Configuration management Archive

Ansible Loop: Basics and Looping Across Multiple Tasks

Last updated: October 1, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes With an Ansible loop, you can run a task for each item in a list. Here you'll find the basics, along with practical examples, and learn how to use ` include_tasks ` to loop through multiple tasks that depend on one another. The most important points in 30 seconds An Ansible loop executes a task for each element in a list, wher {{ item }} represents the current element. The list can be included directly in the task, come from a variable,...

Ansible: What to Do with Standalone Roles?

by Matthias Döhler

Last updated: September 3, 2026 · Reading time: 9–11 minutes Ansible has been using so-called " Collections" since 2019. They are the primary method for sharing Ansible content with others. But even before Ansible Collections existed, roles were already used for this purpose. In today's ecosystem, both are still present. Find out now what "Roles" and "Collections" are all about and which one you should choose today. The Most Important Points in 30 Seconds Roles are functions; collections are...

Foreman 5.0

by Dirk Götz

Last updated: August 27, 2026 · Reading time: 7–8 minutes A new major release, Foreman 5.0, is coming soon. Since the first release candidate now gives us a pretty clear idea of what's in store, it's time to take a look at it. The Most Important Points at a Glance The version jump from 3.19 to 5.0 does not bring a flood of changes, but rather standardizes the versioning of Foreman and Katello. Foreman 5.0 supports Ruby 3.0 through 3.3; a switch to Rails 7.1 is in the works, but depends on EL 9...

Ansible and the Elastic Stack

by Dirk Wening

Last updated: August 6, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes In this article, I’d like to introduce you to the Ansible Collection netways.elasticstack, which allows you to automatically deploy and manage Ansible and the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Beats). Using a detailed example, I'll show you step by step how to set up an Elasticsearch node. The most important points in 30 seconds netways.elasticstack fully supports Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and Beats, and...

Ansible Icinga Collection

by Dirk Wening

Last updated: July 16, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes With Ansible and Icinga, you can automate the setup of your entire monitoring environment. The " netways.icinga " collection brings together eight roles that handle exactly these recurring steps for you. We'll show you what the Collection can do, where its limitations lie, and how to set up a test environment in just a few minutes using the Full-Stack Playbook. Introduction to the Collection If you run a monitoring system like Icinga, you...

Foreman & Katello Update | Fixes, CVEs, and New Releases

by Dirk Wening

Installer Fix and CVE Updates At the Foreman Release Team Meeting on July 1, 2026, it was reported that the previously malfunctioning foreman-installer-source-release is now working again. The issue was resolved by two pull requests that restored compatibility between Podman and puppetlabs-concat. In the Nightly branch, as well as in the stable branches 3.18 and 3.19, four CVE fixes will also be released on the same day. Candlepin 4.8 and OCI Images In addition, Candlepin version 4.8 has been...

Ansible basics

by Dirk Wening

Last updated: 28.05.2026 Imagine you have to install the same packages, start services and adjust configurations on 10 servers. Manually via SSH, with copy-paste commands and countless error searches. Ansible, an open source tool developed primarily by Red Hat, automates precisely these recurring tasks. It works without agents on Linux and Windows systems, uses simple, understandable languages such as YAML or JSON and enables scalable and error-free IT processes. This article shows you the...