
running ansible on MacOS
January 19, 2021As I’m used to run linux I want to recap how to get along with ansible on MacOS.
note: there’s no platform dependency here. This should work both on m1/silicon as it will on x86-based computers.
Get ansible
Install ansible by using Homebrew:
brew install ansible
Configure hosts lists
As ansible is installed by brew I don’t want to mix configurations of my system within /etc.
I want to manage my inventory hosts within my home directory as this device isn’t shared anyways.
Proceed by creating a dot-directory called .ansible within your directory and create a hosts-file like this:
~/.ansible/hosts
[webserver]
127.0.0.1
The documentation notes one can create a new file called .ansible.cfg within your home directory and edit the inventory location there.
~/.ansible.cfg
[defaults]
inventory = .ansible/hosts
Finally test your configuration by running
ansible -m ping all
Don’t put the inventory value within caps. Don’t use an absolute path. Otherwise ansible fails to resolve the configuration file location like this:

Changing any config value takes immediate effect – there’s no need to create a new shell instance.