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Advanced Ansible Interview Questions 1734668126

This document provides a comprehensive guide to advanced Ansible interview questions, covering essential topics such as roles, variables, dynamic inventories, and best practices. It includes detailed explanations and examples for each question, helping candidates demonstrate their proficiency in Ansible. The guide aims to prepare individuals for complex automation tasks and interviews in roles requiring Ansible expertise.

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Tushar Bedke
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17 views5 pages

Advanced Ansible Interview Questions 1734668126

This document provides a comprehensive guide to advanced Ansible interview questions, covering essential topics such as roles, variables, dynamic inventories, and best practices. It includes detailed explanations and examples for each question, helping candidates demonstrate their proficiency in Ansible. The guide aims to prepare individuals for complex automation tasks and interviews in roles requiring Ansible expertise.

Uploaded by

Tushar Bedke
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Advanced Ansible Interview Questions

Author: Zayan Ahmed | Estimated Reading time: 5 min

Preparing for a role that requires expertise in Ansible? This guide compiles advanced
Ansible interview questions to help you showcase your proficiency. Covering topics like
roles, variables, templates, dynamic inventories, Ansible Vault, and best practices, these
questions will test both your theoretical understanding and practical skills.

1. Core Concepts
Q1: What are Ansible roles, and how do they improve playbook
organization?

● Answer: Roles are a way to organize Ansible playbooks into reusable and modular
components. They separate tasks, variables, files, and templates into a standardized
directory structure, making playbooks more maintainable and scalable.

Q2: Can you explain the difference between vars, defaults, and
set_fact?

● Answer:
○ vars: Variables defined in playbooks, inventories, or roles.
○ defaults: Default variables for roles, overridden by other variable sources.
○ set_fact: Sets variables dynamically during task execution, overriding other
variable sources temporarily.

Q3: How does Ansible handle variable precedence?

● Answer: Ansible applies variable precedence based on a strict hierarchy, starting


from role defaults (lowest) to extra vars (highest). Understanding this order ensures
proper variable resolution in playbooks.

2. Advanced Playbook Techniques

Q4: How do you use include_role and import_role? What is the


difference?

● Answer:
○ include_role: Dynamically includes a role at runtime, allowing for
conditional execution.
○ import_role: Statically includes a role at parse time, making it part of the
playbook structure.

Q5: What are some use cases for block and rescue in playbooks?

● Answer: block allows grouping tasks, while rescue provides error handling for
tasks in the block. For example, using block for service deployment and rescue to
revert changes if deployment fails.

3. Dynamic Inventories
Q6: What is a dynamic inventory, and how is it different from a static
inventory?

● Answer:
○ Dynamic Inventory: Fetches host information from external sources (e.g.,
AWS, Azure, custom scripts) at runtime.
○ Static Inventory: Predefined in an inventory file (INI or YAML format).

Q7: Can you describe a scenario where you would use a dynamic
inventory plugin?

● Answer: Using the AWS EC2 plugin to fetch instances dynamically based on tags or
regions, ensuring playbooks adapt to infrastructure changes automatically.
4. Templates and Handlers
Q8: How do you use templates in Ansible?

● Answer: Templates (Jinja2 files) generate dynamic configuration files. Use the
template module to copy templates to target hosts, substituting variables defined in
playbooks or inventories.

Q9: What are handlers in Ansible, and how do they work?

● Answer: Handlers are tasks triggered by notifications from other tasks. For example,
restarting a service when a configuration file changes.

5. Ansible Vault
Q10: What is Ansible Vault, and how do you manage sensitive data?

● Answer: Ansible Vault encrypts sensitive data like passwords and keys. Commands
like ansible-vault encrypt, decrypt, and edit allow managing encrypted
files.

Q11: Can you decrypt an Ansible Vault-encrypted file on the fly during
execution?

● Answer: Yes, by providing the --ask-vault-pass or --vault-password-file


option when running playbooks.
6. Custom Modules
Q12: How do you write a custom Ansible module?

● Answer: Custom modules are written in Python, following a specific structure. Use
the AnsibleModule class for argument parsing and returning results.

Q13: Can you provide an example of a scenario where a custom module


is required?

● Answer: When interacting with a proprietary API or performing tasks not supported
by built-in modules.

7. Performance and Debugging


Q14: How do you optimize Ansible playbook performance?

● Answer:
○ Use free strategy for parallelism.
○ Avoid unnecessary gather_facts.
○ Cache facts using fact_caching.
○ Limit tasks to specific hosts with when conditions.

Q15: How do you debug an Ansible playbook?

● Answer: Use -vvv for verbose output, debug module to print variable values, and
--step to execute tasks interactively.

8. Best Practices
Q16: What are some best practices for writing Ansible playbooks?

● Answer:
○ Organize playbooks using roles.
○ Use variables and templates to avoid hardcoding.
○ Encrypt sensitive data with Ansible Vault.
○ Write idempotent tasks to prevent unintended changes.

Q17: How do you test Ansible playbooks?


● Answer: Use tools like Molecule for unit testing roles and playbooks. Run playbooks
in a staging environment before production.

9. Real-World Scenarios
Q18: How would you handle rolling updates using Ansible?

● Answer: Use the serial keyword to limit the number of hosts updated
simultaneously, ensuring minimal downtime.

Q19: Describe how you would integrate Ansible with Jenkins.

● Answer: Use Jenkins to trigger Ansible playbooks via ansible-playbook


command or Ansible plugins. Pass parameters like inventory files dynamically from
Jenkins.

10. Miscellaneous

Q20: What is the purpose of the meta directory in roles?

● Answer: The meta directory contains metadata about the role, such as
dependencies and author information.

Q21: How does Ansible handle dependencies between roles?

● Answer: Define role dependencies in the meta/main.yml file. Ansible ensures


these roles are executed before the dependent role.

Mastering these advanced Ansible concepts and scenarios will not only prepare you for
challenging interview questions but also empower you to handle complex automation tasks
in real-world environments.

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