ansible/rst/gettingstarted.rst

Downloads & Getting Started
===========================

Requirements
````````````

Requirements for Ansible are extremely minimal.

If you are running python 2.6 on the **overlord** machine (the machine
that you'll be talking to the remote machines from), you will need:

* ``paramiko``
* ``PyYAML``
* ``python-jinja2`` (for playbooks)

If you are running less than Python 2.6, you will also need:

* The Python 2.4 or 2.5 backport of the ``multiprocessing`` module (`see here <http://code.google.com/p/python-multiprocessing/wiki/Install>`_)
* ``python-simplejson``

On the managed nodes, to use templates, you will also need:

* ``python-jinja2`` (you can easily install this using ansible)

Getting Ansible
```````````````

As the project is still pretty new, you will probably want to clone
the git checkout, so you can keep up with all of the latest features,
and also easily contribute back to the project (if you want).  

Instructions for installing from source are below.

You may also wish to follow the `Github project <https://github.com/ansible/ansible>`_ if
you have a github account.  This is also where we keep the issue tracker for sharing
bugs and feature ideas.

Running From Checkout
+++++++++++++++++++++

Ansible is trivially easy to run from a checkout, root permissions are not required
to use it::

    $ git clone git://github.com/ansible/ansible.git
    $ cd ./ansible
    $ source ./hacking/env-setup

You can optionally specify an inventory file (see doc:`patterns`) other than /etc/ansible/hosts::

    $ echo "127.0.0.1" > ~/ansible_hosts
    $ export ANSIBLE_HOSTS=~/ansible_hosts

Now let's test things::

    $ ansible all -m ping --ask-pass


Make Install
++++++++++++

If you are not working from a distribution where Ansible is packaged yet, you can install Ansible 
using "make install".  This is done through `python-distutils`::

    $ git clone git://github.com/ansible/ansible.git
    $ cd ./ansible
    $ sudo make install


Via RPM
+++++++

In the near future, pre-built packages will be available through your
distribution. Until that time, you can use the ``make rpm`` command to
build an RPM you can distribute and install::

    $ git clone git://github.com/ansible/ansible.git
    $ cd ./ansible
    $ make rpm
    $ sudo rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/ansible-*.noarch.rpm

Note that if you are tracking the upstream source (i.e. git), the RPM revision will not be 
bumped with every source code change.  To get around this, you can use
rpm `-Uvh` with `--force` when RPM tells you the package is still at the
same version.  This is perfectly safe to do.

Other Package Distributions
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like to package Ansible for Debian/Ubuntu, Homebrew, or BSD,
please stop by the mailing list and say hi.  We'd love to have that as well
and it shouldn't be difficult and would be happy to help.


Tagged Releases
+++++++++++++++

Tagged releases are available as tar.gz files from the Ansible github
project page:

* `Ansible/downloads <https://github.com/ansible/ansible/downloads>`_

At this point in Ansible's development, running or building from checkout is preferred
if you want access to all of the latest modules and improvements.


Your first commands
```````````````````

Now that you've installed Ansible, it's time to test it.

Edit (or create) /etc/ansible/hosts and put one or more remote systems in it, for
which you have your SSH key in ``authorized_keys``::

    192.168.1.50
    aserver.example.org
    bserver.example.org

Set up SSH agent to avoid retyping passwords::

    ssh-agent bash
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Now ping all your nodes::

    ansible all -m ping

Now run a live command on all of your nodes::
  
    ansible all -a "/bin/echo hello"

Congratulations.  You've just contacted your nodes with Ansible.  It's
now time to read some of the more real-world :doc:`examples`, and explore
what you can do with different modules, as well as the Ansible
:doc:`playbooks` language.  Ansible is not just about running commands, it
also has powerful configuration management and deployment features.  There's more to
explore, but you already have a fully working infrastructure!


.. seealso::

   :doc:`examples`
       Examples of basic commands
   :doc:`playbooks`
       Learning ansible's configuration management language
   `Mailing List <http://groups.google.com/group/ansible-project>`_
       Questions? Help? Ideas?  Stop by the list on Google Groups
   `irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>`_
       #ansible IRC chat channel