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Understand Core Components of Ansible - Modules

Using built-in modules is one of the ways to extract a lot Ansible's power. In this lab, we go through managing file ownership, copying information, installing software, and managing services. *This course is not approved or sponsored by Red Hat.*

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Lab Info
Level
Intermediate
Last updated
Sep 23, 2025
Duration
15m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Collect Facts

    If we're going to populate index.html with facts from the server, we need to collect them first.

    ansible localhost -m setup --tree /tmp/facts

  2. Challenge

    Install Apache

    Rather than using yum to install httpd we're going to use Ansible.

    ansible localhost -m yum -a "name=httpd state=present" --become

    We need to use the --become flag so that Ansible knows to elevate for root priveleges.

  3. Challenge

    Copy the Server's Facts into `index.html`

    If we look in the directory we used in the first task, there's a file named 127.0.0.1 with all the server's facts. Using Ansible we can just copy that into index.html.

    ansible localhost -m copy -a "src=/tmp/facts/127.0.0.1 dest=/var/www/html/index.html mode=0600 owner=apache group=apache" --become

    We need to use --become because /var/www/html isn't writable unless you're the apache or root user and we're trying to make the file owned by someone who isn't ansible.

  4. Challenge

    Make Sure Apache is Running

    We've installed Apache, but it isn't running by default. Luckily we can start and manage services with Ansible.

    ansible localhost -m service -a "name=httpd state=started enabled=yes" --become

    Again, we need to use --become because only root can start a service.

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