A template for an Ansible-role, adding Vagrant-testing support to the default Ansible-role skeleton.
Ansible is a great tool, and trying things out with a virtual-machine is a great way to learn, try things out, and test changes. But if you're trying to learn Ansible and Vagrant/Virtualbox all at once, configuring a test-setup just right can be a steep learning curve. This template demonstrates how to set up Vagrant to test your new Ansible role.
To get this template running as-is:
git clone [email protected]:timstaley/ansible-role-template.git roletemplate
NB the local folder-name is important - that's how we refer back to the role from the test-script, and so the folder-name should match the role-name. Then:
cd roletemplate/vagrant
ansible-galaxy install -f -r requirements.yml
vagrant up
To use this template for your own stand-alone role:
git clone [email protected]:timstaley/ansible-role-template.git myrolename
Now edit myrolename/tests/test-roletemplate.yml to change the role name to your own, accordingly. Then get started making changes to write your own role.
Vagrantfile sets up a testing virtual-machine,
by default named roletestingvm (see Vagrantfile).
This should be renamed to something sensible for your role so you can
recognise it if you have multiple VM's up and running, e.g. when running::
vagrant global-status
... to remind yourself where all your RAM went.
The ansible.cfg file tells ansible how to find the Vagrant SSH login details, which makes it easy to run Ansible manually against your VM via the command line, rather than indirectly by re-running Vagrant commands - this can speed up testing.
Vagrant-cachier is recommended, but optional.
This template includes an ansible-galaxy requirements file that pulls in
the timstaley.base role, used
for configuring basic utilities on a fresh virtual-machine.
However this is not a hard dependency but a suggestion.
Users of a role will have their own preferences as to e.g. exactly how pip
gets installed. To retrieve a copy of the roles listed in a requirements file,
run::
ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml
or
ansible-galaxy install --force -r requirements.yml
to forcibly update old copies.
Note that ansible.cfg is configured such that roles installed via Ansible Galaxy will be installed under the galaxy_roles folder in the repository root.
When documenting a role, you should either specify expected pre-requisites (e.g. git) in the README, or if your dependencies are provided by a specific role then you should record it in the role metadata (see docs).
BSD