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diff --git a/content/posts/2019-04-22Automating_desktop_setup_with_ansible-pull_part-1.md b/content/posts/2019-04-22Automating_desktop_setup_with_ansible-pull_part-1.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58ecb0d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/2019-04-22Automating_desktop_setup_with_ansible-pull_part-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,97 @@ +Every time that I do a clean install on my machine it takes a few hours +till I get to point where I was before formatting it, install all +packages, select themes, icons, fonts, install IDEs, extensions and so +on. After doing it a few times I came to the conclusion that I would +save time by spending time automating this chore, and as a result, I +could tinker a little more with my system and not worry about spending a +weekend re-installing everything (which have happened more time that + I\'d like to remember). + +So after a few attempts using python and bash I ended with many files +and keep everything organized and concise turned out to be more tedious +than the setup itself. So there comes +[Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/). It is an enterprise-graded software +used to automate tasks. It has A LOT OF features and it can be really +helpful if you\'re a sysadmin but for now we\'re going to focus on +[Ansible +Pull](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_intro.html#ansible-pull) +and +[Playbooks](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks.html). +As better described: + +> \[Ansible-Pull\] is used to up a remote copy of ansible on each +> managed node, each set to run via cron and update playbook source via +> a source repository. This inverts the default push architecture of +> Ansible into a pull architecture, which has near-limitless scaling +> potential. +> +> Playbooks are Ansible's configuration, deployment, and orchestration +> language. They can describe a policy you want your remote systems to +> enforce, or a set of steps in a general IT process. +> +> [source](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/cli/ansible-pull.html) + +The goal is to pull and run a playbook remotely using a git repository. +The playbook will describe the tasks needed to setup our machine from +scratch. + +But first lets tinker a bit a with playbooks locally with +`ansible-playbook`, to do so we need to add `localhost` to ansible\'s +hosts list. Add it to `/etc/ansible/hosts`: + +``` service +[all] +localhost +``` + +As an experiment we\'re going to write a asks to install vim. Currently, + I\'m using [Fedora](https://getfedora.org/) thus we going to use [dnf + modeule](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/dnf_module.html) + to install packages, but if you\'re using another distribution look for + a equivalent module like [apt + module](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/apt_module.html) + for [Ubuntu](https://ubuntu.com/). + + The playbook to install is quite simple: + + ``` yaml +# main.yaml + - hosts: all + tasks: + - name: install vim + dnf: +name: vim +state: latest +``` + +`hosts:` is required and it has to match our hosts otherwise the +playbook won\'t run. + +`tasks:` is the list of tasks that the playbook will perform, in this +case will be `dnf install vim`. + +To run a playbook use the command `ansible-playbook` commando to run +`main.yml` direct from disk, do to so just run the following command: + + +``` bash +sudo ansible-playbook --connection=local main.yml +``` + +After a few seconds, vim will be installed on your machine. + +``` bash +PLAY [all] ************************************************************* + +TASK [Gathering Facts] ************************************************* +ok: [localhost] + +TASK [install vim] ***************************************************** +ok: [localhost] + +PLAY RECAP ************************************************************* +localhost : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 +``` + +This is the first step, next part we shall create a more complex +playbook and setup repository to run it remotely using `ansible-pull`. |