Ansible Cheat Sheet

Stuff I forgot...

TODO: Remember the stuff that drove me nuts as a noob...

Personal Use Tactics

These tactics shouldn't be employed in production.

Source ~/.bashrc

- name: Shell with .bashrc
  shell: |
    source ~/.bashrc
    custom_cmds...

General Good Practice

Common Assets Directory

Maintain a common download assets directory which can be used across multiple runs. This ensures that modules, such as 'get_url', are able to skip their action if an asset is already present. This conserves disk space, reduces bandwidth OPEX, reduces runtime, and mitigates unecessary internet traffic.

- name: "Create temp assets directory which will be utilized across multiple builds"
  ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /tmp/ansible_assets_dir
    state: directory
    mode: '0755'
  register: temp_assets_dir

Note:

• This directory IS NOT to be cleaned up at the end of each run.
• This direcotry may be persisted outside of /tmp as needed.
• Some distributions only clear /tmp on boot. Configure as needed.

Per-Build Temp Directories

Maintain a discrete temporary directory for each run. The following prefixes the directory with both 'ansible' as well as a timestamp, ensuring ease of identification as needed.

- name: "Create temp directory for this build"
  ansible.builtin.tempfile:
    state: directory
    prefix: "ansible_{{ now(utc=true,fmt='%Y-%m-%dT%H-%M-%SZ') }}_"
  register: temp_dir

This directory may be cleaned up at the end of each run.