Ansible Roles

As playbooks grow, they become hard to manage. Roles provide a way to organize tasks, handlers, variables, and templates into reusable, shareable components. A role is like a mini‑playbook with a standard directory structure.

What Is a Role?

A role is a set of files that encapsulate a specific function – e.g., installing and configuring nginx, setting up a database, or deploying an application. Roles promote reuse and clean separation of concerns.

Roles are the building blocks for reusable Ansible automation.

Role Directory Structure

Create a role using ansible-galaxy init role_name. The typical structure:

rolename/
├── tasks/       # main.yml – list of tasks
├── handlers/    # main.yml – handlers
├── templates/   # .j2 files
├── files/       # static files
├── vars/        # main.yml – high‑priority variables
├── defaults/    # main.yml – default variables (lowest priority)
├── meta/        # dependencies and metadata
└── README.md

Creating a Simple Role

Initialize a role called nginx:

ansible-galaxy init nginx

Edit nginx/tasks/main.yml:

---
- name: Install nginx
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: present
  become: yes

- name: Start nginx
  service:
    name: nginx
    state: started
    enabled: yes
  become: yes

Add a handler in nginx/handlers/main.yml:

- name: restart nginx
  service:
    name: nginx
    state: restarted
  become: yes

Using a Role in a Playbook

Create a playbook site.yml:

---
- name: Apply nginx role to webservers
  hosts: webservers
  roles:
    - nginx

Run the playbook. Ansible automatically includes tasks, handlers, etc., from the role.

Role Variables and Defaults

Define default variables in defaults/main.yml (lowest priority) and mandatory variables in vars/main.yml. Override them in the playbook:

roles:
  - role: nginx
    vars:
      nginx_port: 8080

Two Minute Drill

Roles organize tasks, handlers, vars, and templates into reusable components.
Use ansible-galaxy init rolename to create a role skeleton.
Apply roles in a playbook using the roles keyword.
Variables can be set in defaults/ (low priority) or vars/ (high).

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