Using Ansible to Detect CentOS Version and Architecture
This article demonstrates how to use Ansible playbooks and simple shell scripts to identify the CentOS major version and system architecture, while also providing promotional links to related DevOps and Kubernetes tutorials.
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The following Ansible playbook shows how to determine whether the target host is running CentOS 8 or CentOS 7:
- hosts: all tasks: - name: sjg when 8 shell: echo "Centos8" register: result - debug: var=result when: ansible_distribution_major_version == "8" - name: sjg when 7 shell: echo "Centos7" register: result - debug: var=result when: ansible_distribution_major_version == "7"
Additional checks can be performed, such as verifying the distribution name ( ansible_distribution == "CentOS" ) and the CPU architecture ( ansible_architecture == "x86_64" ).
Alternatively, a plain shell script can be used to detect CentOS by examining /etc/redhat-release :
cat /etc/redhat-release | grep 'CentOS' >/dev/null 2>&1 if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then echo "Centos" else echo "Not Centos" fi
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Recommended reading includes a series of links to tutorials on Kubernetes deployment, monitoring, scaling, Ansible role usage, and other DevOps practices.
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