Packt+ | Advance your knowledge in tech

0

All Products

Best Sellers

New Releases

Books

Videos

Audiobooks

Free Learning

Learn Ansible

You're reading from Learn Ansible Automate cloud, security, and network infrastructure using Ansible 2.x

Product type Paperback

Published in Jun 2018

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781788998758

Length 578 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Tools

Ansible

Concepts

Cloud Computing

Author (1):

Russ McKendrick

View More author details

Table of Contents (24) Chapters

Title Page

Packt Upsell

Contributors

Preface

1. An Introduction to Ansible FREE CHAPTER

2. Installing and Running Ansible

3. The Ansible Commands

4. Deploying a LAMP Stack

5. Deploying WordPress

6. Targeting Multiple Distributions

7. The Core Network Modules

8. Moving to the Cloud

9. Building Out a Cloud Network

10. Highly Available Cloud Deployments

11. Building Out a VMware Deployment

12. Ansible Windows Modules

13. Hardening Your Servers Using Ansible and OpenSCAP

14. Deploying WPScan and OWASP ZAP

15. Introducing Ansible Tower and Ansible AWX

16. Ansible Galaxy

17. Next Steps with Ansible

1. Assessments

2. Other Books You May Enjoy

Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Index

The VMware modules

As already mentioned, there are around 30 products in the VMware range; these cover everything from hypervisors to virtual switches, virtual storage, and several interfaces for interacting with your VMware-based hosts and virtual machines. In this section, we will cover the core modules that ship with Ansible to manage all aspects of your VMware estate.

I have tried to split them into logical groups and, for each of the groups, will give a brief explanation of the product the modules are targeting.

Requirements

The modules all have one thing in common: they all require a Python module called PyVmomi to be installed. To install this, run the following pip command:

$ sudo pip install PyVmomi

This module contains the VMware vSphere API Python bindings, and without it, the modules we are going to cover in this chapter will not be able to interact with your VMware installation.

While the modules in this chapter have been tested with vSphere 5.5 to 6.5, you may find that some of the...

The rest of the chapter is locked

Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!

A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Start free trial

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Authors (1)

Russ McKendrick

Russ McKendrick

Russ McKendrick is an experienced DevOps practitioner and system administrator with a passion for automation and containers. He has been working in IT and related industries for the better part of 30 years. During his career, he has had responsibilities in many different sectors, including first-line, second-line, and senior support in client-facing and internal teams for small and large organizations. He works almost exclusively with Linux, using open source systems and tools across dedicated hardware and virtual machines hosted in public and private clouds at Node4, where he holds the title of practice manager (SRE and DevOps). He also buys way too many records!

See other products by Russ McKendrick

Other recommended products

Related to this chapter

Ansible Quick Start Guide

Ansible Quick Start Guide

Configuration Management (CM) tools help administrators reduce their workload. Ansible is one of the best Configuration Management tools, and can act as an orchestrator for managing other CMs. This book is the easiest way to learn how to use Ansible as an orchestrator and a Configuration Management tool. With this book, you'll learn how to control and monitor computer and network infrastructures of any size, physical or virtual.

Security Automation with Ansible 2

Security Automation with Ansible 2

Security automation is one of the most interesting skills to have nowadays. With over 750 automation modules, Ansible makes it easy for you to secure any part of your system—be it setting firewalls, providing authentication to users and groups, or setting custom security policies. It allows you to write automation procedures once and use them across your entire infrastructure. This book will teach you the best way to use Ansible for seemingly complex tasks by using the various building blocks available and creating solutions that are easy to teach others, store for later, perform version control on, and repeat.

Dec 2017 12h 8m

Practical Ansible 2

Practical Ansible 2

Anyone with responsibility for an IT infrastructure will benefit from the increased efficiency and reliability that can be delivered through automation with Ansible, an open-source, agentless tool that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, and many other infrastructures and application-related tasks.

Jun 2020 13h 40m

Network Automation Cookbook

Network Automation Cookbook

This book includes over 100 actionable recipes to use Ansible and automate network devices from different vendors and build networking solutions across cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure. You'll be able to effectively manage your network infrastructure in various environments using Ansible – be it a data center or a service provider.

Apr 2020 16h 4m

Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook

Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook

Ansible is a powerful and versatile tool used for configuration management and orchestration. Ansible's usefulness is derived from its modules. This book focuses on modules that will help you provision cloud resources by interacting with various APIs exposed by cloud providers. Taking a step further, you will learn how to manage cloud resources. Each chapter showcases the deployment of a multi-tier application on the provisioned resources.

Feb 2018 6h 40m

Learning Ansible 2.7

Learning Ansible 2.7

Ansible is an open source automation platform that assists organizations with tasks. This book will tech you to create and deploy playbooks to automate some simple tasks that you already perform on a daily basis. You will also learn to debug and test Ansible to ensure that your playbooks will always work. Towards the end, you will learn how to leverage Ansible Galaxy and Ansible Tower to maximise your productivity.

Apr 2019 8h 52m

Hands-On Enterprise Automation on Linux

Hands-On Enterprise Automation on Linux

Anyone responsible for a Linux server infrastructure will be able to improve the reliability of their environment and efficiency of their operations with this book, “Hands-on Enterprise Automation on Linux”. This, in turn, will help to reduce operating costs and the stresses and workload placed on those responsible for the environment.

Jan 2020 17h 4m

Implementing DevOps with Ansible 2

Implementing DevOps with Ansible 2

Thinking about adapting the DevOps culture for your organization using a very simple, yet powerful automation tool, Ansible 2.0? Then this book is for you! In this book, you will start with the role of Ansible in the DevOps module, which covers fundamental DevOps practices and how Ansible is leveraged by DevOps organizations to implement consistent and simplified configuration management and deployment.

Jul 2017 8h 52m

Mastering Ansible

Mastering Ansible

Automation is essential for success in the modern DevOps world. Ansible provides a simple yet powerful automation engine to tackle complex automation challenges This book provides you with the knowledge you need to understand how Ansible 2.7 works at a fundamental level and leverage its advanced capabilities.

Mar 2019 13h 44m

Containerization with Ansible 2

Containerization with Ansible 2

Managing the life cycle of containers has become a tedious and manual process. Ansible Container is the ultimate workflow for container development, testing, and deployment. This book will get you up and running with Ansible Container so that you can create container images from Ansible roles, run containers locally, and deploy them to the cloud.

Dec 2017 7h 48m

Mastering Ansible

Mastering Ansible

Automation is critical to success in the world of DevOps. How quickly and efficiently an application deployment can be automated, or a new infrastructure can be built up, can be the difference between a successful product or a failure. Ansible provides a simple yet powerful automation engine. Beyond the basics of Ansible lie a host of advanced features which are available to help you increase efficiency and accomplish complex orchestrations with ease.

Mar 2017 10h 20m

Docker Bootcamp

Docker Bootcamp

This book is all about fast and intensive learning. The content is about filling in with highly-effective examples to build new things, show solving problems in newer and unseen ways, and solve real-world examples.

Apr 2017 6h 32m

Personalised recommendations for you

Based on your interests and search pattern

Mastering Palo Alto Networks

Mastering Palo Alto Networks

Mastering Palo Alto Networks is a hands-on guide that helps you progress from a beginner to an expert in configuring Palo Alto firewalls. It covers setup, management, and optimization with real-world examples for both on-prem and cloud environments.

May 2025 21h 32m

Cloud Native Anti-Patterns

Cloud Native Anti-Patterns

Uncover and fix cloud native anti-patterns across strategy, culture, security, and operations. This book guides you through the practical steps to avoid common traps and shift your organization toward cloud-native best practices that drive lasting success.

Mar 2025 14h 44m

AWS for System Administrators

AWS for System Administrators

Master the art of designing, deploying, and managing AWS infrastructure with industry best practices. You'll learn to automate workflows, optimize costs, and implement robust disaster recovery strategies for scalable cloud success.

May 2025 14h 12m

Kubernetes for Generative AI Solutions

Kubernetes for Generative AI Solutions

Learn step by step how to design, optimize, and deploy Generative AI projects on Kubernetes. Covering networking, observability, security, scaling, and cost optimization strategies, this guide takes you from first deployment to production excellence.

Jun 2025 11h 8m

Azure Cloud Projects

Azure Cloud Projects

Azure Cloud Projects offers a hands-on introduction to Microsoft Azure, designed to help you build real-world cloud solutions, develop job-ready skills, and apply best practices that are widely used across the cloud computing industry.

May 2025 8h 28m

Sustainable Cloud Development

Sustainable Cloud Development

This book introduces best practices for developing and deploying high-performing, eco-friendly cloud applications, helping you meet sustainability goals while delivering efficient cloud solutions.

Mar 2025 9h 12m

SLIs and SLOs Demystified

SLIs and SLOs Demystified

This comprehensive guide to reliability engineering dives deep into SLIs, SLOs, observability, and incident management. It shows you how to optimize system reliability and make data-driven decisions to balance performance and business goals.

Apr 2025 10h 0m