This tutorial is part of a series we dedicated to Ansible. Previously we talked about the Ansible basics, then we focused on some Ansible modules we can use to perform some very common administration tasks, and we also talked about Ansible loops. In this article, instead, we learn how to create interactive prompts we can use to ask for user input and how to pass variables at runtime.
Egidio Docile
How to create and extract cpio archives on Linux Examples
Although the cpio archiving utility is nowadays used less than other archiving tools like tar, it is still good to know how it works, since it is still used, for example, to create initramfs images on Linux and for rpm packages, which are used mainly in the Red Hat family of distributions.
How to hash passwords on Linux
Passwords should never be stored as plain text. Whether we are talking about a web application or an operating system, they should always be in hash form (on Linux, for example, hashed passwords are stored in the /etc/shadow file).
How to perform administration operations with Ansible modules
In previous tutorials we introduced Ansible and we discussed Ansible loops. This time we learn the basic usage of some modules we can use inside playbooks to perform some of the most common system administration operations.
Introduction to Wake On Lan
Wake-on-lan (also known with the “W.O.L” acronym) is a standard ethernet feature which allows a machine to be woken up on the reception of a specific type of network packet (the so called MagicPacket). The main advantage of this feature is that it allows us to keep a machine in a low power consumption state, and be accessed only when needed.
Introduction to YAML with Examples
YAML is a data serialization language. The name itself is a recursive acronym which stands for YAML Ain’t Markup Language. It is specifically designed to be human-friendly, easy to read and write, to represent settings and data structures and to work well with modern programming languages.
How to manipulate Excel spreadsheets with Python and openpyxl
Python is a general purpose programming language that needs no presentations. It was originally written by Guido Van Rossum, and saw its first release in the year 1991. At the moment of writing, the latest stable version of the language is 3.10. In this tutorial we see how to use it together with the openpyxl library to manipulate Excel spreadsheets.
Ansible loops examples and introduction
In a previous article we talked about Ansible, a very useful provisioning free and open source software written in Python, which we can use to automate tasks on multiple machines. We saw how to install it on some of the most used Linux distributions and the basic concepts behind its usage.
How to use and install Rofi on Linux tutorial
Rofi is a free and open source application typically used in the context of very minimal graphical environments on Linux (simple windows manager like i3, instead of full fledged desktop environments like GNOME or KDE). Rofi has multiple functions: it can work as a window switcher, an application launcher or a run dialog, and can be used as a replacement for dmenu.
How to manage wireless connections using iwd on Linux
Iwd is the acronym of “iNet wireless daemon”. As the name suggests, it is a free and open source wireless management daemon written by Intel for Linux. It is designed to avoid the usage of external libraries it just relies on the functionalities integrated into the kernel.
How to migrate Apache to Nginx by converting VirtualHosts to Server Blocks
In this tutorial we will talk about how to migrate Apache to Nginx. Apache and Nginx are probably the most used Web servers on Linux. The former is the most ancient of the two: its development started in 1995, and it played a very important role in the World Wide Web expansion; it is still the most popular web server around.
How to tune Linux extended (ext) filesystems using dumpe2fs and tune2fs
The ext2, ext3 and ext4 filesystems are some of the most known and used filesystems specifically designed for Linux. The first one, ext2 (second extended filesystems) is, as its name suggests, the older of the three. It has no journal feature, which is the biggest advantage of its successor over him: ext3. Released in 2008, ext4 is the more recent, and currently the default filesystem on many Linux distributions.