitive tasks in your IT infrastructure, you know, copying
Speaker 1: commands from some messy document, making tiny tweaks, and then
Speaker 1: just crossing your fingers hoping it all works. What if
Speaker 1: there was a dramatically better way, a way to automate,
Speaker 1: streamline and even share those IT operations.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's a scenario that it's close to home
Speaker 2: for so many of us in tech. That constant manual effort,
Speaker 2: the inefficiency, and frankly, the lurking risk of human error.
Speaker 2: It's a major pain.
Speaker 1: Point, exactly, and that's precisely why today we're taking a
Speaker 1: deep dive into an incredibly powerful automation tool called antsable.
Speaker 1: We're drawing our insights from learn ansable, which is really
Speaker 1: a fantastic resource for anyone looking to get into automation.
Speaker 2: He really is.
Speaker 1: Our mission today is to pull out the most impactful
Speaker 1: nuggets from this material, giving you a real shortcut, a
Speaker 1: shortcut to understanding how ansable can revolutionize the way you
Speaker 1: manage everything from say, simple web servers to vast complex
Speaker 1: cloud deployments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll explo or its core philosophy some maybe surprising capabilities,
Speaker 2: and ultimately how it brings structure and consistency to your
Speaker 2: technical life. It's really about empowering you to build more
Speaker 2: reliable system.
Speaker 1: And reclaim your valuable time. Right, absolutely, Okay, let's kick
Speaker 1: things off with something pretty cool. Actually a surprising fact
Speaker 1: that kind of sets the stage. Did you know the
Speaker 1: name ansable actually comes from science fiction? Oh? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen sixty six, Ursula k Legwin coined the term.
Speaker 1: It described this fictional device capable of sending messages faster
Speaker 1: than light, you know, across interstellar distances.
Speaker 2: Huh. And when you think about it, that origin story
Speaker 2: is incredibly fitting for the software, isn't it. Ansible lets
Speaker 2: you have this rapid remote communication with all your infrastructure.
Speaker 2: It's like Legwin's device in a way.
Speaker 1: It's a brilliant metaphor.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The core insight is that it kind of collapses
Speaker 2: the distance between you and your machines. Yeah. Allows for
Speaker 2: near instant deployment, near instant management, and.
Speaker 1: The software really lives up to that, especially with it's
Speaker 1: core principles. First off, it's agentless, right.
Speaker 2: And this isn't just a technical detail, it's a fundamental
Speaker 2: simplification how so well, Unlike a lot of other cools
Speaker 2: that make you install special software agents on every single
Speaker 2: machine you want to manage, ansable uses standard, widely available
Speaker 2: protocols like SSH exactly SSH for Linux and macOS and
Speaker 2: WinRM that's Windows Remote Management for Windows.
Speaker 1: So no extra software to maintain on the target machines.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it's a monumental advantage. No extra ports to open,
Speaker 2: no agents to update or troubleshoot, and your security posture
Speaker 2: is simpler. Your main control machine just needs basic network
Speaker 2: access to the target operationally.
Speaker 1: That must save a ton of headache.
Speaker 2: Oh it slashes the overhead ongoing agent maintenance just disappears,
Speaker 2: makes your infrastructure and inherently more robust, I think.
Speaker 1: And it's wonderfully minimal too. Right on your Linux targets,
Speaker 1: what you just need Ssh and Python installed.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, that's usually it, No complex dependencies to untangle.
Speaker 1: That simplicity it carries over into how you actually describe
Speaker 1: your infrastructure it does.
Speaker 2: Ansable uses a language Yammel that's remarkably human readable, but
Speaker 2: it's also perfectly machine executable. This descriptive, straightforward approach makes
Speaker 2: it highly intuitive, easy to pick up, even if you're
Speaker 2: totally new to automation.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, if I'm about a really key difference. Something
Speaker 1: that often trips people up when they're first learning automation tools.
Speaker 1: It's the philosophical approach, right, how they manage state?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly. Many configuration tools, like Puppet or chef the
Speaker 2: use what's called a declarative.
Speaker 1: Approach, meaning you define the end state you want.
Speaker 2: Right, You say, I want this system to look like this,
Speaker 2: and the tool then figures out the steps to get there.
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds reasonable.
Speaker 2: It can be, but from a broader perspective. While declarative
Speaker 2: tools aim for eventual consistency, they can introduce some tricky challenges,
Speaker 2: especially with dependencies.
Speaker 1: Like what, give me an example.
Speaker 2: Okay, imagine trying to create a user before their required
Speaker 2: group even exists.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay, the tool wouldn't know.
Speaker 2: The order exactly. A declarative tool might just fail on
Speaker 2: the first run. Then you write it again, maybe it
Speaker 2: creates the group, then a third time it creates the user.
Speaker 2: It might require multiple runs to finally converge on that
Speaker 2: desired state, which.
Speaker 1: Can be frustrating, especially if you've got hundreds of steps.
Speaker 1: You could be stuck debugging and rerunning constantly precisely.
Speaker 2: Ansable, on the other hand, takes an imperative approach.
Speaker 1: Imperative meaning you tell it exactly what to do, step
Speaker 1: by step.
Speaker 2: You got it. You define the exact order in which
Speaker 2: each task executes. You explicitly say create group, then create
Speaker 2: user in that group. Ansible executes them in that precise sequence.
Speaker 1: So it ensures a predictable flow exactly.
Speaker 2: It elegantly sidesteps those tricky dependency errors, saves immense debugging time,
Speaker 2: especially in complex setups.
Speaker 1: That predictability sounds like a huge relief. And here's another
Speaker 1: critical point you mentioned earlier. Antsable isn't just configuration management.
Speaker 1: It's also an orchestration tool.
Speaker 2: Right, And what's really powerful here is you can use
Speaker 2: answable to say, launch a server, install an entire software
Speaker 2: stack like a Lampe stack, you know, Linux, Apache, Dbphp,
Speaker 2: and then you're done with that host.
Speaker 1: No lingering agents checking in.
Speaker 2: Nope, no lingering agents continuously policing its state, Which leads
Speaker 2: to an important question for you, the listener, What potential
Speaker 2: points of failure? What unnecessary complexity can you get rid
Speaker 2: of by not having agents constantly phoning home?
Speaker 1: For many places. That means a leaner, maybe more resilient
Speaker 1: infrastructure definitely, And.
Speaker 2: All of this leads us to a truly transformative concept
Speaker 2: in modern IT infrastructure as code IIC.
Speaker 1: This is the absolute game changer, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It really is answerable lets you manage your entire infrastructure
Speaker 2: pretty much like a software developer manages code.
Speaker 1: So version control like get.
Speaker 2: Ye, get collaboration with poll requests, creating branches for new
Speaker 2: features or testing. You can even run unit tests on
Speaker 2: your infrastructure definitions.
Speaker 1: Wow, that brings incredible consistency and peer review for security
Speaker 1: and best practices.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it fosters this shared, transparent understanding of how
Speaker 2: your systems are actually built and maintained. It turns infrastructure
Speaker 2: management from this kind of dark art done by a
Speaker 2: few people into a collaborative, open engineering process.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get down to actually using it. Then. Installing
Speaker 1: ansable sounds surprisingly straightforward.
Speaker 2: It really is. On macOS, you've got great options Homebrew,
Speaker 2: the package manager is super popular, or you can use
Speaker 2: pip by Thon's package installer, which gives you really precise
Speaker 2: control over the exact ansable version you want.
Speaker 1: And for Linux like Ubuntu.
Speaker 2: On Linux, pip is often preferred over the system package
Speaker 2: manager like app. Why is that, Well, sometimes the app
Speaker 2: packages can lag behind a bit become outdated quickly, so
Speaker 2: PIP often gets you the latest features faster.
Speaker 1: Right, and Windows users aren't left out, not at all.
Speaker 2: You can easily use the Windows subsystem for Linux WSL
Speaker 2: run antsable just like you're on a native Linux machine.
Speaker 2: It feels totally seamless.
Speaker 1: Okay, So once it's installed, you work with ansable's basic
Speaker 1: building blocks, host inventories and playbooks.
Speaker 2: That's right. A host inventory is essentially just a list
Speaker 2: of the machines Anthemble is going to manage.
Speaker 1: Can be super simple, right, like one IP address.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be just a single IP with a
Speaker 2: username and maybe a private key file. Or it can
Speaker 2: get more complex, organizing hosts into logical groups, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: with shared settings for each group.
Speaker 1: And then you have your playbooks. These are the automation blueprints.
Speaker 2: Exactly your blueprints. They're written in the YAMEL that's yamil,
Speaker 2: ain't markup language or anyone wondering, very.
Speaker 1: Human readable, and they lay out the key parts.
Speaker 2: YEP key elements like name, just a description of what
Speaker 2: the playbook does. Host which machines or groups to target gatherfacts,
Speaker 2: tells ansible to collect info about the target machines before starting.
Speaker 1: Like OS version, IP address things.
Speaker 2: Like that exactly. Then become that lets ansable run commands
Speaker 2: with elevated privileges like pseudo or running his root. And
Speaker 2: then you have handlers.
Speaker 1: Handler's sound interesting. They're special tasks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're pretty clever. Handlers only get triggered if a
Speaker 2: prior task actually made a change to the system. And crucially,
Speaker 2: they only run once at the very end of the
Speaker 2: entire playbook, run even if multiple tasks notified them.
Speaker 1: Ah, So like restarting a service only if it's config
Speaker 1: file change.
Speaker 2: Perfect example. Think of them as a highly efficient cleanup
Speaker 2: crew that only jumps into action if something actually got modified.
Speaker 2: Saves unnecessary restarts.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, and running the playbook.
Speaker 2: Is simple, super simple. A command like ansonable playbook on
Speaker 2: a host's playbook dot iml that applies your configurations to
Speaker 2: one machine or hundreds brings new machines up to your
Speaker 2: desired state quickly, consistently.
Speaker 1: When you think about using that single command, what for
Speaker 1: you is the biggest time saver? For me, it's just
Speaker 1: the sheer consistency across maybe dozens or hundreds of machines.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, consistency is huge, but also just the ability to
Speaker 2: bring a brand new, freshly launched machine to a perfectly
Speaker 2: configured state with one command replicating what used to take
Speaker 2: maybe hours of manual, error prone clicking and typing. It's
Speaker 2: truly transformative, like having an army of tireless meticulous assistance.
Speaker 1: Okay, so once you've got the basics down, you quickly
Speaker 1: see the real power comes when you start scaling up reusability,
Speaker 1: more advanced commands.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and that brings us to the vibrant heart of
Speaker 2: the ansible community.
Speaker 1: Ansible galaxy, the community hubs.
Speaker 2: Right, it's a central repository for what we call rolls
Speaker 2: and collections.
Speaker 1: Let's break those down.
Speaker 2: Rolls first, okay. Roles are basically pre built, reusable units
Speaker 2: of automation for common tasks I think installing a patche,
Speaker 2: configuring NTP, setting up a database, user.
Speaker 1: Stuff lots of people need to do exactly.
Speaker 2: They have a standard folder structure, specific places for tasks,
Speaker 2: files to copy, templates, variables, those handlers we talked about.
Speaker 2: This structure makes them incredibly portable and super easy to
Speaker 2: share and reuse and collections. They're newer yeah, introduced in
Speaker 2: Antsable two point New collections are a more comprehensive way
Speaker 2: to bundle things. They can passckage modules, the actual code
Speaker 2: that does the work, plugins and rolls altogether, so like a.
Speaker 1: Bigger content pack, maybe from a specific vendor.
Speaker 2: Precisely makes it much easier to distribute and consume related
Speaker 2: content from vendors or specific community projects. And you use
Speaker 2: the ansable Galaxy command line tool to easily install roles
Speaker 2: or collections, search for them, even publish your own. It
Speaker 2: really expands the ecosystem now beyond.
Speaker 1: Just Ansable Playbook, there's a whole suite of commands right
Speaker 1: an antsible command toolkit.
Speaker 2: There is for quick one off tasks against machines. You
Speaker 2: use the Ansible command itself, not Ansible Playbook.
Speaker 1: Like checking up time or installing one package.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or running any module ad hoc. For instance, ansible
Speaker 2: iosts all, Ansable dot build in dot ping just checks
Speaker 2: connectivity to all hosts. Or you could update all packages
Speaker 2: like ansible ihosts webservers, ansable dot build in dot app
Speaker 2: a name state latest. It's like a powerful parallel remote.
Speaker 1: Show, very handy for quick checks or changes.
Speaker 2: What else is in the toolkit, Well, there's ansable config
Speaker 2: for managing Antsable's configuration files. Ansable doc is super useful.
Speaker 2: It gives you documentation on any module written your terminal.
Speaker 2: An Soble inventory helps you work with your inventory files,
Speaker 2: visualized groups, et cetera.
Speaker 1: An ansible poll. That one sounds different.
Speaker 2: It is quite unique. Ansible poll reverses the normal process
Speaker 2: instead of your control node pushing configurations out. Target machines
Speaker 2: can use ansible poll to pull playbooks down from source
Speaker 2: control like get and run them locally.
Speaker 1: Ah useful for machines that are maybe disconnected sometimes or
Speaker 1: behind strict firewalls exactly.
Speaker 2: Or if you just prefer a poll model for configuration management.
Speaker 1: Okay, all these commands offer incredible flexibility. But this leads
Speaker 1: to a critical question. We're writing all this configuous code,
Speaker 1: maybe storing it and get how do you manage sensitive stuff? Passwords,
Speaker 1: API keys. You can't just hardcode those, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. That's a huge security risk, and that's where
Speaker 2: ansible volt comes in. It is an absolute life.
Speaker 1: Saver, welt like a safe pretty much.
Speaker 2: It's purpose built for securing your secrets within your answable project.
Speaker 2: Can use it to encrypt entire files like maybe your
Speaker 2: inventory file if it has passwords, or even more granularly,
Speaker 2: you can encrypt individual variables directly within a playbook or
Speaker 2: a variable file, so the.
Speaker 1: File itself is still readable, but the secret part.
Speaker 2: Is scrambled exactly. What's really genius here is that the
Speaker 2: encrypted content remains fully readable by ansable when you provide
Speaker 2: the vault password at runtime, but it appears as just
Speaker 2: garbled unreadable text to any human looking at the file
Speaker 2: and get or on disc.
Speaker 1: That's brilliant. So it's safe to commit sensitive information directly
Speaker 1: into your source control.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, which is crucial for security, especially when you
Speaker 2: integrate with CICD pipelines, which we'll talk about later. It
Speaker 2: means your automation can run accessing the secrets it needs
Speaker 2: without ever exposing those sensitive credentials in logs or to
Speaker 2: developers just browsing the code.
Speaker 1: Okay, that vault feature sounds essential. Let's move to some
Speaker 1: practical applications censible really doing work. How about deploying a
Speaker 1: classic web server stack like LMP.
Speaker 2: Sure, LMP Linux, Apache, MERYDB, or myseql PHP. It's a
Speaker 2: perfect example. You can combine multiple ansable roles. Maybe one
Speaker 2: role for setting up a patche one for Maria dB,
Speaker 2: one for Php.
Speaker 1: Showing that modularity exactly.
Speaker 2: Each role handles its specific part. The Apache role installs
Speaker 2: the package, configures virtual hosts, manages firewall rules. Maybe the
Speaker 2: MERIDB role installs the database, sets the root passwords securely
Speaker 2: using vault, creates application databases and users. The Php role
Speaker 2: installs the necessary modules. Ansable orchestrates all these roles together,
Speaker 2: ensuring a consistent, repeatable lamp deployment every single time.
Speaker 1: Nice. Now, one of the really cool tricks you mentioned
Speaker 1: is managing different Linux operating systems, right like Debian and
Speaker 1: red Hat, maybe with the same playbook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a huge benefit, especially in larger environments. You
Speaker 2: don't want separate playbooks for everything.
Speaker 1: So how does that work? How does ansble know the difference?
Speaker 2: It's quite elegant. Actually, remember gather facts. Ansable collects information
Speaker 2: about the target system. One of those facts is ANSI
Speaker 2: police samiling. Your playbook can use conditional logic based on
Speaker 2: that fact, like an if statement sort of. You can
Speaker 2: use when ansible's family equals Debian on tasks specific to Debian, Ubuntu,
Speaker 2: or you can use import tasks conditionally like import tasks
Speaker 2: wn dot mL when dot ansib lea's family equals Debian
Speaker 2: and have another for Redhead dot mml ah.
Speaker 1: So you group the OS specific tasks into separate fives exactly.
Speaker 2: It keeps the main playbook clean. This is absolutely essential
Speaker 2: because things differ, right Yeah, package names HTTPD versus Apache
Speaker 2: two service names. Security features like selnix or firewalled on
Speaker 2: red Hat systems requires specific handling that Debian doesn't.
Speaker 1: So a single well written role can truly be distribution agnostic,
Speaker 1: makes them much more reusable. Perfect for sharing on Galaxy precisely. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now for something maybe really surprising. Windows automation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of ansable's lesser known superpowers. But it's
Speaker 2: really capable.
Speaker 1: So not just Linux. How does it talk to Windows?
Speaker 1: Not SSH? Right? Right?
Speaker 2: It uses win RM Windows Remote Management, which is Microsoft
Speaker 2: standard protocol for remote management based on WS management. Ansable
Speaker 2: has a rapidly growing collection of Windows specific modules.
Speaker 1: What kind of things can you do?
Speaker 2: A lot? You can launch Windows servers in Azure or AWS,
Speaker 2: enable Windows features, manage local users and groups, install software
Speaker 2: using tools like Chocolatey, a package manager for Windows. You
Speaker 2: can manage services, registry, keys, reboot, machines run PowerShell scripts. Honestly,
Speaker 2: the experience feels just as seamless and powerful as managing
Speaker 2: a Linux host. Once you're set up.
Speaker 1: That really brondzs the scope. And speaking of scope, ANTSAPLE
Speaker 1: isn't just for servers, is it? Network automation? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Network automation is a huge area for antsible now.
Speaker 2: It covers a vast array of network devices. We're talking Cisco, Juniper, Arista,
Speaker 2: F five, Checkpoint fort net list goes on.
Speaker 1: So routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, all of the above.
Speaker 2: There are literally hundreds of network specific modules. You can
Speaker 2: manage configurations, push updates, manage vlands, interfaces, firewall rules, BGP neighbors.
Speaker 2: It transforms network configuration from this manual, often error prone,
Speaker 2: CLI driven task into a fully automated code driven process,
Speaker 2: just like servers.
Speaker 1: Bringing infrastructure as code to the network stack exactly.
Speaker 2: Huge benefits for consistency and speed and of.
Speaker 1: Course the cloud massive platforms like Azure and AWS. How
Speaker 1: does ansable play there.
Speaker 2: It's a natural fit for Microsoft Azure. Ansable can do
Speaker 2: the full life cycle launch vms, configure them, but also
Speaker 2: manage the surrounding infrastructure v nets subnets, network security groups, nsgs,
Speaker 2: Azure load balancers.
Speaker 1: Can it automatically add new vms to its inventory?
Speaker 2: Yes, Azure has dynamic inventory scripts for ansable, so as
Speaker 2: you scale up vms, they automatically become manageable by ansable.
Speaker 2: And critically, ansable has modules to wait for a VM
Speaker 2: to be fully provisioned and ready, maybe wait for SSH
Speaker 2: to be available before attempting configuration. Prevents so many frustrating.
Speaker 1: Errors that weighting capability sounds simple but essential and AWS
Speaker 1: similar story, very similar.
Speaker 2: You can build out entire cloud networks on AWS, vpcs,
Speaker 2: subjects across multiple availability zones, azs, Internet gateways, route tables,
Speaker 2: security groups. Antsable can even dynamically retrieve your own public
Speaker 2: IP address when running the playbook, so you can create
Speaker 2: highly specific firewall rules in your security groups allowing access
Speaker 2: only from where you're running antsable.
Speaker 1: Very neat okay, Now for what you called a real
Speaker 1: ASA moment highly available cloud deployments, this is like the
Speaker 1: holy grail for many web applications, right staying up.
Speaker 2: No matter what it is, and this is where ansable
Speaker 2: truly shines in orchestrating complex, resilient architectures. Let's take deploying
Speaker 2: a highly available WordPress site on AWS as an example.
Speaker 1: Okay, WordPress needs a web server, database, file storage. How
Speaker 1: do you make it highly available with ansable and AWS.
Speaker 2: So ansable integrates multiple AWS services seamlessly. First, instead of
Speaker 2: running a database on your web server VMS, you use
Speaker 2: Amazon RDS, the Relational Database Service.
Speaker 1: A managed database takes away the pain of managing myseql yourself.
Speaker 2: Exactly highly available automated backups patching. Ansable just configures WordPress
Speaker 2: to point to the RDS endpoint. Then, for the WordPress files, themes, plugins, uploads,
Speaker 2: you need shared storage accessible by multiple web servers and
Speaker 2: different ass For that use Amazon EFS Elastic file System.
Speaker 2: Ansible mounts the EFS volume onto each web server instance.
Speaker 1: So all instances see the same files. What about traffic?
Speaker 2: You put an application Elastic load Balancer ELB in front
Speaker 2: of your web servers. The ELB distributes traffic across instances
Speaker 2: in multiple availability zones. Ansable configures the ELB target groups,
Speaker 2: health checks.
Speaker 1: And the web servers themselves. How do you handle scaling
Speaker 1: and failures?
Speaker 2: That's where Amazon Machine Images amis and Auto Scaling Groups
Speaker 2: asgs come in. First, you use ansable to build a
Speaker 2: golden AMI a pre configured image of your WordPress web
Speaker 2: server with a patch in Jinks PHP, the EFS mount
Speaker 2: everything set up. Then you tell an autoscaling group to
Speaker 2: use this AMI launch instances across multiple azs and maintain
Speaker 2: a desired number of instances. The ASG automatically repla places
Speaker 2: fail instances and can scale up or down based on
Speaker 2: load using ELB health checks.
Speaker 1: Wow so ansable orchestrates the setup of RDS, EFS, ELB,
Speaker 1: the Golden AMI, and the ASG.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it ties all these powerful AWO services together into
Speaker 2: a coherent, highly available WordPress deployment. If you connect this
Speaker 2: to the bigger picture, this kind of sophisticated automation doesn't
Speaker 2: just reduce potential downtime. It inherently builds resilience right into
Speaker 2: your application architecture. It ensures your site stays available even
Speaker 2: if an entire AWS availability zone has issues. Trying to
Speaker 2: achieve that level of robustness manually would be incredibly complex,
Speaker 2: time consuming, and error prone.
Speaker 1: Okay, that AWUS example is impressive, but all this powerful
Speaker 1: automation it sounds great that it also brings up a
Speaker 1: crucial question, security and compliance. How do you make sure
Speaker 1: your automated deployments are actually secure before they even run.
Speaker 1: Just relying on manual code reviews seems risky.
Speaker 2: It is risky. Humans miss things, especially in complex playbooks.
Speaker 2: That's why Stata code analysis tools are absolutely essential in
Speaker 2: an IIC world. Tools like checkof and kics are fantastic examples.
Speaker 2: They're open source.
Speaker 1: And they scan your ansable playbooks exactly.
Speaker 2: They scan your playbooks, terraform code, Kubernetes, manifests, whatever IC
Speaker 2: you have. They act as your automated safety net. They
Speaker 2: look for common misconfigurations, potential security vulnerabilities, think like an
Speaker 2: EC two instance accidentally getting a public IP when it
Speaker 2: shouldn't or in at three bucket being public. They also
Speaker 2: check for compliance issues like maybe unencrypted storage volumes or
Speaker 2: resources missing required organizational tags.
Speaker 1: So they're like that super meticulous colleague who reviews your
Speaker 1: code for obvious flaws, but automated.
Speaker 2: That's a great analogy, and they run fast, integrated to
Speaker 2: CICD pipelines. They catch potential problems long before they hit production.
Speaker 2: You can even add suppression comments in your code for
Speaker 2: risks you've analyzed and decided to accept, so they don't
Speaker 2: flag those again.
Speaker 1: So they help prevent issues. Can ansable also help fix
Speaker 1: issues or harden existing servers?
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely. Ansible can integrate with s COPY, the Security
Speaker 2: Content Automation Protocol. It's a NYST standard for automating vulnerability
Speaker 2: management and compliance checking s KEP.
Speaker 1: How does that work with ansable?
Speaker 2: There's an open source implementation called openscap. You can use
Speaker 2: ansable to run openscapy scans against your systems using pre
Speaker 2: defined security baselines like CIS benchmarks or dissistigs. And here's
Speaker 2: the really cool part. Openscap can often automatically generate ansible
Speaker 2: playbooks or Bash scripts to remediate the problems it finds.
Speaker 1: WHOA seriously, it writes the fix for.
Speaker 2: You in many cases. Yes, it's incredibly powerful for maintaining
Speaker 2: a hardened state and for web applications specifically. Ansible playbooks
Speaker 2: can orchestrate security scans using specialized tools too, like wp
Speaker 2: scan for WordPress vulnerabilities or oasp zeba, a more general
Speaker 2: web app scanner. Often you'd run these tools inside doctor
Speaker 2: containers triggered by ansable for consistency.
Speaker 1: Okay, scanning before hardening during and this all feeds beautifully
Speaker 1: into continuous integration and continuous delivery right CICD, making automation
Speaker 1: truly frictionless.
Speaker 2: Exactly cics where it all comes together platforms like GitHub actions,
Speaker 2: get labci, Azure DevOps. They provide these temporary compute resources
Speaker 2: ephemeral runners that automatically execute your ansible playbooks whenever code
Speaker 2: changes are pushed to your repository, so.
Speaker 1: No manual ansable playbook commands.
Speaker 2: Anymore, ideally not for production deployments. You define your entire workflow,
Speaker 2: linking the playbook, running static analysis with checkof maybe running tests,
Speaker 2: and finally applying the playbook, all in the ammal file
Speaker 2: right alongside your code.
Speaker 1: What are the tricky parts there? Getting credential setup securely.
Speaker 2: That's critical, setting up sshkey securely, managing cloud credentials like
Speaker 2: Azure Service Principles or AWSIM roles, and storing sensitive stuff
Speaker 2: like the ansible vault password. These platforms have secure secret
Speaker 2: management features. You store the secrets there, not in your code.
Speaker 2: The CICD runner gets temporary access when it runs.
Speaker 1: So the core idea is push code, pipeline, run infrastructure updates,
Speaker 1: no manual intervention, no exposed passwords, just consistent, repeatable deployments.
Speaker 2: That's the goal. The pinnacle of automated reliability.
Speaker 1: Thinking about that shift, moving from running playbooks manually to
Speaker 1: a full CICD model, what stands out to you as
Speaker 1: the biggest shift in mindset for a team making that transition?
Speaker 2: Good question. I think it's the fundamental shift from well
Speaker 2: it worked when I ran it to it always works
Speaker 2: the same way. You move from a manual, often reactive
Speaker 2: process to a proactive, automated one where consistency and reliability
Speaker 2: are just baked in, it really changes team dynamics. You
Speaker 2: start trusting the automation itself. It frees up so much
Speaker 2: mental energy for innovation instead of constantly fighting fires or
Speaker 2: worrying about deployment errors.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. Let's explore a few
Speaker 1: more advanced topics and really see the real world impact.
Speaker 1: Answerable can integrate with other services too, right, going beyond
Speaker 1: just configuring the machines themselves.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's where things get really integrated and powerful.
Speaker 2: Antsl can talk to collaboration tools like Slack.
Speaker 1: So you get notified when a playbook.
Speaker 2: Runs exactly, send real time notifications, maybe color code the
Speaker 2: message based on whether changes were made or if it failed.
Speaker 2: Keeps everyone in the loop. You can also send detailed
Speaker 2: messages to a host cyslog for centralized logging and auditing.
Speaker 1: What about ITSM tools like service now Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: You can have your playbook automatically open an incident ticket
Speaker 2: in service now if something fails, or maybe open a
Speaker 2: change request before starting and close it upon successful completion.
Speaker 2: You could even attach the playbook run logs or configuration
Speaker 2: files directly to the ticket for auditing purposes. This really
Speaker 2: takes automation to the next level, ensuring operational processes are
Speaker 2: followed automatically.
Speaker 1: That's bridging the gap between automation code and business process.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Now, what happens when things don't go as planned?
Speaker 1: Because let's be honest, complex automation sometimes breaks.
Speaker 2: You mentioned a debugger, Yes, the answerable playbook debugger. It
Speaker 2: is an abs life saver, especially when you're working on complex,
Speaker 2: multi step playbooks.
Speaker 1: So if a task fails, it doesn't just stop.
Speaker 2: You can configure it to drop you into an interactive
Speaker 2: debugger shell right at the point of failure.
Speaker 1: What can you do in there?
Speaker 2: A lot? You can inspect all the variables available to
Speaker 2: the task using commands like p task of ours pe
Speaker 2: for print. You can review the exact error message and
Speaker 2: here's the killer feature. You can often modify variables on
Speaker 2: the fly right there in the debugger, and then rerun
Speaker 2: just the failed task using the redo command.
Speaker 1: No way, so you don't have to guess, change the
Speaker 1: playbook and rerun the whole thing from the start.
Speaker 2: Exactly. If you think a variable was wrong, you can
Speaker 2: try changing it and immediately retry the task. It saves
Speaker 2: an immense amount of debugging time and frustration, especially on
Speaker 2: long running playbooks.
Speaker 1: That debugger sounds incredibly useful. Okay, let's bring it all
Speaker 1: home some concrete, real world examples where you've seen antsable
Speaker 1: really make it different.
Speaker 2: Sure, we've seen it use for incredible complex depliments, multi
Speaker 2: component applications spanning dozens of servers across public clouds. Automating
Speaker 2: that whole process cut deployment times from days to hours
Speaker 2: and drastically reduced human error.
Speaker 1: What about using it with other tools?
Speaker 2: Yeah, A very common and powerful pattern is using ansable
Speaker 2: with Terraform. Terraform is great at provisioning the core infrastructure
Speaker 2: the VMS networks databases. Then Terraform hands off to ansable,
Speaker 2: which handles the application level configuration, software installation, and bootstrapping
Speaker 2: on that infrastructure. You leverage each tool's strengths terraform for
Speaker 2: the wet ansable for the how on the instance, it's
Speaker 2: a fantastic combo.
Speaker 1: That makes sense using the right tool for the job.
Speaker 1: Any other examples, maybe in enabling others.
Speaker 2: Definitely deploying antsable awx, the open source version of red
Speaker 2: hat Ansable automation platform or the commercial RedHat platform itself.
Speaker 2: This gives you a web based UID and API for ansable.
Speaker 2: We've seen companies use this to create self service IT
Speaker 2: portals for.
Speaker 1: Developers self service How does that work?
Speaker 2: A developer might go to the atax WebUI fill out
Speaker 2: a simple survey like I need a medium sized environment
Speaker 2: with this database and it's emit awx then triggers an
Speaker 2: ansable playbook behind the scenes that provisions the VMS, installs
Speaker 2: the software, maybe updates the cmdb all automatically. It can
Speaker 2: integrate with ticketing systems enforced role based access control. It
Speaker 2: frees up the central IT team from handling repetitive requests
Speaker 2: and empowers the developers directly.
Speaker 1: That's huge, democratizing the automation exactly.
Speaker 2: Another quick example automated DNS updates, giving frontline support teams
Speaker 2: a simple AWX survey to update specific DNS records without
Speaker 2: ever needing direct access to the complex DNS provider console.
Speaker 2: AWX runs, the ansable playbook makes the change via API
Speaker 2: and logs everything automatically, safe, controlled, auditive.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a journey we've taken. We've really gone from
Speaker 1: understanding ansables fascinating sci fi origins its core principles all
Speaker 1: the way to seeing its practical application across different operating systems,
Speaker 1: network gear and the major cloud providers like AWS Nazure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we explored how it helps ensure security and
Speaker 2: compliance through scanning, how it integrates so naturally into modern
Speaker 2: CICD pipelines, and even how it enhances team collaboration through
Speaker 2: things like notifications and self service portals.
Speaker 1: What's really profound here, I think, is that answable isn't
Speaker 1: just about technical efficiency, you know, automating a few scripts.
Speaker 1: It's really about enabling consistency at scale, drastically reducing human
Speaker 1: error which is always lurking, and freeing up incredibly valuable
Speaker 1: time for people to do more strategic, more creative work.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's fundamentally about defining your entire IT landscape as
Speaker 2: executable code, making it repeatable, shareable, versionable, and scalable in
Speaker 2: ways that were frankly unimaginable just a decade or so ago.
Speaker 1: So, wrapping this up, what does all this mean for
Speaker 1: you the listener? As you go about your day, think
Speaker 1: about those manual tasks you do, the repetitive stuff. This
Speaker 1: raises a critical personal question. Really, what single repetitive process
Speaker 1: in your daily routine, maybe one that feels like a
Speaker 1: constant drain or source of errors? Could you potentially start
Speaker 1: automating with antsable?
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a huge, complex system right away.
Speaker 2: Often it's those small, targeted winds automating one annoying task
Speaker 2: that build momentum and lead to the biggest, most satisfying
Speaker 2: impacts down the line.