🔧 Understanding Ansible Roles and Ansible Galaxy (with Practical Example)

Raees Qazi | DevOps Engineer | Learner | Mentor | Creator | Briller Technologies

🧠 Introduction

Today, I’m going to talk about Ansible Roles, Ansible Galaxy, and we’ll also do a hands-on project to make things clearer.

Let’s start with the basics.

🚀 What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source automation tool that helps you automate IT tasks such as:

  • Configuration management
  • Application deployment
  • Infrastructure provisioning

Ansible uses YAML files called Playbooks. These playbooks define what tasks you want to perform on remote machines (like installing packages, updating services, etc.).

🧩 What are Ansible Roles?

When you start with Ansible, you usually write everything inside a single playbook. But as your project grows, this becomes difficult to manage.
 That’s where Ansible Roles come in.

A Role is basically a structured way to organize your Ansible code — separating your tasks, variables, templates, and files neatly into folders.

Roles help you:

  • Reuse your code across multiple projects
  • Keep your playbooks clean and modular
  • Work in teams more efficiently

🏗️ Structure of an Ansible Role

When you create a role, it has a default structure like this:

Folder Purpose

defaults/Default variables (can be overridden)

files/Static files used in tasks

handlers/Handlers triggered by certain tasks

meta/Metadata like author info, dependencies, etc.

tasks/Main list of tasks to execute

templates/Jinja2 templates for configuration files

tests/For testing your role

vars/Role-specific variables

This structure keeps your automation project organized and easy to scale.

🌐 What is Ansible Galaxy?

Ansible Galaxy is a hub for sharing and downloading Ansible roles.
 Think of it like GitHub, but for Ansible automation content.

You can:

  • Find roles created by others
  • Publish your own roles
  • Save time by reusing ready-made content

✅ Good news: Ansible Galaxy comes preinstalled with Ansible — no need to install it separately.

🧰 Creating a Role

Let’s create a role to install NGINX and deploy a simple website.

Before starting, make sure:

  • You have an Ansible master/control node
  • It’s connected to at least one managed node (server)

Now, follow these steps 👇

Step 1: Create the Role

ansible-galaxy init nginx
cd nginx
ls

You’ll see a pre-created directory structure for the role.

Step 2: Add Tasks to Install NGINX

Edit the main task file:

vim tasks/main.yml

Add the following tasks:

- name: Update apt cache
  apt:
    update_cache: yes
- name: Install latest version of NGINX
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: latest
- name: Ensure NGINX is running and enabled at boot
  service:
    name: nginx
    state: started
    enabled: yes
- name: Deploy website page
  copy:
    src: index.html
    dest: /var/www/html/index.html

Save and exit (:wq).

Step 3: Add Metadata

vim meta/main.yml

Add:

author: Raees

Save and exit.

Step 4: Create the Website File

cd files
vim index.html

Now paste your HTML code here.
 If you don’t want to write it yourself, you can use this ChatGPT prompt:

Prompt:
 “Act as an expert in HTML and create an index.html with a modern design and beautiful colors that displays the text ‘Briller Technologies’.”

Once generated, paste the HTML into index.html and save.

Step 5: Move Role to Ansible Roles Directory

sudo mv nginx /etc/ansible/roles/

Now the nginx folder officially becomes a role.

Step 6: Create a Playbook to Use the Role

Go to your playbooks folder:

cd playbooks
vim install_nginx_via_role.yml

Add:

- name: Install NGINX via NGINX Role
  hosts: server
  become: yes
  roles:
    - nginx

Save and exit.

Step 7: Run the Playbook

ansible-playbook install_nginx_via_role.yml

Once it completes, copy the public IP address of your target server and open it in your browser.

🎉 You’ll see your website — “Briller Technologies” — live!

✅ Conclusion

So in this blog, we covered:

  • What Ansible and Ansible Roles are
  • How Ansible Galaxy works
  • How to create and use a custom role to deploy NGINX and host a webpage

If you found this helpful, please like, share, and subscribe for more DevOps tutorials.
 Stay tuned for more hands-on automation guides!

🌐 Online References

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raees-yaqoob-qazi-ryqs/
  • Medium Blog: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi
  • Blogspot: https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/
  • Facebook Page: https://web.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553548371216
  • YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RaeesQ.
  • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrryqs?_t=ZS-8y7t0fQfJKu&_r=1

 


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