🚀 Getting Started with Ansible: Automate Web Server Deployment in Minutes
Advait Hinde
📘 Introduction to Ansible
Ansible is a powerful open-source automation tool used for configuration management, application deployment, and orchestration. It simplifies infrastructure tasks by allowing you to describe the desired state of your systems in simple, human-readable YAML files — no custom agents needed.
Here’s why Ansible is widely loved:
✅ Agentless – Uses SSH to connect to remote nodes.
✅ Declarative – Define "what" you want, not "how" to do it.
✅ Scalable – Manage one to thousands of servers with ease.
🧩 Key Concepts
| Term | Description |
| Inventory | A file listing the target servers |
| Playbook | YAML file containing tasks to run |
| Task | A single action, like installing a package |
| Module | Pre-built code Ansible uses to perform tasks |
| Role | A reusable collection of tasks, variables, templates, etc. |
🔧 Installing Ansible on Ubuntu
On your control node (Ubuntu), run:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible
Check if it’s installed:
ansible --version
📁 Set Up Ansible Inventory
The inventory file tells Ansible where and how to connect to your servers.
Example: /etc/ansible/hosts
[local]
localhost ansible_connection=local
[server]
ansible-slave ansible_host=<ec2-ip-address>
[server:vars]
ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3
ansible_user=ubuntu
ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/home/ubuntu/key/docker_key.pem
👍 This config connects to a remote Ubuntu EC2 instance using SSH and a .pem key.
📝 Sample Ansible Playbook: Host a Static Web Page
Here’s a working Ansible playbook that:
Installs Nginx
Starts and enables the service
Copies a static HTML file to
/var/www/html
Playbook: httpd.yml
---
- name: Host the webpage using the playbook
hosts: all
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Install the nginx package
apt:
name: nginx
state: present
- name: Start and enable the service
service:
name: nginx
state: started
enabled: yes
- name: Copy the httpd index.html file to /var/www/html
copy:
src: /home/ubuntu/project/index.html
dest: /var/www/html/
HTML Page: index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Welcome Page</title>
<style>
body {
background-color: #f4f4f4;
font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
text-align: center;
padding-top: 100px;
}
h1 {
color: #333;
}
p {
color: #777;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My Web Server</h1>
<p>This page is served using Apache and Ansible.</p>
</body>
</html>
✅ Run Your Playbook
Check syntax before running:
ansible-playbook httpd.yml --syntax-check
Run the playbook with verbosity:
ansible-playbook httpd.yml -v
Verify:
Visit http://<your-ec2-ip> in your browser — your web page should appear!
🎯 Conclusion
With just a few lines of YAML, you've automated the provisioning of a complete web server using Ansible. From server setup to firewall configuration and content deployment, Ansible simplifies operations and brings consistency across environments.
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Written by
Advait Hinde
Advait Hinde
I am an Associate Platform Engineer with 2.4 years of experience in IT, specializing in Linux administration, Cloud, and Big Data. With a strong focus on managing Linux servers and Cloudera Applications. My skill set includes a basic understanding of AWS Cloud services such as EC2, IAM, VPC, as well as DevOps tools like Ansible, Git, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, and Containers. Certifications: Red Hat Certified System Administrator | Red Hat Certified Engineer | Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation (EX-407) | Certified Kubernetes Administrator (Certification ID: LF-pe1lwgmff0)