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What is Ansible?

Published on February 25, 2021
Erika Heidi

By Erika Heidi

Developer Advocate

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open source configuration management tool that provides a minimalist server automation framework based on YAML definitions. Its simplified infrastructure requirements and accessible syntax helped make Ansible one of the most popular configuration management tools to date.

Unlike most tools in the same category, Ansible doesn’t require specialized software to be installed on remote nodes. A control machine is set up with the Ansible software, which then communicates with the nodes via standard SSH, using Python to execute remote instructions.

Ansible provides a large collection of built-in modules to facilitate automating common server tasks such as installing packages, creating and managing users, manipulating files and permissions, and managing services.

To learn more about Ansible, you can refer to the following resources:

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About the author

Erika Heidi
Erika Heidi
Author
Developer Advocate
See author profile

Dev/Ops passionate about open source, PHP, and Linux. Former Senior Technical Writer at DigitalOcean. Areas of expertise include LAMP Stack, Ubuntu, Debian 11, Linux, Ansible, and more.

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