Free Online Course · Self-paced

Ansible Tutorial for Beginners [RHCE EX294 Exam]

Free, hands-on Ansible tutorial for beginners that takes you from zero to RHCE EX294. Rocky Linux 10 lab setup, playbooks, roles, vaults, and AWS provisioning — 49 lessons across 12 chapters, every example tested on Rocky Linux 10.

  • 49 parts
  • ~599 min total
  • Beginner to Advanced
  • Updated Aug 2026
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Ansible Tutorial for Beginners [RHCE EX294 Exam]
By Last updated

This tutorial covers everything you need to become a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) on RHEL 10 and compatible distros. With RHEL 8 and later, Red Hat overhauled the RHCE program to focus on data-center automation with Ansible instead of advanced Linux topics, so the syllabus below is built around the RHCE EX294 exam objectives.

We start by setting up your own lab environment — hands-on practice is the only thing that makes Ansible click — then walk through inventory, playbooks, templates, roles, vaults, Rocky Linux administration tasks, and finally an optional AWS provisioning example. Every chapter is short, idempotent, and tested on Rocky Linux 10.

If you are new here, click Start the course and you will be taken to the first lesson. If you already know the basics, jump straight to the chapter you need — each lesson is also self-contained.

How to use this course

Ansible rewards repetition with small, idempotent playbooks. Read a lesson, type the YAML yourself, and run ansible-playbook with --check before applying changes on shared lab hosts. The early chapters build inventory and ad hoc commands; mid-course chapters introduce Jinja2 templates, roles, and handlers; later chapters cover Vault, troubleshooting, and a full AWS provisioning walkthrough.

When a lesson touches Rocky Linux and RHEL-family administration (users, firewalld, SELinux), it assumes you can SSH into the managed node as a user with passwordless sudo. For controller setup on your workstation, see install Ansible and keep Python 3 and pip available for collections installed from Ansible Galaxy.

Lab layout

Role Purpose
Control node Runs ansible, ansible-playbook, and Galaxy collections
Managed nodes 1–3 Rocky or RHEL VMs for playbook targets
Optional AWS account Final chapter provisions EC2 with dynamic inventory

Use SSH keys rather than passwords in inventory.ini. Store secrets in Ansible Vault once you reach the security chapters instead of leaving plaintext credentials in group_vars.

RHCE EX294 topic map

Objective area Where it appears in this course
Inventories and ad hoc commands Getting Started, inventory patterns
Playbooks, handlers, conditionals Core playbook chapters
Roles and Galaxy content Roles, collections, and Galaxy imports
Templates and files Jinja2 templates, copy vs template
Vault and variables Vault encrypt/decrypt, group_vars layering
System administration tasks User, package, service, firewall, and SELinux modules
Troubleshooting Debug strategies, verbosity, common module errors

Pair this course with the Shell scripting tutorial for custom modules and the Kubernetes tutorial when you automate cluster bootstrap after hosts are provisioned.

What you'll learn

  • Stand up a complete Ansible control node + managed nodes lab from scratch
  • Write idempotent playbooks, roles, and reusable Jinja2 templates
  • Use loops, conditionals, handlers, blocks, and tags for real automation
  • Automate Rocky Linux administration tasks tested on EX294
  • Encrypt secrets with Ansible Vault and optionally provision AWS infrastructure
  • Pass Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE EX294) automation tasks confidently

Prerequisites

  • Comfortable with Linux command line (basic file, user, package management)
  • A workstation running Rocky Linux 10, RHEL 10, or a comparable RHEL-compatible distro
  • SSH access to at least one managed node (a VM, container, or cloud instance)
  • Basic knowledge of YAML (helpful but not required — covered in Chapter 4)

Syllabus

12 chapters · 49 lessons · ~599 min of reading

  1. 1 Getting Started 2 lessons
    1. Part 1 RHCE EX294 exam objectives and study plan 10 min read
    2. Part 2 What is Ansible? Architecture and components 21 min read
  2. 2 Installation and Lab Setup 5 lessons
    1. Part 3 EX294 practice lab setup on Rocky Linux 10 10 min read
    2. Part 4 Installing Ansible on the control node 13 min read
    3. Part 5 Ansible configuration file (ansible.cfg) 11 min read
    4. Part 6 Ansible project directory structure 11 min read
    5. Part 7 ansible-navigator.yml settings 16 min read
  3. 3 Inventory and Connectivity 6 lessons
    1. Part 8 Ansible inventory files 13 min read
    2. Part 9 group_vars, host_vars and inventory patterns 12 min read
    3. Part 10 Using Ansible ad-hoc commands 14 min read
    4. Part 11 Modules, ansible-doc and collections 12 min read
    5. Part 12 command vs shell vs raw modules 17 min read
    6. Part 13 Connect with --ask-pass (password auth) 4 min read
  4. 4 Playbook Basics 6 lessons
    1. Part 14 YAML syntax used in Ansible playbooks 10 min read
    2. Part 15 Ansible playbook structure (plays, tasks, modules) 11 min read
    3. Part 16 Write your first Ansible playbook 9 min read
    4. Part 17 Run playbooks with ansible-playbook and navigator 13 min read
    5. Part 18 Ansible idempotency explained 10 min read
    6. Part 19 Git and VS Code workflow for Ansible projects 13 min read
  5. 5 Variables, Facts and Data 4 lessons
    1. Part 20 Ansible variables explained 9 min read
    2. Part 21 Ansible variable precedence 11 min read
    3. Part 22 Ansible facts and custom facts 9 min read
    4. Part 23 Register and magic variables 10 min read
  6. 6 Files, Templates and Reports 4 lessons
    1. Part 24 Template module and Jinja2 13 min read
    2. Part 25 lineinfile vs blockinfile vs replace vs template 13 min read
    3. Part 26 file, copy and fetch modules 15 min read
    4. Part 27 Generate hosts files, archives and reports 12 min read
  7. 7 Logic and Control Flow 7 lessons
    1. Part 28 Operators and Jinja2 tests in when 11 min read
    2. Part 29 Ansible when conditionals (facts and variables) 10 min read
    3. Part 30 Repeating tasks with Ansible loop 14 min read
    4. Part 31 Ansible handlers (notify pattern) 17 min read
    5. Part 32 Ansible tags explained 12 min read
    6. Part 33 include_tasks vs import_tasks 11 min read
    7. Part 34 Block / rescue / always (error recovery) 16 min read
  8. 8 Rocky Linux Administration (EX294) 6 lessons
    1. Part 35 Manage packages and repositories on Rocky Linux 10 13 min read
    2. Part 36 Manage users, groups, SSH keys and sudo 12 min read
    3. Part 37 Manage services, cron and at jobs on Rocky Linux 10 16 min read
    4. Part 38 Manage LVM, filesystems and mounts on Rocky Linux 10 13 min read
    5. Part 39 Manage firewalld and SELinux on Rocky Linux 10 13 min read
    6. Part 40 SELinux file contexts with Ansible 12 min read
  9. 9 Roles and Collections 3 lessons
    1. Part 41 Ansible roles directory structure 12 min read
    2. Part 42 Create and install Galaxy roles 11 min read
    3. Part 43 Collections and RHEL System Roles 10 min read
  10. 10 Ansible Vault 2 lessons
    1. Part 44 Ansible Vault — encrypting secrets 10 min read
    2. Part 45 Vault with group_vars and host_vars 7 min read
  11. 11 Troubleshooting 3 lessons
    1. Part 46 Ansible troubleshooting guide 16 min read
    2. Part 47 Debug Ansible playbooks 12 min read
    3. Part 48 Collection, module and variable errors 15 min read
  12. 12 Real-World Automation 1 lesson
    1. Part 49 Provision AWS infrastructure with Ansible 14 min read
Deepak Prasad

R&D Engineer

Founder of GoLinuxCloud with more than 15 years of expertise in Linux, Python, Go, Laravel, DevOps, Kubernetes, Git, Shell scripting, OpenShift, AWS, Networking, and Security. With extensive experience, he excels across development, DevOps, networking, and security, delivering robust and efficient solutions for diverse projects.

Expertise
  • Go (programming language)
  • Python (programming language)
  • DevOps
  • Computer Security
  • Cloud Computing
  • Kubernetes
  • Linux
  • Ansible (software)