The OpenStack compute service provides an API for creating, reading, updating, and deleting of virtual machine servers. Through this API, we'll be able to create the server for our demonstration. After accessing and modifying the server through SSH, we'll also use the API to delete the server. This self-service ability is a key feature of cloud computing.
Ansible can be used to manage these servers by using the various os_server modules:
- os_server: This module is used to create and delete virtual servers.
- os_server_facts: This module is used to gather facts about a server.
- os_server_actions: This module is used to perform various actions on a server.
- os_server_group: This module is used to create and delete server groups.
- os_server_volume: This module is used to attach or detach block storage volumes from a server.
- os_server_metadata: This module is used to create, update, and delete metadata for virtual servers.