In the previous chapter, we looked at some of the basic structures to get Ansible running. We worked with Ansible inventory files, variables, and playbooks. We also looked at the examples of network modules for Cisco, Juniper, and Arista.

In this chapter, we will further build on the knowledge that we gained and dive deeper into the more advanced topics of Ansible. Many books have been written about Ansible. There is more to Ansible than we can cover in two chapters. The goal is to introduce the majority of the features and functions of Ansible that I believe you would need as a network engineer and shorten the learning curve as much as possible.

It is important to point out that if you were not clear on some of the points made in the previous chapter, now is a good time to go back and review them as they are a prerequisite for this chapter.

In this chapter, we will look deeper into the following topics:

• Ansible conditionals
• Ansible loops
• Templates
• Group and host variables
• The Ansible vault
• Ansible roles
• Writing your own module

We have a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started!