Now that we're familiar with modules, how to call them, how to interpret their results, and how to find documentation on them, we can make a start on writing our own simple module. Although this will not include the deep and intricate functionality of many of the modules that ship with Ansible, it is hoped that this will give you enough information to proceed with confidence when you build out your own, more complex, ones.

One important point to note is that Ansible is written in Python, and as such, so are its modules. As a result, you will need to write your module in Python, and to get started with developing your own module, you will need to make sure you have Python and a few essential tools installed. If you are already running Ansible on your development machine, you probably have the required packages installed, but if you are starting from...