Ad hoc

Tip

We recommend to use the Sandbox to play around with this example.

Tip

All the files from this section are in ad-hoc.zip.

In Hello World, we saw how Ansible facilitate the repetition of tasks. Before we get into more details and features, we will see how Ansible can help with tasks that often only done once, for example, upgrade the operating system.

Inventory

This is the same used in Hello World.

inventories/production.yml

web:
  hosts:
    managed_node_01:
      ansible_user: ansible
      ansible_password: 123

The above inventory has a single group called web that has a single managed node called managed_node_01 and the connection details.

Running

cd ad-hoc
ansible \
web \
-i inventories/production.yml \
--ask-become-pass \
--become \
-m ansible.builtin.command \
-a 'apk update'

returns

managed_node_01 | CHANGED | rc=0 >>
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.21/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.21/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
v3.21.3-659-g65d7de3fa8a [https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.21/main]
v3.21.3-657-gfc00cab06e0 [https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.21/community]
OK: 25401 distinct packages available