To get the most out of this book

Before reading this book, you should have a basic understanding of the Linux shell and some system administration skills in order to be able to follow the practical examples. Also, some basic coding skills will be very handy when dealing with YAML playbooks. As an optional requirement, having some basic knowledge of configuration management will help to simplify many points in the book.

To be able to run most of the code, we recommend having a virtual environment running at least two Linux machines, a Windows machine, and a Mac OS X. For network device testing, you may need a test network device or some virtual network equipment.