Ansible Installation & Control Node Setup ⚙️

Step-by-step setup guide for configuring an Ansible Control Node on Linux/macOS and establishing passwordless SSH authentication.

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1. Installing Ansible on Control Node

Note: Ansible Control Node must be installed on a Unix-like system (Linux, macOS, WSL on Windows). Target nodes only require SSH and Python.

🐧 Ubuntu / Debian

# Add official PPA
sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common -y
sudo add-apt-repository --yes --update ppa:ansible/ansible

# Install Ansible
sudo apt install ansible -y

# Verify Installation
ansible --version

🐧 RHEL / CentOS / Fedora

sudo dnf install epel-release -y
sudo dnf install ansible -y

🍎 macOS

brew install ansible

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2. Configuring Passwordless SSH to Managed Nodes

Ansible relies on SSH key authentication to connect to managed Linux nodes seamlessly.

Step 1: Generate SSH Key on Control Node

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "ansible-control-node"

Step 2: Copy Public Key to Managed Target Nodes

ssh-copy-id ubuntu@192.168.1.50
ssh-copy-id ubuntu@192.168.1.51

Step 3: Test Connectivity

# Ping managed hosts using ad-hoc command
ansible all -m ping -i "192.168.1.50,192.168.1.51" -u ubuntu