Initial Setup

Get Ansible installed and execute your first playbook. This guide walks you through installation and running your first automation.

🎯 What You’ll Accomplish

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have:

• ✅ Ansible installed and verified
• ✅ Your first playbook created
• ✅ First automation executed

📋 Prerequisites

• Linux or macOS (or WSL2 on Windows)
• Python 3.8 or later
• SSH access to target machines (or localhost for testing)

💾 Step 1: Install Ansible

Using pip (Recommended)

python3 -m pip install --user ansible

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install ansible

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible

Verify Installation

ansible --version

🚀 Step 2: Create Your First Playbook

Create hello.yml:

---
- name: My First Playbook
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: Print hello message
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "Hello, Ansible!"

    - name: Create a file
      ansible.builtin.file:
        path: /tmp/ansible-test.txt
        state: touch

    - name: Write to file
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        content: "Ansible was here!"
        dest: /tmp/ansible-test.txt

▶️ Step 3: Run Your Playbook

ansible-playbook hello.yml

Expected output shows tasks being executed and their status (ok, changed, failed).

✅ Verification Checklist

Before moving forward, verify:

• ansible --version shows Ansible installed
• Playbook executes without errors
• File created at /tmp/ansible-test.txt

🎉 You’re Done!

You’ve successfully installed Ansible and run your first playbook. You’re ready for more advanced automation.

📚 What’s Next?

Quick learner: Ansible Quick Start

Code-first learner: Ansible By Example