Run Ansible Playbook from Jenkins

In our previous articles, we learned how to install Jenkins and Ansible and how to play with them. In this article, We are going to learn how to run Ansible Playbooks from Jenkins. You can run the Ansible playbook through Jenkins in multiple ways. In this tutorial we are going to learn about the default method which is best and the recommended method that Ansible to be configured on Jenkins Master to run Ansible job.

Prerequisites

Jenkins Server up and running

You can follow this tutorial and install Jenkins

Ansible installed on Jenkins server

You can follow this tutorialand install Ansible

Install Ansible Plugin in Jenkins

To use Ansible and run Ansible’s playbook through Jenkins, you need to, install Ansible Plugin. To install Ansible Plugin, you need to follow the steps below:

Go to Manage Jenkins

Go to Manage Plugins

Search for Ansible plugin

Install the Ansible plugin

Configure Ansible in Jenkins Global Tool Configuration

Go to Manage Jenkins –> Global Tool Configuration

Then search for Ansible

After that:Ansible installations > Add Ansible

Provide the name as ansible (you can use any name) and /usr/bin/as Path to ansible executables directory space. (You can find this path by execusting ‘which ansible’ on the server

Click Save button

Now, we have almost finished with our configurations, we have two methods of running the playbook through Jenkins jobs:

Jenkins Freestyle Job

Jenkins Pipeline Job

Method 01: Run Ansible Playbook as Jenkins Freestyle Job

Navigate to Jenkins Dashboard

Then click on New Item

Then provide a name for Enter an item name field & choose Freestyle project option

Then click on Ok button

After that it will redirect you to the Job Configure section. In that section navigate to Build section and choose Invoke Ansible Playbook as Add build step option

After that configure the rest acording to your Ansible Playbook configuration

(As an example, we are going to use name ansible for Ansible Installtion because we used ansible as name in the Ansible installations > Add Ansible step and I am going use /home/ubuntu/ansible-playbook/ansible.yml as Playbook path because my Playbook is located at that directory)

Save the Job and click on Build Now

Verify the Console log

Method 02: Run Ansible Playbook with Jenkins Pipeline Job

Navigate to Jenkins Dashboard

Then click on New Item

Then provide a name for Enter an item name field & choose Pipelinet option

Then click on Ok button

After that it will redirect you to the Job Configure section. In that section navigate to Advanced Project Options section and choose Pipeline Script as Definition

In Script section paste below script:

pipeline {
    agent any
    stages {
        stage(" execute Ansible") {
           steps {
                ansiblePlaybook (
                    installation: 'ansible', //Name of the Ansible tool which you had provided in Jenkins Tools configuration
                    inventory: '', //Ansible inventory file path
                    playbook: '/home/ubuntu/ansible-playbook/ansible.yml' //Name along with the path of the ansible playbook
                )
            }    
        }  
    }
}

Save the Job and click on Build Now

Verify the Console log

What's next

In our next tutorial we are going to learn How we can run Ansible Playbook through Jenkins by Executing Shell Command

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to run Ansible Playbook using Jenkins. If you have any issue regarding this tutorial, mention your issue in comment section or reach me through my E-mail. You can obtain all the related script files for this tutorial from this GitHub repository.

Happy Coding