Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Procedure 5.2. Instructions

1. The lab command provides an inventory file in INI format in the /home/student/inventory-yaml/ directory. Change to that directory, create a copy of the inventory file and save it as inventory.yml.

   1. Change to the /home/student/inventory-yaml/ directory.

      [student@workstation ~]$ cd ~/inventory-yaml/

   2. Copy the existing static inventory file to inventory.yml.

      [student@workstation inventory-yaml]$ cp inventory inventory.yml

2. Edit the new inventory file, inventory.yml, to convert it to YAML format.

   1. Convert the groups to YAML format.

      • Remove the brackets that surround the group names and end each group name with a colon.

      • Beneath each group name, add the hosts: keyword on a line indented by two spaces relative to the group name.

      • Indent the hosts in each group by four spaces relative to the group name and add a colon at the end of each hostname.

      The exact number of spaces does not matter as long as you keep a consistent indentation.

      For example, the following group definition in INI format:

      [active_web_servers]
      server[b:c].lab.example.com

      becomes:

      active_web_servers:
        hosts:
          server[b:c].lab.example.com:

      Repeat the operation for the all_servers and inactive_web_servers groups.

   2. Convert the definition of the child groups of the web_servers group. The file in INI format lists the child groups under the [web_servers:children] section.

      • Beneath the group name, add the children: keyword on a line indented by two spaces relative to the group name.

      • Add each child group on a line indented by four spaces relative to the group name and add a colon at the end of each group name.

      For example, the following section:

      [web_servers:children]
      active_web_servers
      inactive_web_servers

      becomes:

      web_servers:
        children:
          active_web_servers:
          inactive_web_servers:

   3. Finally, convert the all_servers:children group to YAML format by putting the child groups in the children section.

      [all_servers:children]
      web_servers

      becomes:

      all_servers:
        hosts:
          servera.lab.example.com:
        children:
            web_servers:

      The resulting inventory.yml file should consist of the following content:

      active_web_servers:
        hosts:
          server[b:c].lab.example.com:
      
      inactive_web_servers:
        hosts:
          server[d:f].lab.example.com:
      
      web_servers:
        children:
          active_web_servers:
          inactive_web_servers:
      
      all_servers:
        hosts:
          servera.lab.example.com:
        children:
          web_servers:

3. To test your inventory in YAML format, use the test-ping-all-servers.yml playbook that the exercise provides. That playbook targets the all_servers group and uses the ping module to test the connection to all the servers.

   Use the ansible-navigator command to run the test-ping-all-servers.yml playbook. Add the --inventory (or -i) option to provide your inventory file in YAML format.

   [student@workstation inventory-yaml]$ ansible-navigator run -i inventory.yml \
   > --mode stdout test-ping-all-servers.yml
   
   PLAY [Pinging all servers] *****************************************************
   
   TASK [Ensure the hosts are reachable] ******************************************
   ok: [serverb.lab.example.com]
   ok: [serverc.lab.example.com]
   ok: [serverd.lab.example.com]
   ok: [servere.lab.example.com]
   ok: [servera.lab.example.com]
   ok: [serverf.lab.example.com]
   ...output omitted...