How to implement regular Ansible runs?

[Frank Thommen]

Hi,

we plan to deploy Linux client configurations via Ansible.  Since not all clients are running all the time, we want Ansible to run the deployment in regular invervals, e.g. every 2-3 hours.  What is "the Ansible way" to implement this?  Is there a better way than to have a cronjob on the Ansible server, which runs the appropriate playbook (or playbooks) in regular intervals?  Is there some kind of "pull" mechanism supported by Ansible, so that the /clients/ can initiate Ansible runs?  I couldn't find anything in the documentation, but then I wasn't even sure what keywords I should look for ;-)

And no: Ansible Tower is not an option.  We can't afford it.

I appreciate any pointers
Frank

[Brian Coca]

Cron can work fine, ansible-pull can run from the client machines
(also from cron), if you want an app server Ansible Tower
(http://ansible.com/tower) * disclaimer, this pays my salary or any
other job execution server with scheduling should work.

--
Brian Coca

[Frank Thommen]

Thanks.  Will have a look at ansible-pull.   That seems to exactly do what we need.

frank