# A short introduction to Ansible - T-DOSE 2012 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [October 29, 2012, 10:40am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045 "2012-10-29T10:40:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dag\_Wieers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/45deac/32.png) [@Dag\_Wieers](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dag_Wieers)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 10:40am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/1 "2012-10-29T10:40:00Z")
Hi, I did a presentation about Ansible two days ago at T-DOSE 2012 and the slides are available from:      [https://speakerdeck.com/dagwieers/a-short-introduction-to-ansible](https://speakerdeck.com/dagwieers/a-short-introduction-to-ansible) I learned from the presentation that we should probably do a small demo before showing the architecture and the list of modules to keep people more focused, otherwise it's a bit too abstract for too long for new users. Obviously the examples we showed and the short demo were the exciting bits. In three other presentations Ansible was mentioned as well, so it was a good day for Ansible in Eindhoven, NL ๐Ÿ˜‰ Based on the feedback we got and my ambitions with ansible-provisioning, I think we should start adding self-contained examples on the wiki based on ansible-provisioning for KVM and VirtualBox so people can set up and run a demo environment by simply running a sample playbook on their systems. If ansible-playbook would be capable of running playbooks and inventories from URLs, we could make it very attractive to get people started very quickly on scratch-environments with a single command.      ansible-playbook [http://ansible.cc/demo/go-vbox.yml](http://ansible.cc/demo/go-vbox.yml) or      ansible-playbook [http://ansible.cc/demo/go-kvm.yml](http://ansible.cc/demo/go-kvm.yml) where this would use the localhost and/or user for provisioning a system over the internet (e.g. minimal centos system). ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 11:27am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/2 "2012-10-29T11:27:56Z")
Excellent. Before we do this, there are some things ansible-provisioning needs to do: (A) include some templates for pxelinux.cfg (B) remove the usage of "CMDB" variables -- I don't care what they are actually called, but lots of people don't use CMDBs. The other thing I miss, relative to Cobbler, is the lack of a persistant record about what you installed. For instance, if I launch a system, it doesn't create an inventory record, therefore I don't have a place to go back and change the IP address in DNS, nor can I easily browse what I've created. I would really like to see something like an ansible-provision command line, that takes a playbook and some parameters, and then is able to use results from calling ansible to create a host record. Now, to do that, we really need an inventory file that is readable and writeable, which I think I can work on making it work in both directions. I believe we can do that. For external inventory scripts, perhaps it takes a "ansible-inventory --write-host \" and stdin contains the JSON variable information about those hosts? I don't know. Anyway, to me, I'm still trying to reconcile the holes between Cobbler inventory and Ansible. I know if we can get there, it will be amazing. So this, in my opinion, is the #1 challenge for Ansible provisioning to solve -- make the creation of hosts that need to appear in inventory for later management more fluid, and make it so that you never have to precreate hosts in inventory. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/3 "2012-10-29T11:31:23Z")
> Hi, > > I did a presentation about Ansible two days ago at T-DOSE 2012 and the > slides are available from: > >     [https://speakerdeck.com/dagwieers/a-short-introduction-to-ansible](https://speakerdeck.com/dagwieers/a-short-introduction-to-ansible) > > I learned from the presentation that we should probably do a small demo > before showing the architecture and the list of modules to keep people more > focused, otherwise it's a bit too abstract for too long for new users. What I did for mine was kept jumping between Keynote and a VM for showing examples. But yes, the PyCon audience was not familiar with configuration management much in general, so I jumped in too fast also. > If ansible-playbook would be capable of running playbooks and inventories > from URLs, we could make it very attractive to get people started very > quickly on scratch-environments with a single command. > >     ansible-playbook [http://ansible.cc/demo/go-vbox.yml](http://ansible.cc/demo/go-vbox.yml) > or >     ansible-playbook [http://ansible.cc/demo/go-kvm.yml](http://ansible.cc/demo/go-kvm.yml) We'd ideally want all the provisioning modules in core for that to happen as well ๐Ÿ™‚ That time will likely come, though I want to solve some of those core questions (in other email) first. ---
**Author:** ![jpmens1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jpmens1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jpmens1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 12:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/4 "2012-10-29T12:06:22Z")
> What I did for mine was kept jumping between Keynote and a VM for > showing examples. I wouldn't want to jump in and out -- that can get messy and I don't like watching people do that in presentations ๐Ÿ™‚ How about a short and sweet video of a screencast? Something that could be embedded into a Keynote (or other) presentation? Maybe a minute or max two. What should it show?         cat hosts         cat playbook         ansible-playbook Ideas? And while I'm at it: I'd be willing to try and do that to share. I've got a talk on Ansible coming up early November at the NLUUG in Ede, NL and that would fit in nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/5 "2012-10-29T12:48:18Z")
You haven't seen me do a live demo yet ๐Ÿ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![fangchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@fangchin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/fangchin)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/a-short-introduction-to-ansible-t-dose-2012/12045/6 "2012-10-29T16:40:00Z")
I made a [short screencast](http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?ns=1&video_id=zuVAb-U6E1k) this past weekend (4m11sec). Although the title is โ€œAgile test environment demoโ€, but ansible is explicitly pointed out both in the Description and half way into the screencast. Some ansible actions are also displayed in the screencast too (but only developers can tell ๐Ÿ™‚ This is the first one in a two-part series of CI + agile test enviornment screencasts that I am making. Please take a look. Suggestions for improvements welcome! Best, Chin Fang > > What I did for mine was kept jumping between Keynote and a VM for > > showing examples. > > I wouldnโ€™t want to jump in and out โ€“ that can get messy and I donโ€™t > like watching people do that in presentations ๐Ÿ™‚ You havenโ€™t seen me do a live demo yet ๐Ÿ™‚