super fast way to start testing ansible stuff locally without VMs

ansible-localhost.md

set up ansible to work on localhost

i've found this useful for debugging ansible modules and syntax without having to use VMs or test in dev environments.

install ansible

pip install ansible

make some relevant config files

~/.ansible.cfg:

[defaults]
inventory = ~/.ansible-hosts

Note: used to be hostfile = ~/.ansible-hosts

~/.ansible-hosts:

localhost ansible_connection=local

make a test playbook and run!

helloworld.yml:

---

- hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: "Print Message"
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "Hello World"

Old code: helloworld.yml:

---

- hosts: all
  tasks:
    - shell: echo 'hello world'

run!

$ ansible-playbook helloworld.yml

PLAY [all] ********************************************************************

GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [Print Message] **********************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "Hello World"
}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0