Ansible Installation and Configuration on Ubuntu — Automate Your Server Management

Introduction

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an automation language that can describe any IT environment, whether homelab or large-scale infrastructure. It is easy to learn and reads like clear documentation.

If you manage multiple servers and find yourself doing the same configuration over and over — setting up SSH keys, disabling root users, configuring firewalls — Ansible can automate the entire process and dramatically increase your productivity.

It only requires Ansible on the Control Node and Python 3 on the Managed Node.

What is the Control Node?

The system that Ansible is installed on — it controls the remote machines.

What is the Managed Node?

The remote system or host that Ansible controls. Ansible is agentless, meaning you don't need to install Ansible on managed nodes — just Python 3.

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Installing Ansible on Ubuntu (Control Node)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt install ansible

Note: Ensure Python 3 is installed on your remote server. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ships with Python 3 by default.

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Create the Inventory Folder and Hosts File

The hosts file maps the remote machines you want to control.

Folder structure:

Ansible/
├── inventory/
│ └── hosts
└── playbooks/
└── apt-update.yml

inventory/hosts

[servers]
vpsServer ansible_host=10.10.100.45
work-ToRule
10.10.45.62

You can give hosts an alias by pairing a name with an IP address. In the example above, vpsServer is an alias for 10.10.100.45.

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Your First Playbook — Update Ubuntu and Set Timezone

Create playbooks/apt-update.yml:

- hosts: '*'
  become: true
  serial: 1
  tasks:
    - name: Set system timezone to Trinidad and Tobago time
      community.general.timezone:
        name: America/Port_of_Spain

    - name: Update apt cache
      apt:
        update_cache: yes
        cache_valid_time: 3600

    - name: Upgrade all packages to the latest version
      apt:
        upgrade: dist

    - name: Check if reboot is required
      stat:
        path: /var/run/reboot-required
      register: reboot_required_file

    - name: Reboot the server
      reboot:
        msg: 'Reboot initiated by Ansible due to package upgrades'
        connect_timeout: 5
        reboot_timeout: 300
        pre_reboot_delay: 0
        post_reboot_delay: 30
      when: reboot_required_file.stat.exists

Breaking Down the Playbook

Key	Description
hosts: '*'	Target all hosts in inventory. Use an alias, DNS name, or IP to target a single host.
become: true	Grants Ansible sudo privileges.
serial: 1	Processes servers one at a time instead of all at once.
tasks	A list of individual actions to run on the target hosts.

Each task has four parts:

• name — a plain-text description of what the task does
• Collection (community.general) — the Ansible content bundle the module belongs to
• Module (timezone, apt, reboot) — the tool that executes the action
• Parameters (name: America/Port_of_Spain) — the specific options passed to the module

📚 Browse all available modules and collections at docs.ansible.com

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Running the Playbook

Step 1 — Test connectivity with a ping

ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=FALSE ansible -i ./inventory/hosts vpsServer -m ping --user root --ask-pass

Flag	Description
ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=FALSE	Skips SSH host key verification — useful for fresh servers
-i ./inventory/hosts	Points to your inventory file
vpsServer	The target host alias
-m ping	Runs the ping module to check connectivity and Python availability
--ask-pass	Prompts for SSH password

Once you get a green pong response, you're ready to run the playbook.

Step 2 — Run the playbook

ansible-playbook ./playbooks/apt-update.yml --user root -e "ansible_port=22" --ask-pass --ask-become-pass -i ./inventory/hosts

Flag	Description
ansible-playbook	Runs a full automation script instead of a single ad-hoc task
./playbooks/apt-update.yml	Path to your playbook file
--user root	SSH connection username
-e "ansible_port=22"	Injects extra variable to force port 22
--ask-pass	Prompts for SSH login password
--ask-become-pass	Prompts for sudo password (redundant when logging in as root)
-i ./inventory/hosts	Points to your inventory file

Execution Flow

1. Ansible reads ./inventory/hosts to find the target server's IP
2. Prompts for SSH password
3. Prompts for sudo password
4. Connects to port 22 as root
5. Opens apt-update.yml and executes each task in order

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Conclusion

A big shout-out to Aldo @aldo_cve for recommending Ansible in a previous post — it's been a great addition to my server management workflow.

I hope you found this walkthrough useful. Stay tuned for more posts where I share playbooks I find useful in my day-to-day infrastructure work.

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Comments

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