Quick Start

This guide walks you through running your first Parallax playbook.

Step 1: Create an Inventory

Create an inventory file that defines your target hosts. Save this as inventory.ini:

[webservers]
web1.example.com ansible_host=10.0.0.1
web2.example.com ansible_host=10.0.0.2

[webservers:vars]
ansible_user=deploy

Or use a comma-separated list for quick testing:

parallax play -i "localhost," playbook.yml

Step 2: Write a Playbook

Create a file called site.yml:

---
- name: Configure web servers
  hosts: webservers
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Install nginx
      package:
        name: nginx
        state: present

    - name: Start nginx service
      service:
        name: nginx
        state: started
        enabled: true

    - name: Deploy index page
      template:
        src: templates/index.html.j2
        dest: /var/www/html/index.html
      notify:
        - restart nginx

  handlers:
    - name: restart nginx
      service:
        name: nginx
        state: restarted

Step 3: Create the Template

The Deploy index page task references templates/index.html.j2. Parallax validates template and copy src paths at parse time, so this file must exist (relative to the playbook directory) before you run the playbook — otherwise parsing fails with template module: file not found: templates/index.html.j2.

mkdir -p templates

Save this as templates/index.html.j2:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head><title>{{ inventory_hostname }}</title></head>
  <body><h1>Deployed by Parallax</h1></body>
</html>

Step 4: Run It

# Dry run first
parallax play -i inventory.ini --check site.yml

# Execute for real
parallax play -i inventory.ini site.yml

You’ll see familiar Ansible-style output:

PLAY [Configure web servers] **************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] ********************************************************
ok: [web1.example.com]
ok: [web2.example.com]

TASK [Install nginx] **********************************************************
changed: [web1.example.com]
changed: [web2.example.com]

TASK [Start nginx service] ****************************************************
changed: [web1.example.com]
changed: [web2.example.com]

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
web1.example.com           : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0
web2.example.com           : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0

Next Steps

Installation