Top 50 Ansible Interview Questions and Answers for 2024

Q1. What is Ansible and how does it differ from other Configuration Management tools?

Ansible is an open-source IT configuration management, deployment and orchestration tool. Unlike other tools, Ansible is agentless, meaning there is no need for additional software on client systems. It uses YAML-based playbooks for automation.

Q2. Explain the concept of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD).

Continuous Integration involves frequent integration of code by team members, verified through automated builds. Continuous Delivery ensures software can be released at any time. Automated tests validate each integration, reducing errors and improving software development speed. This is one of the must-know basic Ansible interview questions and answers.

Q3. What is Configuration Management, and how does it benefit organisations?

Configuration Management is systematically handling updates to maintain system integrity. It helps organisations adapt to changing requirements, prevent errors, and efficiently manage software components, as demonstrated by the NYSE example. This is amongst the top Ansible interview questions and answers you should prepare for.

Q4. Describe Ansible’s architecture and its key components.

Ansible’s architecture comprises controlling machines, nodes, inventories, APIs, modules, plugins, and more. It utilises playbooks written in YAML format to automate tasks on managed hosts. This topic must be in your Ansible interview questions and answers preparation list.

Q5. How does Ansible execute tasks on managed nodes?

Ansible communicates with managed nodes through SSH. It deploys modules on nodes by running playbooks on the controlling machine. Ansible’s agentless nature eliminates the need for third-party tools. This type of question can be considered important in the Ansible interview questions for freshers.

Q6. What is the role of Ansible Playbooks in automation?

This is another important topic you should practice while preparing for Ansible interview questions and answers. Ansible Playbooks are YAML files that define tasks to be executed on managed nodes. They provide a structured and human-readable way to automate configurations and deployments.

Q7. How does Ansible ensure idempotence in its modules?

Ansible modules are designed to be idempotent, meaning running them multiple times has the same effect as running them once. Ansible achieves this by checking the current state before making changes. This is one of the frequently asked Ansible interview questions and answers you should practice for better interview preparation.

Q8. What is the significance of Ansible roles in playbook organisation?

This topic must be included in your Ansible interview questions and answers preparation list. Roles are a way to package related playbooks, variables, and files into a reusable structure. They promote modularity, making playbooks more maintainable and promoting best practices.

Q9. How does Ansible handle secrets and sensitive data?

Ansible provides a feature called “vault” to encrypt sensitive data like passwords and API keys. These encrypted files can be used within playbooks while maintaining security. This topic can be important Ansible interview questions for freshers which are simple to understand.

Q10. What are Ansible Facts, and how are they useful in playbooks?

Ansible Facts are variables that contain system information about managed nodes. They are automatically gathered and can be referenced in playbooks to make dynamic decisions.

Q11. What is the purpose of an Ansible Inventory file?

An Ansible Inventory file lists the hosts that Ansible can manage. It can contain IP addresses, hostnames, and group information. It helps Ansible identify which systems to target. These are must-know basic ansible interview questions for freshers to help you prepare more confidently.

Q12. Explain the difference between Ansible’s playbook and role.

An Ansible playbook is a YAML file that defines tasks and automation steps. A role is a more organised structure that encapsulates playbooks, variables, and tasks, making it easy to reuse in different projects.

Q13. How does Ansible handle configuration drift, and why is it important?

Configuration drift is the gradual divergence of system configurations from their desired states. Ansible combats this by continuously applying configurations, ensuring systems remain in the desired state, and improving consistency and security.

Q14. Describe Ansible’s ‘handlers’ and their purpose.

This is one of the top basic ansible interview questions for freshers. Handlers in Ansible are tasks that only run when called by a ‘notify’ statement in a playbook. They’re often used to restart services or trigger actions that should happen after a configuration change.

Q15. What is the significance of an Ansible Galaxy role?

An Ansible Galaxy role is a pre-built collection of playbooks, tasks, and files that perform specific automation tasks. It saves time by providing reusable components for common tasks.

Ansible Interview Questions For Freshers

These Ansible interview questions and answers are designed for beginners to help them prepare for their interviews confidently.

Q16. What is the purpose of the Ansible Galaxy?

Ansible Galaxy is a platform where users share Ansible roles and modules, simplifying role distribution, installation, and management. This is one of the basic yet important Ansible interview questions for freshers.

Q17. What is an Ad-hoc command in Ansible? Provide an example.

From these ansible interview questions for freshers, we learn that Ad-hoc commands are one-line commands to perform specific tasks without writing full playbooks. For example: ansible host -m ping checks connectivity to a host.

Q18. Explain the concept of “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC).

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automates managing and configuring infrastructure using code, leading to consistent and efficient provisioning. Ansible aids in implementing IaC.

Q19. How does Ansible work?

Ansible is an open-source, command-line IT automation software application. It has two types of servers – Controlling machines and Nodes. Ansible works by connecting to nodes (clients, servers, or any configuration) on a network, and then sending a small program called an Ansible module to that node. Ansible implements modules on the node systems by running the playbook on the controlling machine. This is one of the must-know Ansible interview questions and answers you should prepare.

Q20. What are Ansible modules, and what are the two types?

Ansible modules are programs performing specific tasks. There are Core modules (maintained by the Ansible core team) and Extras modules (shipped with Ansible but not core-maintained).

Q21. Can Ansible manage both Windows and Linux systems?

Yes, Ansible is cross-platform and can manage both Windows and Linux systems. It communicates using PowerShell for Windows and SSH for Linux.

Q22. How does Ansible ensure security during communication with managed nodes?

Ansible uses SSH for communication, which provides secure encryption and authentication between the controlling machine and managed nodes. This is also one of the top ansible interview questions for freshers.

Q23. Explain the concept of an Ansible playbook role.

An Ansible role is a self-contained set of tasks, variables, and files designed for a specific purpose. It promotes code organisation, reusability, and easy sharing. Roles are a way to integrate multiple tasks together into one container to do the automation in a very effective manner with clean directory structures. Roles also enable you to automatically load related vars, files, tasks, handlers, and other Ansible artifacts based on a known file structure.

Q24. What are the different components of ansible?

This is one of the common Ansible interview questions that must be involved in your preparation list. The main component of Ansible is the Ansible automation engine, which directly interacts with various cloud services, configuration management databases (CMBD) and different users who write different playbooks to deploy the Ansible Automation engine.

There are various components in Ansible Automation engine which are as follows:

Inventories: These are a list of nodes consisting of their respective IP addresses, servers, databases and others, which need to be managed.

APIs: Like any other API, the Ansible APIs are used for commuting various Cloud services, public or private services.

Modules: These are used to manage system resources, packages, libraries, and files. Ansible modules can be used to automate numerous tasks.

Plugins: Ansible Plugins can be used to simplify the implementation of a task by building a job like an environment that basically involves pieces of code corresponding to some specific functionality. Ansible provides 100s of Plugins. The Action plugin, for example, acts as the front end to modules and can execute tasks on the controller before calling the modules themselves.

Networking: Ansible can automate different networks and services by creating a playbook or an Ansible role that easily spans different network hardware.

Hosts: The Ansible Hosts/ Node systems are machines (Linux, Windows) that are getting automated.

Playbooks: These are simple code files which describe the tasks that need to be executed. Playbooks are written in YAML format and can be used to automate tasks, and declare configurations.

CMDB: It is a database that acts as a storehouse for various IT installations. The CMDB holds data about various IT assets (also known as configuration items (CI)) and describes the relationships between such assets.

Cloud: It is a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server.

Q25. What is Ansible Tower, and how does it enhance Ansible’s capabilities?

Ansible Tower is a web-based interface and automation orchestration tool for Ansible. It provides a user-friendly dashboard, scheduling, role-based access control, and more. You must prepare these types of Ansible interview questions and answers for better preparation.

Q26. How does Ansible ensure the order of task execution in a playbook?

A. This is amongst the top Ansible interview questions for freshers. Tasks in Ansible playbooks are executed in the order they’re defined. To enforce a specific order, you can use ‘serial’ or ‘delegate_to’ directives.

Q27. What are ‘facts’ in Ansible, and how are they useful?

Facts are pieces of system information collected by Ansible when it connects to a host. They provide data about the target system that can be used for decision-making in playbooks. This is one topic that you should practice when preparing for Ansible interview questions and answers.

Q28. Explain how Ansible’s ‘when’ statement works in playbooks.

The ‘when’ statement is a conditional statement in Ansible playbooks. It allows tasks to be executed based on specified conditions, making playbooks more adaptable to different situations. This is one the most important ansible interview questions for freshers.

Q29. What is Ansible Vault, and why is it important?

Ansible Vault is a feature for encrypting sensitive data within playbooks, such as passwords and API keys. It ensures security by keeping sensitive information confidential even within version-controlled files.

Q30. How does Ansible handle dynamic inventories, and why are they useful?

Dynamic inventories in Ansible are generated from external scripts or sources, like cloud providers’ APIs. They enable automatic tracking of hosts, making it easier to manage large-scale environments.

Ansible Interview Questions and Answers For Experienced

These Ansible interview questions and answers are created for experienced professionals to help them brush up on their learnings.

Q31. Compare Ansible with Puppet.

This is one of the most important Ansible interview questions and answers for experienced professionals. The table below depicts the differences between Ansible and Puppet.

Q32. How does Ansible’s efficiency contribute to automation?

Ansible’s efficiency stems from its modular structure, agentless nature, and powerful playbooks. It can orchestrate entire application environments regardless of deployment location.

Q33. Explain the role of Ansible’s Inventories, APIs, and Playbooks.

This is one of the top Ansible interview questions for experienced professionals which states that:

Inventories: Ansible’s Inventories are like organised lists of computers you want to manage. They hold details like IP addresses and server names. Think of them as a phone book for Ansible, helping it know which systems to work on.

APIs: APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are like communication bridges between Ansible and cloud services or other tools. They let Ansible talk to them and get things done, like interacting with a friend through messages.

Playbooks: Ansible’s Playbooks are action plans written in a special language called YAML. They tell Ansible what tasks to do on which systems. It is like giving Ansible a to-do list with clear instructions, making automation easy.

Q34. How can Ansible be used for Network Automation?

Ansible extends beyond server management; it can automate network tasks by creating playbooks or roles for different network hardware. This is also one of the most asked ansible interview questions for experienced professionals.

Q35. Describe the process of installing Ansible on a CentOS system.

• To install Ansible on a CentOS system:
• Open a terminal on your CentOS machine.
• Add the EPEL repository using the command: sudo yum install epel-release
• Install Ansible using: sudo yum install ansible

Q36. How do Ansible Basic Level Interview Questions differ from those at the Intermediate and Technical levels?

From these types of ansible interview questions for experienced professionals, we learn that basic Level questions cover fundamental Ansible knowledge. As the difficulty increases, questions explore more advanced topics and scenarios.

Q37. What are the Ansible Modules?

This is amongst the top Ansible interview questions and answers for experienced professionals. Ansible modules refer to a small set of programs that perform a specific task. These modules can be used to automate a variety of tasks. There are two types of modules in Ansible – Core modules and Extras modules.

Core Modules: These are modules that the core Ansible team maintains and will always ship with Ansible itself. Core modules will also receive a slightly higher priority for all requests than those in the “extras” repos. The source of these modules is hosted by Ansible on GitHub in the Ansible-modules-core.

Extras Modules: These modules are currently shipped with Ansible. Extras modules are also mostly maintained by the Ansible Community. Non-core modules are still fully usable but may receive slightly lower response rates for issues and pull requests.

Q38. Describe Ansible’s approach to handling orchestration and configuration management.

From these Ansible interview questions and answers for experienced we understand that Ansible excels in both orchestration and configuration management. Orchestration involves coordinating tasks across systems, while configuration management ensures systems are in the desired state.

Q39. How does Ansible contribute to infrastructure scaling and high availability?

Ansible’s scalability allows you to manage a large number of nodes efficiently. Its agentless architecture and modular design enable robust automation in high-availability setups. This is one of the must-know Ansible interview questions and answers for experienced professionals.

Q40. Explain how Ansible integrates with version control systems like Git.

Ansible playbooks can be stored in version control repositories like Git. This integration enables versioning, collaboration, and the ability to track changes and history. This is one of the important ansible interview questions for experienced professionals.

Q41. What is Ansible Tower, and how does it differ from Ansible?

Ansible Tower is a commercial web-based interface for Ansible that adds features like a dashboard, role-based access control, scheduling, and more. It enhances Ansible’s usability and management capabilities.

Q42. How can Ansible be integrated with Jenkins for continuous deployment?

Ansible can be used in Jenkins pipelines to automate deployment tasks. Jenkins triggers Ansible playbooks, ensuring consistent and automated application deployment. Prepare these types of ansible interview questions and answers for experienced developers for better performance.

Q43. Explain Ansible’s approach to managing secrets and sensitive data.

Ansible provides the ‘ansible-vault’ command to encrypt sensitive data in playbooks. This ensures that sensitive information remains secure while being used in automation tasks.

Q44. Describe the Ansible Task.

This is one of the basic yet important Ansible interview questions and answers for experienced professionals as well as freshers. Ansible Tasks let you break up bits of configuration policy into smaller files. These are blocks of code that can be used to automate any process. For example, if you want to install a package or update a software, you can do it the following way:

Install <package_name>, update <software_name>

Q45. How can Ansible contribute to disaster recovery planning?

Ansible can automate the process of recovering systems to a predefined state after a disaster. This ensures rapid and consistent restoration of services, reducing downtime. You must prepare these types of ansible interview questions and answers for experienced developers.

Q46. How does Ansible support the concept of “idempotence” in its operations?

Ansible modules are designed to be idempotent, meaning that running the same playbook multiple times will result in a consistent desired state. Ansible checks the system’s current state before applying changes, ensuring stability and predictability.

Q47. Explain the role of Ansible Facts and how they can be customised.

Ansible Facts provide information about target systems. They can be customised by adding new facts using custom scripts or by overriding existing facts with specific values. Custom facts enhance flexibility in playbooks.

Q48. How can Ansible be used for application deployment in multi-tier environments?

This is one of the most important ansible interview questions and answers for experienced professionals. Ansible can deploy applications across multiple tiers by creating playbooks that define tasks for each tier, such as application servers, databases, and load balancers. This ensures consistent deployment across the entire environment.

Q49. Describe Ansible’s integration with cloud platforms like AWS or Azure.

Ansible offers modules that interact with cloud providers’ APIs, enabling the provisioning and management of cloud resources. This integration allows for infrastructure-as-code practices in cloud environments.

Q50. Explain the benefits of using Ansible’s ‘roles’ for managing complex systems.

Ansible roles provide a structured way to package related tasks, variables, and files. They promote reusability, simplify playbook organisation, and enhance collaboration by encapsulating specific system configurations and functions.

Conclusion

Stay ahead in today’s competitive landscape by mastering Ansible, a crucial tool for driving growth and innovation. These top 50 Ansible interview questions and answers are your key to success in upcoming interviews. Dive deep into the fundamentals and core concepts, empowering you to confidently navigate any interview and showcase your expertise in Ansible. Elevate your skills and seize new opportunities in the dynamic world of IT automation