In network automation, you want things to be efficient, right? Managing tons of devices from different vendors takes effective tools, and let's be honest, writing Ansible playbooks from scratch for every single task is a major time drain. That's where Ansible Galaxy comes in, a central place for ready-made automation content from the community and vendors, built to make your job easier and faster.
If you already know the basics of Ansible playbooks, checking out Galaxy is the next logical step to really speed up your network automation. This guide will walk you through what Galaxy gives you, how to use its roles and collections, and how CloudMyLab fits into your practice.
Ansible Galaxy serves as a central repository for Ansible content. It contains:
This stuff is built and kept up-to-date by the community – individual engineers, the core Ansible team at Red Hat, and network vendors like Cisco, Juniper, and Arista. For network engineers like you, Galaxy is a library of proven automation you can reuse instead of building common tasks from zero.
You've probably run a show run playbook before—but what if you need to automate complex tasks like:
Writing these from scratch can be tedious. Instead, you can reuse roles and collections from Galaxy that others (including Cisco!) have already tested and published.
Read more: Depending on your environment’s size, you can run these tasks using the Ansible CLI for simplicity or the Ansible Automation Platform for enterprise-scale management. Learn the differences in this Ansible CLI vs. Automation Platform comparison.
A role is a neatly packaged set of automation tasks, structured for reusability. It includes:
tasks/main.yml) showing the automation steps.defaults/main.yml for defaults and vars/main.yml for role-specific variables).templates/ directory) using Jinja2 to generate configuration files.handlers/main.yml) that run when notified, often for things like restarting services.files/ directory) to be copied to devices.meta/main.yml) about the role, who made it, and if it needs other roles.Roles make things modular, keeping your playbooks cleaner and easier to handle by putting complex bits into reusable packages.
You want to configure NTP on 500 Cisco routers. You can use a role like:
ansible-galaxy install network-ntp
Then in your playbook:
- hosts: cisco_routers
roles:
- cisco_ios_vlan
Note: cisco_ios_vlan is a sample name
Ansible Collections are the newer, standard way to package Ansible content (started with Ansible 2.9). They're bigger than roles – a single collection can have multiple roles, custom modules (like vendor-specific ones for device APIs), plugins (for things like inventory or connections), and docs.
Collections use a <namespace>.<collection_name> format (like cisco.ios or junipernetworks.junos). This helps avoid naming clashes and tells you who made or maintains the content. Collections make it easier to share full, integrated automation solutions from vendors and the community.
Example:
ansible-galaxy collection install cisco.ios
Installing cisco.ios gets you modules like cisco.ios.ios_config, cisco.ios.ios_command, cisco.ios.ios_facts, plus any roles or plugins included in that collection.
Read more: To ensure these collections run consistently across different systems, use Ansible Execution Environments, which package dependencies into containers. Explore Understanding Ansible Execution Environments for setup and benefits.
Roles are tactical, collections are strategic. Together, they let you automate everything from one-off tweaks to enterprise-wide deployments while following community best practices.
Using them effectively helps you out in several ways:
A namespace in Ansible Galaxy is a unique name (usually for an organization, vendor, or person) that groups related content, specifically collections.
Examples of Popular Namespaces:
cisco, arista, junipernetworks (or juniper): Vendor-specific content.ansible: Content from the core Ansible team (like ansible.netcommon).community: Content maintained by the wider community (like community.general).ansible-galaxy collection list
Read more: For an enhanced CLI experience when managing Galaxy content, try Ansible Navigator, a tool for running and debugging Ansible tasks. Learn more in our Ansible Navigator guide.
Install a single role (using a namespace is best practice now):
ansible-galaxy install .
Roles usually land in ~/.ansible/roles. You can check or change this path in your ansible.cfg file using the roles_path setting:
[defaults]
roles_path = ~/.ansible/roles:/etc/ansible/roles:/opt/custom_roles
To see what roles are installed on your system:
ansible-galaxy role list
As described earlier, you may install collections using ansible-galaxy collection install:
ansible-galaxy collection install cisco.ios
You can grab a collection archive (.tar.gz) without installing it right away, which is handy for offline setups:
ansible-galaxy collection download cisco.ios
Then, install the downloaded file later:
ansible-galaxy collection install cisco.ios-*.tar.gz
To list installed collections (and see their versions and where they are):
ansible-galaxy collection list
Collections usually go into ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/<namespace>/<collection_name> or in a project's collections/ directory if you use a requirements.yml file.
To remove a collection:
ansible-galaxy collection remove cisco.ios
collections:
- name: cisco.ios
roles:
- name:
Install everything listed in the file with one command:
ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml
This command handles installing both collections and roles from the file.
Let's set up NTP servers on devices in your cisco_routers inventory group using modules from the cisco.ios collection.
Playbook configure_ntp.yml:
---
- name: Configure NTP on Cisco routers
hosts: cisco_routers
gather_facts: false
collections: # Tell Ansible which collections this playbook uses
- cisco.ios
tasks:
- name: Set NTP server configuration
cisco.ios.ios_config: # Use the Full Collection Name (FQCN) for the module
lines:
- ntp server 192.168.1.10
- ntp server 192.168.1.11
save_when: modified
This playbook uses the ios_config module to push NTP settings and saves the config if changes are made. Done in minutes, not hours.
Stuff breaks. Here's how to tackle common Galaxy problems:
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --check first. Use -vvv to see detailed output for errors.ansible -m ansible.netcommon.ping). Check your inventory variables (ansible_user, ansible_password - seriously, use Ansible Vault for passwords!), ansible_network_os, ansible_connection. Increase task or global command timeouts in ansible.cfg. Check network latency. Read more: To further boost performance, see Best Practices for Ansible Performance for tuning execution strategies like
freeorlinear.
Sharing your useful automation helps the community. Here's how:
Create Role in VS Code
ansible-galaxy init my_custom_role
Create a GitHub Repository - Name it like: ansible-role-my_custom_role
Push Role to GitHub - Push your role files to GitHub, including a meta/main.yml with basic info.
Create a Galaxy Account - Create an Ansible Galaxy account if you don't have one.
Link Your GitHub Account - Go to your Galaxy Settings → GitHub Integration, and then authorize access to your GitHub repositories.
Import Your Role - Import your role from GitHub via "My Content" -> "Add Content". Your role becomes available on Galaxy. It'll be listed under your namespace like
my_namespace.my_custom_role
To Install Your Role - Others can install it using:
ansible-galaxy install my_namespace.my_custom_role
While custom Python scripts (using libraries like Netmiko or NAPALM) offer detailed control, and vendor-specific tools (like Cisco DNA Center, Arista CloudVision) provide integrated experiences within their ecosystems, Ansible Galaxy offers advantages for scalable and standardized multi-vendor automation:
Galaxy content is often designed and tested for large environments, enabling consistent management of many devices. This scale is hard to achieve reliably with custom scripts without significant engineering. Using community or vendor content encourages using established automation patterns, making your work more maintainable. Galaxy benefits from the collective knowledge of thousands of engineers and direct vendor contributions, providing access to ongoing maintenance and support through collection maintainers. It excels in multi-vendor environments. A single Ansible control node with collections like cisco.ios and junipernetworks.junos can orchestrate changes across a heterogeneous network within one workflow, which is difficult with separate vendor tools.
While Python scripting offers flexibility and vendor tools deep integration, Ansible Galaxy provides a balance with reusable, standardized, community-supported content ideal for scaling network automation across diverse environments efficiently.
Network automation is vital for managing modern networks. Ansible Galaxy provides a critical resource, offering thousands of pre-built roles and collections (like cisco.ios, junipernetworks.junos, arista.eos) that save you time and effort. By using this content, you can automate complex tasks like configuration backups, software upgrades, and compliance checks consistently and at scale.
Pairing Ansible Galaxy with CloudMyLab's dedicated automation lab environments creates a combination for practicing. CloudMyLab offers a safe, realistic sandbox to experiment with new Galaxy content without risking production networks. You can test playbooks using vendor collections against virtual devices from various manufacturers and hone your skills in controlled POCs before deployment.
Explore Ansible Galaxy, find roles and collections relevant to your network, and use ansible-galaxy install to add them to your toolkit. Then, leverage CloudMyLab's hosted lab environments to practice, test, and perfect your automation workflows.
💡 Why risk breaking production with untested automation? Use CloudMyLab's sandbox environments to test with confidence.
Check out our Ansible Network Automation offerings or start a free trial.
Learning Resources
It's a website and command-line tool (ansible-galaxy) for finding, sharing, and managing reusable Ansible content, primarily roles and collections.
A role is a standardized way to structure automation for a specific task or component. A collection is a broader package that can contain multiple roles, modules, plugins, and documentation, often used to distribute content from a specific vendor or community. Collections are the newer standard.
The roles usually go into ~/.ansible/roles/. Check or change the path in ansible.cfg using roles_path.
The collections typically land in ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/. Use ansible-galaxy collection list to confirm the exact paths on your system.
Use the ansible-galaxy install command for roles (ansible-galaxy install <namespace>.<role_name>) or collections (ansible-galaxy collection install <namespace>.<collection_name>). You can also install multiple dependencies using a requirements.yml file (ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml).
You need internet access to install content from https://galaxy.ansible.com/ . Once installed, you can use the content locally. For air-gapped environments, you can download collection archives first and install them offline.
Yes, many collections are vendor-specific (like cisco.ios, junipernetworks.junos, arista.eos), allowing you to use modules and roles tailored for those devices. Other collections like ansible.netcommon provide modules that work across multiple vendors.
You need to structure your automation as a role or collection, store it in a public GitHub repository, and then import it into your Ansible Galaxy account.