This page describes how to install Ansible on different platforms.
Ansible is an agentless automation tool that by default manages machines over the SSH protocol. Once installed, Ansible does
not add a database, and there will be no daemons to start or keep running. You only need to install it on one machine (which could easily be a laptop) and it can manage an entire fleet of remote machines from that central point. When Ansible manages remote machines, it does not leave software installed or running on them, so there's no real question about how to upgrade Ansible when moving to a new version.
You install Ansible on a control node, which then uses SSH (by default) to communicate with your managed nodes (those end devices you want to automate).
Currently Ansible can be run from any machine with Python 2 (version 2.7) or Python 3 (versions 3.5 and higher) installed. Ansible 2.11 will make Python 3.8 a soft dependency for the control node, but will function with the aforementioned requirements. Ansible 2.12 will require Python 3.8 or newer to function on the control node. Starting with Ansible 2.11, the project will only be packaged for Python 3.8 and newer.
Windows is not supported for the control node, read more about this in `Matt Davis's blog post <http://blog.rolpdog.com/2020/03/why-no-ansible-controller-for-windows.html>`_.
When choosing a control node, bear in mind that any management system benefits from being run near the machines being managed. If you are running Ansible in a cloud, consider running it from a machine inside that cloud. In most cases this will work better than on the open Internet.
macOS by default is configured for a small number of file handles, so if you want to use 15 or more forks you'll need to raise the ulimit with ``sudo launchctl limit maxfiles unlimited``. This command can also fix any "Too many open files" error.
Ansible 2.11 will make Python 3.8 a soft dependency for the control node, but will function with the aforementioned requirements. Ansible 2.12 will require Python 3.8 or newer to function on the control node. Starting with Ansible 2.11, the project will only be packaged for Python 3.8 and newer.
Please note that some modules and plugins have additional requirements. For modules these need to be satisfied on the 'target' machine (the managed node) and should be listed in the module specific docs.
* By default, before the first Python module in a playbook runs on a host, Ansible attempts to discover a suitable Python interpreter on that host. You can override the discovery behavior by setting the :ref:`ansible_python_interpreter<ansible_python_interpreter>` inventory variable to a specific interpreter, and in other ways. See :ref:`interpreter_discovery` for details.
You should only run ``ansible-base`` from ``devel`` if you are modifying ``ansible-base``, or trying out features under development. This is a rapidly changing source of code and can become unstable at any point.
..note:: On older Ubuntu distributions, "software-properties-common" is called "python-software-properties". You may want to use ``apt-get`` instead of ``apt`` in older versions. Also, be aware that only newer distributions (in other words, 18.04, 18.10, and so on) have a ``-u`` or ``--update`` flag, so adjust your script accordingly.
..note:: This method has been verified with the Trusty sources in Debian Jessie and Stretch but may not be supported in earlier versions. You may want to use ``apt-get`` instead of ``apt`` in older versions.
The instructions can be found in :ref:`from_pip`. If you are running macOS version 10.12 or older, then you should upgrade to the latest ``pip`` to connect to the Python Package Index securely. It should be noted that pip must be run as a module on macOS, and the linked ``pip`` instructions will show you how to do that.
If you have Ansible 2.9 or older installed, you need to use ``pip uninstall ansible`` first to remove older versions of Ansible before re-installing it.
Ansible can be installed with ``pip``, the Python package manager. If ``pip`` isn't already available on your system of Python, run the following commands to install it::
If you have Ansible 2.9 or older installed, you need to use ``pip uninstall ansible`` first to remove older versions of Ansible before re-installing it.
Running ``pip`` with ``sudo`` will make global changes to the system. Since ``pip`` does not coordinate with system package managers, it could make changes to your system that leaves it in an inconsistent or non-functioning state. This is particularly true for macOS. Installing with ``--user`` is recommended unless you understand fully the implications of modifying global files on the system.
Older versions of ``pip`` default to http://pypi.python.org/simple, which no longer works.
Please make sure you have the latest version of ``pip`` before installing Ansible.
If you have an older version of ``pip`` installed, you can upgrade by following `pip's upgrade instructions <https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/#upgrading-pip>`_ .
In Ansible 2.10 and later, The `ansible/ansible repository <https://github.com/ansible/ansible>`_ contains the code for basic features and functions, such as copying module code to managed nodes. This code is also known as ``ansible-base``.
You should only run ``ansible-base`` from ``devel`` if you are modifying ``ansible-base`` or trying out features under development. This is a rapidly changing source of code and can become unstable at any point.
If you have Ansible 2.9 or older installed, you need to use ``pip uninstall ansible`` first to remove older versions of Ansible before re-installing it.
Replace ``devel`` in the URL mentioned above, with any other branch or tag on GitHub to install older versions of Ansible (prior to ``ansible-base`` 2.10.) This installs all of Ansible.
If you have Ansible 2.9 or older installed, you need to use ``pip uninstall ansible`` first to remove older versions of Ansible before re-installing it.
In Ansible 2.10 and later, The `ansible/ansible repository <https://github.com/ansible/ansible>`_ contains the code for basic features and functions, such as copying module code to managed nodes. This code is also known as ``ansible-base``.
You should only run ``ansible-base`` from ``devel`` if you are modifying ``ansible-base`` or trying out features under development. This is a rapidly changing source of code and can become unstable at any point.
If you want to use Ansible Tower as the control node, do not use a source installation of Ansible. Please use an OS package manager (like ``apt`` or ``yum``) or ``pip`` to install a stable version.
Packaging Ansible or wanting to build a local package yourself, but don't want to do a git checkout? Tarballs of releases are available from ``pypi`` as https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-{{VERSION}}.tar.gz. You can make VERSION a variable in your package managing system that you update in one place whenever you package a new version. Alternately, you can download https://pypi.python.org/project/ansible to get the latest stable release.
..note::
If you are creating your own Ansible package, you must also download or package ``ansible-base`` as part of your Ansible package. You can download it as https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible-base/ansible-base-{{VERSION}}.tar.gz.
As of Ansible 2.9, shell completion of the Ansible command line utilities is available and provided through an optional dependency
called ``argcomplete``. ``argcomplete`` supports bash, and has limited support for zsh and tcsh.
You can install ``python-argcomplete`` from EPEL on Red Hat Enterprise based distributions, and or from the standard OS repositories for many other distributions.
For more information about installing and configuration see the `argcomplete documentation <https://argcomplete.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>`_.
Installing ``argcomplete`` on RHEL, CentOS, or Fedora
