How To Install Ansible on Debian 9 Stretch

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Ansible on Debian 9 Stretch. For those of you who didn’t know, Ansible is a radically simple IT automation engine that simplifies cloud computing, configuration management, program setup, intra-service orchestration, and several other IT needs. Ansible uses a very simple language (YAML, in the form of Ansible Playbooks) that allows you to spell out your automation jobs in a way that means plain English. Using Ansible you can control, multi-host, or device simultaneously using a single command. You don’t need to install the client in the apparatus or each server.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Ansible on a Debian 9 (Stretch) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 9 (Stretch).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Ansible on Debian 9 Stretch

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Ansible on Debian 9.

Download Ansible source code using git command:

git clone git://github.com/ansible/ansible.git

Next, navigate to the Ansible directory:

cd ansible

Use the following Linux command will list all available Ansible stable versions:

### git branch -a | grep stable
  remotes/origin/stable-1.9
  remotes/origin/stable-2.0
  remotes/origin/stable-2.0-network
  remotes/origin/stable-2.0.0.1
  remotes/origin/stable-2.1
  remotes/origin/stable-2.2
  remotes/origin/stable-2.3

Take a note of your desired version and execute git checkout. For example, to set Ansible version stable-2.3 run:

git checkout stable-2.3

Then, perform the compilation followed by the Ansible installation:

make
make install

Step 3. Confirm the Ansible Installation.

Test the Ansible installation by retrieving its version using the following command:

ansible --version

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Ansible. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Ansible in Debian 9 Stretch systems. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Ansible website.