Chapter 1: Understanding Ansible and the Red Hat RHCE
Chapter Goal: Help the reader identify the course of the book and what they need to follow along
No of pages 10
Sub -Topics
1. Ansible and Red Hat
2. Red Hat Certifications
3. Lab systems used in the book
4. Investigating the Lab Systems
5. Installing Ansible on CentOS 8
6. Installing Ansible on Ubuntu 18.04
Chapter 2: Working with the Ansible Configuration
Chapter Goal: Gain and understanding a create Ansible configuration file and enforce their use with read only variables
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics
1. Identify the version of Ansible and the location of the configuration file used
2. Understanding the Ansible configuration hierarchy
3. Configuring read-only variables
4. Printing Ansible configurations
5. Creating basic configuration
Chapter 3: Creating an Ansible Inventory
Chapter Goal: The inventory is a list of hosts that will be managed for that project. The reader will learn to create the inventory both manaualyy and automated searches. Inventory groups allow for more directed targeting of tasks.
No of pages : 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Adding hosts to the inventory
2. Using NMAP to discover SSH hosts and add to inventory
3. Creating inventory groups
4. Printing inventory entries
5. Implementing host and group variables
Chapter 4: Using ad-hoc commands and Ansible preparation
Chapter Goal: Allow the reader to start using ansible and prepare for more automated use
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Generating a local ssh key pair
2. Testing Ansible connections
3. Using Ansible to distribute the user's public key
4. Enabling password-less access to sudo
5. Gaining invaluable help on Ansible modules
6. Creating and removing users with Ansible
Chapter 5: Writing YAML and Basic Playbooks
Chapter Goal: Playbooks are written n YAML so it is important to understand how to write YAML files and basic playbooks
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Understanding YAML files
2. Configuring the VIM text editor for YAML
3. Using Microsoft Visual Code to edit YAML files
4. Creating a simple Ansible playbook
5. Using facts in playbooks
Chapter 6: Managing Users in Ansible Playbooks
Chapter Goal: Something that is to understand and user is to create and manage users with Ansible. The user password needs to be encrypted and we can generate encrypted passwords in many ways including Python and C
No of pages: 15
Sub - Topics:
1. Using playbooks to create and remove users
2. Creating multiple users with loops
3. Using variables in playbooks
4. Using logic in the playbook
5. Using Python the generate passwords
6. Creating a C program to generate passwords
7. Managing user passwords in Ansible
8. Creating a dedicated Ansible user account
Chapter 7: Working with Variables and Facts
Chapter Goal: Playbooks can be more useful when we make use of system facts and variables. This is especially important when working with different OS families
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Linux distribution differences
2. Catering for Red Hat and Debian families
3. Deploying Apache to CentOS and Ubuntu
4. Creating administrators in both CentOS and Ubuntu
Chapter 8: Working with Files and Templates
Chapter Goal: Being able to deliver complete files or edit files or really needed to make Ansible usable. We can also use template for great customizations.
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Copying files using the copy module
2. Editing files using the lineinfile module
3. Creating Jinja2 templates
4. Deploying customized message of the day files in Linux
Chapter 9: Managing Services using Ansible
Chapter Goal: The service module is quite simple but this makes a great place to introduce handlers to restart services as files change
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. The service module and the systemd module
2. Using handlers to restart services
3. Securing the SSH Server in CentOS and Ubuntu
4. Deploying customized message of the day files in Linux
Chapter 10: Securing Sensitive Data with Ansible Vault
Chapter Goal: Sensitive data, such as passwords should not be stored in clear text. Ansible vault is the solution
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Obscuring clear text data
2. Creating encrypted files with Ansible vault
3. Creating users with vault data
Chapter 11: Implementing a Full Apache Deployment
Chapter Goal: Deploying Apache is more than simply installing the web server and starting the server. This is where Ansible really comes into its own. The playbook can easily be written to both document and execute each and every element of the deployment without anything being missed.
No of pages: 15
Sub - Topics:
1. Identifying the tasks required in installing and configuring Apache
2. Create inventory groups and variables
3. Create handler to restart service
4. Install Apache
5. Configure ServerName directive
6. Secure the DocumentRoot
7. Create web page
8. Open firewalld and ufw ports
9. Enable the Apache service
Chapter 12: Simplifying Playbooks Using Roles
Chapter Goal: A single Playbook can become a hefty document, crating roles gives you a more modular approach to larger deployments
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Centralizing code in roles
2. Using Ansible Galaxy to Create Roles
3. Migrating the Apache playbook to a role
4. Deploying the role
Chapter 13: Downloading Roles
Chapter Goal: As well as roles that we can create we can make use of pre-created roles and collections that we can install
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Understanding Roles and Collections
2. Searching roles from the command line and the web
3. Downloading the PHP collections
4. Deploying the PHP role to webserver
5. Downloading the MySQL collection
6. Deploying the MySQL role
Chapter 14: Configuring Storage with Ansible
Chapter Goal: A main configuration task in Linux is to create and manage storage, we show how we can automate this with Ansible
No of pages: 10
Sub - Topics:
1. Partitioning disks
2. Managing LVM volume groups
3. Managing LVM volumes
4. Creating file-systems
5. Mounting filesystems
6. Managing VDO in CentOS 8 with Ansible
Chapter 15: Managing Scheduled Tasks with Ansible
Chapter Goal: Another feature of administration and the EX294 exam is to be able to manage scheduled tasks with Ansible
No of pages: 5
Sub - Topics:
1. Scheduled tasks in Linux
2. Creating cron entries using Ansible
3. Creating irregular tasks with using at and Ansible
