User account and access management is an integral part of any Enterprise Linux environment, and Ansible can be a key component in both configuring this and rolling it out across a wide number of servers. Indeed, in the case of FreeIPA, there are already freely available Ansible roles and playbooks that can set up not only the Linux clients, but even your server architecture as well. Thus, automation of all key components within your Linux infrastructure can be achieved.

In this chapter, you learned how to effectively manage user accounts with Ansible across a large number of Linux servers. You then learned how to integrate logins with common directory servers such as FreeIPA and Microsoft AD using Ansible, and finally, you learned how Ansible can be used to enforce configuration and audit its state.

In the next chapter, we will explore the use of Ansible in database management.