How it works...

In order to install Ansible in a Python 3 environment and to have more control over the version of Ansible deployed, we are going to use the pip Python program to install Ansible as shown here:

• Install Python 3 if it is not present, as follows:

# Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-get install python3

# CentOS
sudo yum install python3

• Install the python3-pip package:

# Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-get install python3-pip

# CentOS
$ sudo yum install python3-pip

• Install Ansible:

# Ubuntu and CentOS
# This will install ansible for the current user ONLY
$ pip3 install ansible==2.9 --user

# We Can install ansible on the System Level
$ sudo pip3 install ansible==2.9

• We can verify that Ansible has been installed successfully, as shown here:

$$ ansible --version
ansible 2.9
 config file = None
 configured module search path = ['/home/vagrant/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
 ansible python module location = /home/vagrant/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/ansible
 executable location = /home/vagrant/.local/bin/ansible
 python version = 3.6.8 (default, Aug 7 2019, 17:28:10) [GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-39)]

Installing Ansible using this method ensures that we are using Python 3 as our execution environment and allows us to control which version of Ansible to install, as outlined in the example shown.

We are going to use this method as our Ansible installation method and all the subsequent chapters will be based on this installation procedure.