Red Hat Ansible Automation Training – RHEL 8/9 (RH294) 2025

Learn to automate Red Hat Enterprise Linux tasks using Ansible with practical labs and RH294 certification guidance.

This training module is not authorized or affiliated with Red Hat, Inc. It is an independent educational resource designed to help learners prepare for the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam.

This course is part of the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) learning path and corresponds to RH294 Red Hat Ansible Automation.

The Red Hat Ansible Automation (RH294) course focuses on essential automation skills required to become a full-time Linux administrator or DevOps engineer and to validate those skills through the Red Hat Certified Engineer exam.

This course goes deeper into Enterprise Linux automation using Ansible, including playbooks, roles, variables, templates, inventories, and troubleshooting.

• Part 1: Newly added lectures based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RH294)

• Part 2: Original lectures based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RH294)
  

Part 1: Course Content

Red Hat Ansible Automation Training – RHEL 9 (RH294)

Ansible Setup in AWS Environment

• Getting Started with This Section

• Set Up an EC2 Instance as an Ansible Control Node

• Install Ansible on Control Node

• Set Up Two Client Machines as Managed Nodes

• Enable SSH communication

• Add Same User to All Machines

• Generate SSH Key for Password-Free Access

• Create Host Group in Inventory File

• Test Connection Using Ad-Hoc Commands

• Guided Exercise - 1

• Guided Exercise - 2

Mastering Ansible Inventory and ansible-navigator: A Step-by-Step guide

• Getting Started with This Section

• Understanding Ansible Inventory

• Static vs Dynamic Inventory in Ansible

• How to Add Host Entries in Inventory

• Adding Hosts with Custom Ports and Users

• Using Host Ranges in Ansible Inventory

Getting Started with Ansible Navigator: Installation, Modes, and Usage

• Ansible Navigator: Quick Overview

• Navigator Modes Explained: Run, Inventory, Collections & More

• ansible-navigator vs ansible-playbook: Key Differences

• Installing ansible-navigator

• Setting Up ansible-navigator

• View Inventory with ansible-navigator (stdout mode)

• Explore Inventory in TUI Mode Using ansible-navigator

Managing Ansible Configuration Files

• Configuring Ansible Basics

• Setting Up User-Specific Ansible Configuration

• Defining Inventory File Path in Ansible Config

• Working with ansible-navigator Configuration File

Ansible Navigator - Scenario Based Guided Lab

• Getting Started with this Section

• Hands-On Lab 1

• Hands-On Lab 2

• Hands-On Lab 3

• Hands-On Lab 4

Implementing an Ansible Playbook

• Getting Started with this Section

• What is an Ansible Playbook

• Ansible Playbook Syntax and Formatting

• Lab Exercise: Creating Your First Ansible Playbook

• Lab Exercise: Run Playbook Using Ansible Navigator

• Lab Exercise: Ansible Navigator with EE Enabled

• Lab Exercise: Directory Creation Using Playbook

Ansible Variable and Facts

• Getting Started with this Section

• Introduction to Ansible Variables

• Valid and Invalid Variable Names

• Defining Group Variables in Ansible Inventory

• Defining Group Variables via group_vars

• Defining Host Variables

• Defining Variables in Ansible Playbooks

• Overriding Variables with ansible playbook

• Overriding Variables with ansible-navigator

• Use Dictionaries as Variables in Ansible

• Hands-On: Use Dictionaries

• Capturing Output with Registered Variables

• Hands-On: Capturing Output with register

Managing Secrets in Ansible

• Introduction to Ansible Vault and Secret Storage

• Ansible Vault: File Encryption

• Ansible Vault: Using Password Files for Encryption

• Ansible Vault: Modify Encrypted Files

• Hands-On 1: Secure User Creation with Ansible Vault

• Hands-On 2: Secure User Creation with Ansible Vault

• Hands-On 3: Secure User Creation with Ansible Vault

• Hands-On 4: Secure User Creation with Ansible Vault

• Hands-On 5: Secure User Creation with Ansible Vault

Task Control Implementation in Ansible

• Getting Started with this Section

• Task Iteration with Loops in Ansible

• Hands-On: Installing Multiple Packages Using Loops

• Loop with a Variable List

• Hands-On: Iterating Variable Lists with Loops

• Ansible Loops with List of Dictionaries

• Hands-On 1: Looping Through Dictionary Lists

• Hands-On 2: Looping Through Dictionary Lists

• Earlier-style Loop Keywords: with_items, with_dict etc

• Hands-On 1: Register with Loop in Ansible

• Hands-On 2: Register with Loop in Ansible

Implementing Conditional Task Control

• Running Tasks Conditionally

• Hands-On: Install Apache Only if RAM > 2GB

• Hands-On: Run Task Only if OS is Debian

• Hands-On: Run Task When web_enabled is True

• Hands-On: Run Task if RAM > 2GB AND OS is CentOS

• Hands-On: Run Task if OS is Ubuntu OR Debian

Deploying Files to Managed Hosts

• Describing File Modules

• Hands-On: Create a Directory

• Hands-On: Copy a File to Remote

• Hands-On: Fetch File From Remote to Local

• Hands-On: Insert Line Using lineinfile Module

• Hands-On: Insert Config Block Using blockinfile Module

Deploying Custom files with Jinja2 Templates

• Introduction to Jinja Templating in Ansible

• Control Structures with Loops and Variables

• Hands-On: Control Structures

• Using Ansible Facts in Jinja2 Templates

• Guided Exercise - 1

• Guided Exercise - 2

• Guided Exercise - 3

Managing Complex Plays and Playbooks

• Selecting Hosts with Host Patterns

• Hands-On: Defining Ansible Host Patterns

• Hands-On: Defining Ansible Host Patterns

• Including and Importing Files

• Include vs Import in Ansible

• Import_playbook in Ansible

• Hands-On 1: Include and Import Files – Apache Setup

• Hands-On 2: Include and Import Files – Apache Setup

• Hands-On 3: Include and Import Files – Apache Setup

Guided Exercise: Apache Web Server Automation

• Overview of the Project

• Hands-On Practice 1

• Hands-On Practice 2

Modular Playbook Design with Roles and Collections

• Describing Role Structure

• Hands-On Project: Automate Server Hardening

• Hands-On: Roles for User and Timezone Setup

• Hands-On: Role for Firewall Custom Port Access

• Hands-On: Role for SSH Configuration

• Hands-On: Use Roles in a Playbook

• Hands-On: Execute the Playbook

• Hands-On: Verify Changes on Client Node

Using External Ansible Roles from Ansible Galaxy

• Overview: Using External Roles from Galaxy

• Hands-On: Install External Role geerlingguy.nginx

• Hands-On: Create a Playbook with External Role

• Hands-On: Run Playbook with ansible-playbook

• Hands-On: Run Playbook with ansible-navigator

Troubleshooting in Ansible: Debugging and Error Handling

• Analyzing Ansible Log Files

• Using the debug Module for Troubleshooting

• Handling Errors Gracefully in Ansible

• Debugging Techniques in Ansible

• Using check_mode to Test Playbook Execution

Part 2: Course Content

Red Hat Ansible Automation Training – RHEL 8 (RH294)

Introduction

• What is Ansible?

• Ansible Limitations

• Ansible Architecture

• Overview of Ansible Setup

• Quiz1

Ansible Installation

• Installing Ansible

• Guided Exercise

Deploying Ansible

• Ansible Components

  - Ansible Configuration

  - Host Inventory

  - Core Modules

  - Custom Modules

  - Playbooks

  - Connection Plugins

• Ansible Host Inventories

• Guided Exercise: Building an Ansible Inventory

• Customizing Ansible

• Managing Ansible Configuration files

AD HOC Commands With Ansible

• Syntax of Ad Hoc Command

• Ansible Modules

• Ansible Command-line Options

• Idempotent behavior of Ansible Modules

• Guided Exercise

Implementing Playbooks

• Overview of Playbook Syntax

• Writing and Running Playbooks

• Lab - Write a Simple Playbook, User Creation task

• Guided Exercise - Web Server Installation

• Guided Exercise - Multiple Tasks

Managing Variables & Facts in Ansible

• Overview of variables in Ansible

• Lab-Managing Variables

• Hosts & Group variables

• Lab on Host & Group Variables

• Ansible Facts

Managing Secrets

• Ansible Vault Command

• Lab - Edit, encrypt, decrypt, and view files

• Guided Exercise - 1

• Guided Exercise - 2

Implementing Task Control

• Manage task control, handlers, and task errors in Ansible Playbooks.

• Task Iteration with Loops

• Lab - Simple Loops, Loops over a List of Hashes

• Lab - with_items, with_file

• Lab - using register variables with loops

• Lab - Running tasks Conditionally using when statement

• Lab - when statement using ansible facts

• Lab - Testing multiple conditions using when statement

• Lab - "in" keyword

• Lab - Combining Loops & Conditional Tasks

• Lab - Combining Conditionals & Register Varaibles

• Ansible Handlers

• Lab - Ansible Handlers

Handling Task Failures

• Managing task errors in plays - ignore_errors

• Specifying task failure Conditions

• failed_when keyword

• changed_when keyword

• Guided Exercise

Deploying files to managed hosts

• Describing files modules

• Lab - copy & fetch modules

• Lab - lineinfile & blockinfile modules

• Lab - modify file attributes such as SELinux Context

• Lab - stat module

• Guided Exercise

Deploying Custom files with Jinja2 Templates

• Overview of Jinja Templates

• Control Structure - using loops, variables

• Lab - for, loop.index variable, if else in Jinja2 Templates

• Guided Exercise

Configuring Parallelism

• About Parallelism in Ansible

• Managing rolling updates - serial keyword

• Guided Exercise - Forks Parameter

• Guided Exercise - Serial Keyword

Including & Importing Files

• Overview of Importing & Including files

• Import_playbook & import_tasks

• define variables using import_tasks

• Include_tasks and its comparison with import_tasks

• Guided Exercise

Simplifying Playbooks with Roles

• Ansible Roles

• Create Ansible Roles

• Lab: Simplifying Playbooks with Roles

Troubleshooting Ansible

• Log Files for Ansible

• The Debug Module

• Managing Errors : --syntax-check, --step, --list-tasks, --start-at-tasks

• Debugging

• Using check mode as a Testing Tool

• check_mode

• Guided Exercise

• Last Lecture

Bonus

• Linux EX294 with Ansible Sample Practice Exams - OS Version 8