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Best Practices

  1. Project Structure: Use a clear directory layout separating roles, playbooks, and variables for better organization. (Consider ansible-galaxy init for a template)

  2. Version Control: Keep your Ansible projects in version control systems like Git. (Branch per environment strategy)

  3. Dynamic Inventory: Use dynamic inventories for managing hosts in changing environments, especially with cloud resources. (Explore Ansible plugins for AWS, Azure, GCP)

  4. Secure Variables: Encrypt sensitive data with Ansible Vault. (Use ansible-vault for passwords and keys)

  5. Idempotence: Design tasks to be safely repeatable without unintended side-effects. (Test task outcomes before making changes)

  6. Error Handling: Use Ansible's error handling features to manage failures gracefully. (failed_when, ignore_errors)

  7. Code Clarity: Maintain readability with meaningful names and comments. (Use descriptive names for tasks and variables)

  8. Efficiency: Prefer Ansible modules over direct shell commands for cross-platform compatibility and efficiency. (Use command or shell modules only when necessary)

  9. Privilege Escalation: Run Ansible with the least privilege and use become for necessary tasks. (Audit use of become)

  10. CI/CD Integration: Integrate Ansible playbooks into CI/CD for automated testing and deployment. (Set up automated testing pipelines)

  11. Monitoring and Logging: Keep logs of Ansible runs and monitor the system's state post-configuration. (Enable Ansible logging, integrate with monitoring tools)

Project Structure


ansible-project/

├── inventories/

│   ├── production/

│   │   ├── hosts               # Production servers inventory

│   │   └── group_vars/

│   │       └── all.yml         # Variables for all prod servers

│   └── staging/

│       ├── hosts               # Staging servers inventory

│       └── group_vars/

│           └── all.yml         # Variables for all staging servers

├── roles/

│   ├── webserver/

│   │   ├── tasks/

│   │   │   └── main.yml        # Tasks for setting up the web server

│   │   ├── handlers/

│   │   │   └── main.yml        # Handlers for restarting services

│   │   ├── templates/

│   │   │   └── httpd.conf.j2   # Apache config templates

│   │   └── vars/

│   │       └── main.yml        # Variables specific to the webserver role

│   └── firewall/

│       └── ...                 # Similar structure for firewall setup

└── playbooks/

    └── setup_web_server.yml    # Main playbook that applies roles