Assignment

An Ansible playbook needs completion on the jump host, where a team member left off. Below are the details:

The inventory file /home/thor/ansible/inventory requires adjustments. The playbook must run on App Server 3 in Stratos DC. Update the inventory accordingly.

Create a playbook /home/thor/ansible/playbook.yml. Include a task to create an empty file /tmp/file.txt on App Server 3.

Note: Validation will run the playbook using the command ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml. Ensure the playbook works without any additional arguments.

Solution

Ansible Inventory + Playbook — create `/tmp/file.txt` on App Server 3

Complete the setup on the jump host so ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml runs against stapp03 and creates an empty file — with no extra arguments.

Note: this is an Ansible task, not Kubernetes — no manifests to pipe into kubectl. The heredocs below write the two files.

Step 0 — See what's already there

The inventory "requires adjustments," so inspect it before overwriting:

cat /home/thor/ansible/inventory

Note any existing hostnames/groups — if the playbook or validation expects a particular group name, keep it. Otherwise the version below replaces it cleanly.

Step 1 — Inventory

cat > /home/thor/ansible/inventory <<'EOF'
[app_servers]
stapp03 ansible_user=banner ansible_ssh_pass=BigGr33n ansible_connection=ssh
EOF

Step 2 — Playbook

cat > /home/thor/ansible/playbook.yml <<'EOF'
---
- name: Create an empty file on App Server 3
  hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Create /tmp/file.txt
      ansible.builtin.file:
        path: /tmp/file.txt
        state: touch
        mode: '0644'
EOF

How it works

The inventory

Hostname stapp03 — App Server 3's server name per the wiki. It's resolvable from the jump host, so the inventory name doubles as the connection target; no ansible_host is needed. Confirm with getent hosts stapp03 if you want to be sure.
ansible_user / ansible_ssh_pass — the SSH credentials. These servers use password auth, so both are required. Verify the values against your lab's wiki — the ones shown follow the common Stratos DC pattern but should be confirmed, not assumed.
ansible_connection=ssh — the transport plugin; the default for remote hosts, stated explicitly.

Because validation runs the bare command (no -u, -k, or --private-key), every connection detail must live in the inventory file itself.

The playbook

hosts: all — deliberately chosen over hosts: stapp03. Since the inventory contains only App Server 3, all targets exactly that host, and it stays correct regardless of what the group is named. Using a specific name risks a "no hosts matched" skip if the inventory group and the playbook's hosts: value ever drift apart.
ansible.builtin.file with state: touch — creates the file if absent, leaving it empty. This is the right module for "create an empty file"; copy with empty content would also work but file/touch expresses the intent directly.
mode: '0644' — standard read/write-owner, read-others permissions. Quoted so YAML treats it as a string, not an octal-looking integer (a classic gotcha: unquoted 0644 can be misparsed).
No become — /tmp is world-writable, so the SSH user can create the file without privilege escalation. Adding become: yes would invite a sudo-password prompt and could break the no-extra-arguments requirement.

A note on idempotency

state: touch updates the file's timestamps on every run, so Ansible reports changed each time rather than ok. That's fine for this task. If you want true idempotency:

    - name: Create /tmp/file.txt
      ansible.builtin.file:
        path: /tmp/file.txt
        state: touch
        mode: '0644'
        modification_time: preserve
        access_time: preserve

This leaves timestamps alone when the file already exists, so re-runs report ok.

Host key checking

A first-time SSH connection can fail on host-key verification. The safest fix — because it needs no extra command-line arguments during validation — is an ansible.cfg beside the playbook:

cat > /home/thor/ansible/ansible.cfg <<'EOF'
[defaults]
host_key_checking = False
EOF

sshpass must also be present on the jump host for ansible_ssh_pass to work. It's usually pre-installed; if not, Ansible's error names it explicitly.

Verify

cd /home/thor/ansible

# Inventory parses
ansible-inventory -i inventory --list

# Connectivity + credentials in one shot
ansible -i inventory all -m ping

# The actual validation command
ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml

# Confirm the file exists on the target
ansible -i inventory all -m command -a "ls -l /tmp/file.txt"

Expected — ping returns "ping": "pong" with SUCCESS, the playbook completes with ok=2 changed=1 and no failures, and the final check lists /tmp/file.txt on stapp03.

UNREACHABLE means the hostname didn't resolve or the credentials don't match the wiki. A PLAY RECAP showing skipped or "no hosts matched" means the playbook's hosts: value doesn't align with the inventory — hosts: all avoids that class of failure.

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