Ansible manages remote machines over SSH. No agents needed. You write playbooks in YAML that describe what the target state should be, and Ansible makes it happen. SSH setup Generate a key pair on the control node and copy it to your targets: ssh-keygen -t rsa ssh-copy-id username@target_host Inventory An inventory file lists your hosts and groups them: # my_inventory.ini [web] 192.168.1.2 [db] 192.168.1.3 You can also use dynamic inventory scripts that output JSON. ...
Packer builds machine images. Ansible configures servers. Together, they let you bake your configuration straight into the image – no manual setup required after deployment. The Ansible provisioner in Packer runs your playbooks during the image build process. You write a normal Ansible playbook, point Packer at it, and when the image is ready, your software is already installed and configured. Note: If you specify a remote_user in your Ansible tasks, Packer will ignore it. The provisioner connects using the username from Packer’s own configuration. ...