Updating Café Menus is a practical Ansible project for learners who have written a small playbook and want to manage real differences across hosts. You will update the shared drink menu at two neighbourhood cafés while keeping each branch's name, opening hours, local special and existing staff files intact.
One Guided Lab explains the complete workflow, from shared inputs and a reusable JSON template to live menu checks and a deliberate drift repair. One independent Challenge applies the same skills to two bakeries with different approved data. Every unit starts with its own prepared environment.
What You Will Learn
- Separate common menu data from legitimate branch-specific inputs and local content.
- Render one template in the variable context of two real SSH-managed hosts.
- Preview supported changes before applying a scoped file/template playbook.
- Verify actual menu pages, visitor information and complete CSV downloads.
- Repair an unintended target change by reapplying the existing declaration.
- Confirm convergence without erasing local work or hiding changed results.
Who This Course Is For
This project is for Ansible beginners, Linux learners and aspiring DevOps practitioners who want a small, visible configuration-management result.
Prerequisites: Basic terminal navigation and prior practice reading an Ansible inventory and a simple YAML playbook. The guided work explains host/group data, JSON rendering, check/diff and the managed-file boundary before relying on them. No web development or café software knowledge is required.
Learning environment: LabEx provides an Ubuntu controller with Ansible and two SSH-managed Linux container nodes. The Controller terminal is where you author automation; Menu Preview opens the actual branch menus. The nodes share the training VM's kernel. The websites, input data and toolchain are prepared, so you do not need a local installation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I build the café website?
The working website is supplied. You manage its actual menu data with Ansible and use the pages and downloads to check the result.
Should both branches become identical?
They share the approved everyday menu, but keep their own names, hours, specials and visitor notices. Understanding that boundary is part of the project.
How does the Challenge differ from the Guided Lab?
The Challenge provides independent bakery data and explicit acceptance criteria. You reuse the taught inventory-variable, template and playbook methods rather than discovering a new tool. A complete reference solution is available separately.
Are the menus and terminal outputs translated?
The learning documents and explanations are localized. The prepared websites, actual interface labels, data and command output remain English so the instructions match what you operate.
