Ansible Installation and Configuration Guide

Ansible Installation Methods

Two common ways to install Ansible are provided; choose either one.

1. Install with yum

yum install epel-release -y
yum install ansible –y

2. Install with pip

pip install ansible

If pip is not available, install it first:

yum install python-pip

Ansible Program Structure

Use rpm -ql ansible to list all installed files.

Configuration directory: /etc/ansible/
Executable directory: /usr/bin/
Library directory: /usr/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/ansible/
Documentation directory: /usr/share/doc/ansible-X.X.X/
Man pages directory: /usr/share/man/man1/

The configuration file search order is:

(1) Path specified by ANSIBLE_CONFIG environment variable
(2) ~/.ansible.cfg or ./ansible.cfg in the current directory
(3) /etc/ansible.cfg

Ansible Host Inventory

Edit /etc/ansible/hosts to define hosts, for example:

# Ungrouped hosts
192.168.137.133
192.168.137.134

SSH Key Configuration for Ansible

Generate an RSA key pair for password‑less authentication: ssh-keygen -t rsa Distribute the public key to each target host: ssh-copy-id root@<host-or-ip> If the ssh-copy-id command is missing, install it with:

yum -y install openssh-clients

Common Ansible Modules

Test host connectivity with the ping module: ansible all -m ping If the hosts list is empty, add entries to /etc/ansible/hosts and retry.