Ansible Role: controller

Ansible role for installing an Ansible Controller into a Python3 VirtualEnv.

Requirements

This role requires an existing installation of Ansible. A temporary installation can be created by running the following bootstrap script.

This role has been tested on Ansible 2.6.0+ against the following Linux Distributions:

• Amazon Linux 2
• CentOS 8
• CentOS 7
• Debian 10
• Fedora 29
• Fedora 30
• Fedora 31
• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Disclaimer

If you have any problems please create a GitHub issue, I maintain this role in my spare time so I cannot promise a speedy fix delivery.

Role Variables

Variable	Description	Default Value
controller_ansible_version	Use a specific version of Ansible, eg. 2.9.0. Specify false for latest.	false
controller_ansible_support_packages	Install molecule support packages (eg. Azure)	[]
controller_ansible_install_dir	Installation directory to put Ansible virtual environments.	$HOME/.virtualenvs
controller_ansible_venv_name	Name for the Ansible Virtualenv.	ansible
controller_ansible_venv_suffix	Add a custom suffix to virtualenv.	controller_ansible_version
controller_ansible_venv_site_packages	Allow venv to inherit packages from global site-packages.	false
controller_ansible_install_venv_helper	Install a venv helper to launch venv executables from a "bin" directory.	true
controller_ansible_bin_dir	"bin" directory to install venv-helpers to.	$HOME/bin
controller_ansible_config_path	Path to the default ansible.cfg file to use.	$HOME/.ansible.cfg
controller_ansible_inventory_path	Path to the default ansible inventory file.	$HOME/.ansible/hosts.yml
controller_ansible_projects_dir	Directory to put Ansible projects.	$HOME/projects
controller_ansible_roles_dir	Directory to install Ansible Galaxy roles to.	$HOME/.ansible/roles
controller_install_os_dependencies	Allow role to install OS dependencies.	false
controller_python3_path	Specify a path to a specific python version to use in virtualenv.	NULL
controller_ansible_galaxy_roles	List of Ansible roles to be installed with ansible-galaxy. See notes.	NULL
controller_ansible_projects	List of Ansible projects to be cloned with git. See notes.	NULL
controller_ansible_projects_install_roles	Install Ansible roles defined in project requirements.yml file. (boolean)	false

Dependencies

No dependencies on other roles.

Example Playbook

Example playbook for installing to single user:

- hosts: control_hosts
  roles:
     - { role: xanmanning.controller, controller_ansible_version: 2.6.5 }

Example playbook for installing the latest Ansible version globally:

---
- hosts: control_hosts
  become: true
  vars:
    controller_install_os_dependencies: true
    controller_ansible_install_dir: /opt/ansible/bin
    controller_ansible_config_path: /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
    controller_ansible_inventory_path: /etc/ansible/hosts
    controller_ansible_projects_dir: /opt/ansible/projects
    controller_ansible_roles_dir: /opt/ansible/roles
    controller_ansible_bin_dir: /usr/bin
    controller_ansible_venv_name: current
    controller_ansible_support_packages:
      - azure
    controller_ansible_galaxy_roles:
      - name: controller
        src: xanmanning.controller
      - name: git
        src: https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-git
        scm: git
        version: 2.1.0
  roles:
    - role: xanmanning.controller

Activating the Ansible venv

Once logged into the controller, you need to activate the python3 virtual environment to be able to access Ansible. This is done as per the below:

source {{ controller_ansible_install_dir }}/{{ controller_ansible_venv_name }}/bin/activate

In the above example global installation playbook, this would look like the following:

source /opt/ansible/bin/current/bin/activate

Note about controller_ansible_galaxy_roles

This is a list of Ansible roles to be installed using ansible-galaxy. This variable needs to be structured as per the below example:

controller_ansible_galaxy_roles:
  # Install the latest xanmanning.k3s role
  - src: xanmanning.k3s

  # Install the latest xanmanning.controller role as "controller"
  - name: controller
    src: xanmanning.controller

  # Install geerlingguy.jenkins version 3.8.1 from github as "jenkins"
  - name: jenkins
    src: https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-jenkins
    scm: git
    version: 3.8.1

Note about controller_ansible_projects

This is a list of git repositories to be cloned into the projects directory. If this is empty, no projects will be cloned.

Below is an example of a project:

controller_ansible_projects:
    - name: mac-dev-workstation                           # Directory name to clone into
      repo: git@github.com:geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook   # Repository to clone
      update_repo: true                                   # Always update local copy of repo
      version:  master                                    # Check out this version of the repo
      force: false                                        # Discard any existing working copy of the repo
      key_file: "{{ ansible_user_dir }}/.ssh/id_rsa"      # Key file to use to clone the repo
      recursive: true                                     # Include submodules in clone

License

BSD 3-clause

Author Information

Xan Manning