Glossary

Control node

An Ansible control node is a host where Ansible commands are run to configure managed nodes

Managed node

An Ansible managed node is a host that playbooks are run against.

Inventory

Ansible playbooks must be run against an inventory of managed nodes. This package relies on pre-configured inventory files in the inventory/ directory.

Playbook

An Ansible playbook is YAML file that contains a sequence of one or more plays.

A play is a YAML document that contains a sequence of tasks. When a playbook is run, these tasks are run against the hosts that the playbook targets.

Task

A task is a YAML dictionary a unit of instruction for Ansible to execute on a given managed node. Ansible tasks can be a shell script, or use one of Ansible’s modules.

Roles

Ansible roles are a self-contained set of instructions that can be referenced in playbooks to compose automation tasks.

Molecule

Molecule is a testing and development framework for Ansible. Molecule files can be found in the molecule/ directory in each project.