Automate Server Setup with Ansible

What you will build

A repeatable setup you can run against one server or fifty.

Starting point: you only need a Vultr account. This challenge is self-contained, so you can do it without having done any other.

The plan

1. Deploy two fresh Ubuntu instances with your SSH key
2. Create an inventory file listing both
3. Write a playbook that installs Nginx, creates a user and deploys a page from a template
4. Add a handler that restarts Nginx only when the config changes
5. Run it once and then again; the second run should change nothing
6. Add a third instance to the inventory and configure it with one command

ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini site.yml
ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini site.yml --check --diff

How you will be judged

• Second run reports zero changes
• Variables and templates instead of copy-pasted values
• No passwords or keys in the repository

Destroy everything you created when you are done so you are not billed for it.