Intermediate Ansible Interview Questions

16. How Do You Set Up a Jump Host In Ansible To Access Servers Without Direct Access?

A jump host or proxy host an intermediary server that is used to access other servers in a network that are not directly not reachable from the ansible control machine. It acts as a gateway for providing secure access to target servers especially in environments with restricted network access.

Setting up a jump host in Ansible involves 2 ways either through configuring Proxy Jump option in the SSH configuration or using the ansible_ssh_common_args variable in the inventory file. Here’s a brief guide on how to set up a jump host:

Method : Using the ProxyJump Option

i. Edit Your SSH Config File:

Open or create your SSH config file on the Ansible control machine:

nano ~/.ssh/config

ii. Add Jump Host Configuration:

Specify the jump host details in the SSH config file

Host   jump_host
    HostName   jump_host_ip
    User   jump_host_user
    IdentityFile   /path/to/your/private/key
#Replace jump_host, jump_host_ip, jump_host_user, and 
#/path/to/your/private/key with your specific jump host information.

iii. On using Jump Host in Ansible Playbooks:

In your Ansible playbook, specify the jump host using the ansible_ssh_common_args variable:

- name: Your Playbook
  hosts: your_target_hosts
  vars:
    ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyJump=jump_host'
  tasks:
    # Your tasks here

17. Can You Automate Password Input In An Ansible Playbook Using Encrypted Files?

Yes, Ansible helps in allowing you to automate password input in playbooks using encrypted files, specifically using Ansible Vault. Ansible Vault provides a secured way for encrypting sensitive data such as passwords, so that they can be stored safely for usage in your playbooks.

18. What Is The Role Of Callback Plugins In Ansible, And How Can They Be Used?

Callback plugins in Ansible play a vital role in customizing output and behavior of ansible. They are mostly used for logging, notifications, or any post-playbook actions, allowing for impressive Ansible functionality.

19. Explain Ansible Inventory And Discuss Its Various Types.

Ansible Inventory is a list of managed nodes. It can be static that is manually defined or dynamic that is generated by scripts. Dynamic inventories will fetch information from external sources like cloud providers.

20. Define Ansible Vault And Its Significance in Playbook Security.

Ansible Vault is a tool for encrypting sensitive data in Ansible playbooks, providing secure storage through usage of secrets such as passwords or API keys.

21. How Can You Implement Looping Over a List Of Hosts In a Group In Ansible Playbooks?

In Ansible playbooks, loop over a list of hosts in a group is performed by using the `with_items` or `loop` keyword directly in tasks. This allows you to iterate through the list of hosts and perform actions on each member of the group. The Jinja2 templating engine is then used within these tasks for providing the dynamic content based on playbook variables.

22. What Is The Ad-hoc Command In Ansible, And When Is It Typically Used?

In Ansible, an ad-hoc command is a fast, one liner task that you perform directly from the command line. This command helps for quick fixes or checks on remote systems.

For example, to check free disk space on a group of servers ( lets the name be group1 ) , you can use the ad-hoc command:

ansible group1  -m shell -a 'df -h'

23. Demonstrate The Installation Of Nginx using An Ansible Playbook.

For the installation of Nginx using Ansible playbook, Firstly create a playbook with tasks to update the package cache, install Nginx, and start the service. Then run the playbook with `ansible-playbook` command, specifying your inventory file and playbook name for a streamline installation process on targeted hosts. Here the playbook for this installation of Nginx is provided for Ubuntu/debian target nodes.

- name: Install Nginx
   hosts: web_servers
   become: true  # To execute tasks with sudo privileges
   tasks:
   - name: Update package cache
      apt:
        update_cache: yes  # For Ubuntu/Debian systems
   - name: Install Nginx
      apt:
        name: nginx
        state: present
   - name: Start Nginx service
      service:
        name: nginx
        state: started
        enabled: yes  # Ensures Nginx starts on boot

24. How Can You Programmatically Access A Variable Name Within An Ansible Playbook?

To access a variable name programmatically within an Ansible playbook, setup the `set_fact` module with a task like:

- name: Extract variable name
   set_fact:
    var_name: "{{ my_variable | dict2items | selectattr('value', 'eq', my_value) | map(attribute='key') | first }}"

This task sets `var_name` based on the variable name corresponding to the specified value (`my_value`). Try on adjusting `my_variable` and `my_value` accordingly.

25. Highlight The Key Differences Between Ansible And Puppet In Terms Of Architecture And Approach.

The Ansible is agentless automation tool uses YAML syntax for wrting of scripts following a push based model whereas Puppet is agent-based automation tool , uses its own DSL ( Domain Specific Language ) works on following a pull-based model.

26. What Is Ansible Tower, And What Features Does It Provide For Managing Ansible Workflows And Playbooks?

Ansible Tower is a web-based User Interface that improves Ansible’s capabilities. It comes up with providing the features such as role-based access control, job scheduling, and a centralized dashboard for efficient management and monitoring of playbooks.

27. Explain The Process Of Generating Encrypted Passwords For a User Module In Ansible.

By using Ansible-vault we are generating encrypted passwords for a user module in Ansible.

Example:

ansible-vault encrypt_string --vault-id @prompt --name 'ansible_become_pass' 'mypassword'

This command will prompt for a vault password interactively and encrypts the string ‘mypassword’ with the specified variable name ‘ansible_become_pass’.

28. Generate An Encrypted Password For a User module Using The `password_hash` Filter.

To generate an encrypted password for a user module in Ansible using the `password_hash` filter, use the following command:

ansible all -i inventory -m debug -a "msg={{ 'your_password' | password_hash('sha512', 'my_salt') }}" --vault-id @prompt

Try on replacing ‘your_password’ with the actual password and ‘my_salt’ with your chosen salt value. This command will prompt for a vault password and outputs the encrypted password suitable for using in an Ansible playbook.

29. Differentiate Between Dot Notation And Array Notation When Working With Variables In Ansible.

Dot notation is useful for accessing variables directly with provides cleaner readability (e.g., `{{ variable.key }}`), while array notation is used for dynamic variable names when dealing with special characters and spaces (e.g., `{{ variable[item] }}`).

30. In Ansible, How Can Callback Plugins Be Configured To Modify The Default Behavior, And What Role Do They Play In Optimizing Automation Workflows?

Callback plugins in Ansible are configured through the ansible.cfg file or command-line options for modifying the default behavior. They play a crucial role in optimizing automation workflows by enhancing personalized adjustments to logging, notifications, and result processing during the period of playbook execution.

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.