Introduction
Ansible Collections are a powerful way to organize and distribute your Ansible content, including modules, plugins, roles, and more. They allow you to package and share your automation resources in a structured and reusable manner. In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the process of creating a new Ansible Collection using the ansible-galaxy command-line tool.
Links
- [Creating collections](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev_guide/developing_collections_creating.html)
- [Developing collections](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev_guide/developing_collections.html)
Step by step
Step 1: Installation and Prerequisites
Before you start, ensure that you have Ansible and the ansible-galaxy command-line tool installed on your system. If not, you can install Ansible by following the official documentation. Once installed, you'll be ready to create your new Ansible Collection.
Step 2: Initialize a New Collection
To create a new collection, open your terminal and run the following command:
``bash
ansible-galaxy collection init test.test
`
This command initializes a new collection named test.test. You should see an output confirming that the collection was created successfully.
`bash
ansible-galaxy collection init test.test
- Collection test.test was created successfully
`
Step 3: Explore the Collection Structure
After creating the collection, navigate to the collection's directory. You can use the following command:
`bash
cd test/test
`
Inside this directory, you'll find several subdirectories and files that make up your Ansible Collection's structure:
- docs/
: This directory is where you can add documentation related to your collection.
- galaxy.yml
: This file contains metadata about your collection, including its name, description, and author information.
- meta/
: This directory stores files related to the metadata of your collection, such as the runtime configuration.
- plugins/
: This directory is where you can add custom plugins.
- README.md
: This file provides information about your collection and its usage.
- roles/
: This directory is where you can add roles specific to your collection.
Content of the "test/test" directory:
`bash
.
└── test
└── test
├── docs
├── galaxy.yml
├── meta
│ └── runtime.yml
├── plugins
│ └── README.md
├── README.md
└── roles
6 directories, 4 files
``
**Step