In this article we are going to cover Ansible ad hoc commands with examples.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
- One Ansible master node
- One or more client nodes
- SSH connection should be enabled between Ansible master node and the remote client servers.
Why we use Ansible ad hoc Commands ?
An ad hoc commands can be use to do simple quick task to perform some operation at that command line itself. And they are not reusable.
For e.g, if you wants to restart your infrastructure servers or get OS information on small and quick task you can use ad hoc commands.
Syntax:
ansible <group_name> -m <module> -a <arguments>
Test the connection
Before start demonstrating the ad hoc commands example let us first test our connection with Ansible client nodes.
To check my inventory file run the below command:
sudo nano /etc/ansible/hosts
So run the below ad hoc command in ansible server:
ansible all -m ping
Output:
65.0.89.82 | SUCCESS => {
"ansible_facts": {
"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
},
"changed": false,
"ping": "pong"
}
15.206.172.222 | SUCCESS => {
"ansible_facts": {
"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
},
"changed": false,
"ping": "pong"
}
If you want to run any specific group then run the below command:
Syntax:
ansible <group name> -m ping
Example:
ansible devopshint -m ping
Output:
15.206.172.222 | SUCCESS => {
"ansible_facts": {
"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
},
"changed": false,
"ping": "pong"
}
File Operations:
In this we will perform some file operation on remote host
To check there is any files or directories
ansible devopshint -a “ls”
Output:
65.0.89.82 | CHANGED | rc=0 >> 15.206.172.222 | CHANGED | rc=0 >> Sample
Create files:
ansible all -a “touch file11”
Output:
65.0.89.82 | CHANGED | rc=0 >> 15.206.172.222 | CHANGED | rc=0 >>
Output in client node1:
ansible@ip-172-31-47-246:~$ ls file11 sample
Output in client node2:
ansible@ip-172-31-41-9:~$ ls file11
Copy files across the remote nodes:
ansible devopshint -m copy -a "src=./sample dest=/tmp/sample"
Output in client node:
ansible@ip-172-31-47-246:/tmp$ ls -l sample -rw-rw-r-- 1 ansible ansible 0 Mar 3 10:07 sample
System Information:
In this system information we are going to check operating system, IP addresses and more.
Run the below command to check all about your system
ansible devopshint -m setup
Find the operating system run the command:
ansible devopshint -m setup -a 'filter=ansible_os_family'
To check memory details to your client node run the below command:
ansible devopshint -m setup -a 'filter=ansible_memory_mb'
Output:
15.206.172.222 | SUCCESS => {
"ansible_facts": {
"ansible_memory_mb": {
"nocache": {
"free": 735,
"used": 233
},
"real": {
"free": 297,
"total": 968,
"used": 671
},
"swap": {
"cached": 0,
"free": 0,
"total": 0,
"used": 0
}
},
"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
},
"changed": false
}
Find high CPU consuming processes:
To know about the highest cpu consuming processes you can use top command.
ansible devopshint -m shell -a "top -c -b | head -15"
Find high Memory consuming processes
The following command will list down the processes with higher memory consumption.
ansible devopshint -m shell -a "ps -eo pid,ppid,%mem,%cpu,cmd --sort=-%mem | head"
Conclusion:
In this article we have covered Ansible Ad hoc commands with examples.
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Reference:
