Ansible roles

[Emmanuel Seyman]

Hello, all.

I was looking for Ansible roles that are supported on Fedora and found
robertdebock's Ansible roles.

https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/namespaces/5923/
or
https://robertdebock.nl/ansible.html

These are supported on maintained versions of Fedora, appropriate
versions of RHEL, Debian 12, ...

[Emmanuel Seyman]

Sorry, I pressed send too soon.

Anyway, I've started a migration from my own stuff to using Robert's
roles which are much better written than mine and was wondering if
it made sense for us to do it as well.

Emmanuel

[Richard Megginson]

Linux System Roles are built-in to Fedora -
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/linux-system-roles -
linux-system-roles.noarch.rpm - the roles are packaged as individual legacy
roles, and as the fedora.linux_system_roles collection.

There is a good bit of overlap between https://robertdebock.nl/ansible.html
and https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/namespaces/4114/ - Robert has
many, many more roles, and probably has better support for ubuntu/debian
(if you want playbooks that span multiple platforms).

I would encourage you to use linux-system-roles, and if there are gaps in
support, let's work to add those to linux-system-roles

On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 9:52 AM Emmanuel Seyman  wrote:
> Sorry, I pressed send too soon.
>
> Anyway, I've started a migration from my own stuff to using Robert's
> roles which are much better written than mine and was wondering if
> it made sense for us to do it as well.
> Emmanuel
>
> server mailing list -- [e-mail]
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[Peter Boy]

> Am 27.06.2024 um 18:09 schrieb Richard Megginson :
>
> Linux System Roles are built-in to Fedora - https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/linux-system-roles - linux-system-roles.noarch.rpm - the roles are packaged as individual legacy roles, and as the fedora.linux_system_roles collection.

Perhaps a question from a poor (Ansible-)uninitiated: What do you mean by "legacy" in this context?
> There is a good bit of overlap between https://robertdebock.nl/ansible.html and https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/namespaces/4114/ - Robert has many, many more roles, and probably has better support for ubuntu/debian (if you want playbooks that span multiple platforms).

We want to use Ansible as a means to establish specifically „Supported Fedora Server Edition Services".  Therefore, support for Debian/Ubuntu etc. is not necessarily important.

Much more important is a very good support of the "Fedora way" of organizing the distribution and configuration. In particular, this means good coordination with the pre-configuration that our packers deliver with the packages.
> I would encourage you to use linux-system-roles, and if there are gaps in support, let's work to add those to linux-system-roles

Building our work on something we already distribute in Fedora seems attractive to me, if only to increase Fedora's internal consistency.

The question is rather what we are missing as a consequence.

--
Peter Boy
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
[e-mail]

Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)

Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
Java developer and enthusiast

--
Peter Boy
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
[e-mail]

Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)

Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
Java developer and enthusiast

[Richard Megginson]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 4:41 PM Peter Boy  wrote:
> > Am 27.06.2024 um 18:09 schrieb Richard Megginson :
> >
> > Linux System Roles are built-in to Fedora -
>
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/linux-system-roles -
> linux-system-roles.noarch.rpm - the roles are packaged as individual legacy
> roles, and as the fedora.linux_system_roles collection.
>
> Perhaps a question from a poor (Ansible-)uninitiated: What do you mean by
> "legacy" in this context?

By "legacy" I mean the single, standalone role format, as opposed to roles
packaged within a collection -
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_reuse_roles...
Ansible really wants devs to package things in collections, but the
standalone role format has its use cases, and doesn't seem to be going away.
> > There is a good bit of overlap between
>
> https://robertdebock.nl/ansible.html and
> https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/namespaces/4114/ - Robert has
> many, many more roles, and probably has better support for ubuntu/debian
> (if you want playbooks that span multiple platforms).
>
> We want to use Ansible as a means to establish specifically „Supported
> Fedora Server Edition Services".  Therefore, support for Debian/Ubuntu etc.
> is not necessarily important.
>
> Much more important is a very good support of the "Fedora way" of
> organizing the distribution and configuration. In particular, this means
> good coordination with the pre-configuration that our packers deliver with
> the packages.

In many cases, the maintainers of the Linux System Roles are also the
maintainers of the underlying package in Fedora/EL.
> > I would encourage you to use linux-system-roles, and if there are gaps
>
> in support, let's work to add those to linux-system-roles
>
> Building our work on something we already distribute in Fedora seems
> attractive to me, if only to increase Fedora's internal consistency.
>
> The question is rather what we are missing as a consequence.

Right. I would really like to know what are the gaps.
> --
> Peter Boy
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
> [e-mail]
>
> Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)
>
> Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
> Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
> Java developer and enthusiast
>
> --
> Peter Boy
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
> [e-mail]
>
> Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)
>
> Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
> Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
> Java developer and enthusiast
>
> --
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[Emmanuel Seyman]

* Richard Megginson [27/06/2024 10:09] :
> Linux System Roles are built-in to Fedora -
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/linux-system-roles -
> linux-system-roles.noarch.rpm - the roles are packaged as individual legacy
> roles, and as the fedora.linux_system_roles collection.

This actually solves the distribution problem (I really do not want to
tell users to download from galaxy.ansible.com).
> There is a good bit of overlap between https://robertdebock.nl/ansible.html
> and https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/namespaces/4114/ - Robert has
> many, many more roles, and probably has better support for ubuntu/debian
> (if you want playbooks that span multiple platforms).

Support for EL systems is a nice-to-have. Support for other distributions
is probably not our goal (except maybe in a "more support means more
users which means more contributions" sense).

* Richard Megginson [27/06/2024 16:55] :
> Right. I would really like to know what are the gaps.

The roles that interest us the most in Robert's are probably:

* autofs
* httpd
* mysql
* nfsserver
* nginx
* php-fpm

I'm also looking at:

* backup
* maintenance
* restore
* software

Emmanuel

[Peter Boy]

> Am 28.06.2024 um 00:55 schrieb Richard Megginson :

Thanks for these information.
> Right. I would really like to know what are the gaps.

We have defined what we want to achieve with Ansible in our technical specification, specifically in the section Server Roles (https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/server-working-group/docs/server-techni...)  In addition to the type and location of configuration files, the file system, LVM, is also special for Fedora Server, whereby we recommend a dedicated LV each at least for relevant services and a strict separation between user and system files. As a minimum, we would therefore recommend a separate LV for data in addition to a root LV.

Maybe, you could give us some advice?
> I'm also looking at:
> backup
> maintenance
> restore

I think those are important for Server administration in general, as well.

--
Peter Boy
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
[e-mail]

Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)

Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
Java developer and enthusiast

[Richard Megginson]

On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 5:13 AM Peter Boy  wrote:
> > Am 28.06.2024 um 00:55 schrieb Richard Megginson :
>
> Thanks for these information.
> > Right. I would really like to know what are the gaps.
>
> We have defined what we want to achieve with Ansible in our technical
> specification, specifically in the section Server Roles (
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/server-working-group/docs/server-techni...
> )
> In addition to the type and location of configuration files, the file
> system, LVM, is also special for Fedora Server, whereby we recommend a
> dedicated LV each at least for relevant services and a strict separation
> between user and system files. As a minimum, we would therefore recommend a
> separate LV for data in addition to a root LV.

The storage system role can do this
https://github.com/linux-system-roles/storage/ and the snapshot role can
create/extend/mount/revert etc. LVM snapshots
https://github.com/linux-system-roles/snapshot/
Both of these roles are developed by members of the same team that develop
blivet and other storage subsystem components.
> Maybe, you could give us some advice?

I wrote up some notes - not sure if/where there is a more appropriate venue
for such a document -
https://gist.github.com/richm/b6f4c498a7d429d877f1aac25bfc97bd
> > I'm also looking at:
> > backup

e.g. something like deja dup?  or something like the snapshot role for LVM
snapshot management?
> > maintenance

What does "maintenance" mean in this content?  maintenance of backups and
the storage used for backups?
> > restore

I guess the backup tool would handle this.
> I think those are important for Server administration in general, as well.
> --
> Peter Boy
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy
> [e-mail]
>
> Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)
>
> Fedora Server Edition Working Group member
> Fedora Docs team contributor and board member
> Java developer and enthusiast
>
> --
> _______________________________________________
> server mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
> Fedora Code of Conduct:
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
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[Emmanuel Seyman]

* Richard Megginson [28/06/2024 14:57] :
> > > backup
>
> e.g. something like deja dup?  or something like the snapshot role for LVM
> snapshot management?

This is https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/roles/robertdebock/backup/
which creates archives, mysql and postgresql dumps on the managed node
and copies them over to the control node.

I really like the design, which seems easily extendable.
> > > maintenance
>
> What does "maintenance" mean in this content?  maintenance of backups and
> the storage used for backups?

This is https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/roles/robertdebock/maintenance/
which empties a number of caches, cleans up logs and removes a selection
of files.

The gory details are in https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/roles/robertdebock/maintenance/
> > > restore
>
> I guess the backup tool would handle this.

This is https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/standalone/roles/robertdebock/restore/
which takes the objects created by the backup role and restores them.

In practice, the two roles go hand in hand.

Emmanuel