Basic Ansible Interview Questions

1. What Is Ansible ?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool developed by Redhat that is meant for simplifying the configuration management, application deployment, and automation of tasks. It allows us in automating repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency and efficiency in managing servers and networks using SSH protocol for make communication with the network Agentlessly.

2. What Is Inventory ?

In Ansible, an inventory is a file with specifying the information of hosts that going to be managed. It contains information such as hostnames, IP addresses, and groups of organization. The inventory can be either static or dynamic, and it may be with inclusion of variables by specific host details. It’s a key component for targeting and managing nodes infrastructure in Ansible. A sample inventory file is given below.

[web]
webserver1 ansible_host=192.168.1.11
webserver2 ansible_host=192.168.1.12

[db]
dbserver1 ansible_host=192.168.1.21

3. Explain The Concept Of Configuration Management And Its Importance In IT Operations.

Configuration management is the process of systematically handling changes to a system’s configuration by ensure consistency, reliability of the IT environment of managed nodes in a network. For better understanding refer how Ansible configure remote nodes article once.

4. What Are The Features Of Ansible ?

Ansible comes with several features that make it powerful and popular automation tool. A few of the key features are listed here:

• Agentless: Ansible does not require any agent installation on the managed nodes. It communicates with the nodes in the network using SSH simplifying deployment and reduces complexity.
• Declarative Language: Ansible uses a simple human-readable YAML syntax to specify the desired state of the system making it easy to write and understand automation scripts.
• Idempotent Operations: Ansible ensures for the achievement of desired state i.e., running a playbook multiple times has the same effect as running it once. This prevents from unintended changes ensuring consistency.
• Playbooks: Automation scripts in Ansible are known as playbooks. Playbooks are written in YAML by defining a set of tasks that to be executed on remotely specifying in the hosts section.
• Modules: Modules are used in ansible to perform specific tasks on managed nodes.They are 2 types of modules as built-in modules ( that are already created and comes with ansible ) and custom modules that are created by users.
• Inventory Management: Ansible uses an inventory file to specify the hosts information such as IP address or domainname, user details etc.. on which the automation tasks have to be executed. The inventory file can be either static or dynamic include host groups.

5. Describe Infrastructure As Code (IaC) And How Ansible Aligns With This Concept.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the way of process used for managing and provisioning the infrastructure using code instead of manual workflow process. Ansible follows this approach allowing the users to describe and manage infrastructure in a code-like manner.

6. Explain Ansible Galaxy, modules, And Plugins In The Context Of Ansible Automation.

Ansible Galaxy is a platform providing the features of sharing and downloading Ansible roles. Modules are task executional units, and plugins helps in enhancing Ansible’s functionality by extending its capabilities.

7. What Are Ansible Tasks, And How Do They Contribute To The Automation Process?

Ansible tasks are individual work units within a playbook coming with defined actions that to be performed on remote hosts, contributing to the overall automation process.

8. What Makes Ansible Stand Out From Other Configuration Management Tools?

Ansible’s agentless architecture and its simplicity in use (YAML syntax), and ease of setup contribute to its standout features among other Configuration Management tools.

9.Briefly Explain Ansible’s Architecture Through Outlining Its Different Components.

The control node communicates with managed nodes through SSH protocol executing tasks defined in playbooks. Ansible consists of a control node, managed nodes, inventory, modules, and plugins.

10. What Is The Foundational Programming Language Of Ansible?

Ansible is built on top of Python, enhancing its simplicity for clear playbooks and versatility in creating robust modules. Python’s wide range of adoption provided good community support, making Ansible an effective and flexible automation tool.

11. What are handlers in Ansible, and how are they used in playbooks?

Handlers in Ansible are tasks that are triggered by other tasks, usually used to respond for the changes that require start , stop , reload or restart the service actions. They are defined in the playbook and executed as per need.

12. Explain The Concept Of Ansible Roles And Their Significance In Playbook Organization.

Ansible roles are a way of organizing package related tasks, files, and variables providing a structured approach for playbook organization for effecient reusability.

13. How Do You Set Up a Basic Ansible Playbook to Install a Package On a Group Of Servers?

To set up a basic Ansible playbook for installing a package on a group of servers, you should start firstly by creating a YAML file, typically name something like install_package.yml. Within this file, specify the hosts you want to target, specify the tasks, and include the package installation. Here’s a simplified example:

Here I used the apt module to install the packages in ubuntu os , try on using respective package manager module with respective to the OS.

- name: Install Package Playbook
  hosts: your_server_group
  become: true  # This allows running tasks with elevated privileges (sudo)
  tasks:
  - Install the desired package
     apt:
        name: your_package_name 
        state: present  # You can use 'latest' to ensure the latest version

14. What Command Will You Use To Run An Ansible Playbook With a Specific Inventory File?

I would use the `ansible-playbook` command by specifying the playbook file and the inventory file with the `-i` option. The command will looks as follows:

ansible-playbook -i /path/to/your/inventory/file   myplaybook.yml

Replace “/path/to/your/inventory/file” with the actual path to your inventory file and “myplaybook.yml” with your Ansible playbook YAML file name. In this command the inventory file specified using the -i option.

15. Can You Provide An Example Of Using Ansible To Check The Status Of a Service On Multiple Servers?

For checking the status of a service on multiple servers using Ansible, you can create a playbook with tasks on using Ansible’s service module. A simple example is listed here:

- name: Check Service Status
  hosts: your_server_group
  become: true  # This allows running tasks with elevated privileges (sudo)

  tasks:
    - name: Check status of the 'your_service_name' service
       service_facts:
         name: your_service_name  # Replace with the actual service name

    - name: Display the service status
       debug:
         var: ansible_facts.services['your_service_name'].state

Replace ‘your_server_group’ with the appropriate group name of servers from your inventory and ‘your_service_name’ with the actual service name you want to check. This playbook uses Ansible’s service_facts module to gather facts/information about the specified service and then it displays its status using the debug module. To run this playbook run the following command on replacing with your apropriative inventory and playbook file name.

ansible-playbook -i /path/to/your/inventory/file your_playbook.yml

Ansible is a configuration management tool and an open-source product from Redhat company. Before moving into the details of Ansible, let’s explore the evolution of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The demand for an agile nature led to the rapid rise of the DevOps culture, aiming to accelerate the time-to-market for new services or features and stay ahead of competitors. Ansible has emerged as a leading configuration management and orchestration tool in the domain of DevOps, renowned for its simplicity, flexibility, and scalability. It’s widely adopted by top companies such as Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify, and more, due to its robust features and seamless automation capabilities.

Here, we have curated a list of the Top 50 Ansible interview questions and answers. These questions span various aspects of Ansible, from fundamental concepts to advanced topics like playbook development, role creation, and Ansible Tower integration. Whether you are a beginner who just starting with Ansible or you are an experienced professional (5 or 10 years of experience) gearing up for an upcoming interview, this guide provides a valuable resource to enhance your understanding and confidently tackle Ansible-related questions in your upcoming Technical interview.

Initially, automation was done through scripting to replace the manual mode of workflow. However, scripting brought out challenges such as the requirement of writing different scripts on various platforms. For example, a script written for Linux wouldn’t support Windows, and separate scripts had to be provided for different Linux distributions like Red Hat, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. The imperative nature of scripting involved specifying detailed guidelines for performing the actions making it cumbersome.

To address these challenges, configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet and Chef have emerged. Among these such as Ansible vs Puppet, and Ansible vs Chef, Ansible gained wide popularity due to its declarative nature and its use of a push mechanism with an agentless approach. Because of the declarative nature of Ansible, Users only need to specify where to act and what action to perform through its intelligence ansible determines how to execute the action using its inbuilt callback plugins for fetching information. This approach enhances efficiency and simplifies the management of different infrastructure environments. Refer to this Terraform vs Ansible to understand the difference between configuration and Infrastructure management. The below figure illustrates the Ansible Architecture.