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DevOps / Ansible Interview questions

Define an inventory file in Ansible?

An inventory file lists the managed nodes Ansible can operate on, organized into groups so playbooks can target them by name. It can be as simple as a static INI or YAML file, or generated dynamically by querying a cloud provider or CMDB.

# INI-style static inventory
[webservers]
web1.example.com
web2.example.com

[dbservers]
db1.example.com ansible_user=admin

[production:children]
webservers
dbservers

Groups can nest other groups (as shown with production:children), and per-host or per-group variables can be attached directly in the inventory or via separate group_vars/host_vars directories. Playbooks then reference these groups in their hosts: field, so the same playbook can be pointed at different environments just by swapping the inventory file.

What is the purpose of grouping hosts in an inventory?
How can the same playbook target different environments?

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