Ansible System Setup Playbook

Overview

This Ansible playbook performs basic system setup on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers. It includes:

• Installing security updates for the kernel (for web servers only)
• Creating a user named padawan
• Installing and configuring Apache (httpd) for web servers
• Ensuring firewalld is installed, running, and configured to allow HTTP traffic

Requirements

• Ansible installed on the control node
• Inventory defining groups such as [web]
• Target systems running RHEL-based distributions

Usage

1. Ensure you have an inventory file (inventory.ini) with a [web] group, e.g.:

   [web]
   node1 ansible_host=192.168.1.100 ansible_user=root
   

2. Run the playbook with:

   ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini system_setup.yml

Playbook Breakdown

• ansible.builtin.dnf: Installs packages (httpd, firewalld, kernel updates)
• ansible.builtin.user: Creates a system user
• ansible.builtin.service: Manages systemd services
• ansible.posix.firewalld: Configures firewall rules