Now we're going to setup ansible to work with a git repository. The process is
quite similar to ansible-playbook, the only difference is that the source for
the playbook will be a remote repository and not a local file. Following the
previous example we'll get vim setup automated.
Create a git repository wherever you see fit,
gitlab and github offer
free repositories. For this task we need to add only two file: one for the
yml file describing the tasks and the .vimrc file.
In the .vimrc add your own configuration, you can see mine over
here,
it is pretty small as I don't use it but for small text editing (like this
post) so you can start with that if you don't have one.
The yml file will have two tasks, one is to install vim, just like we
did in the part 1.
# main.yml
---
- name: install vim
dnf:
name: vim
state: latest
To copy .vimrc file to your $HOME we going to use copy
module:
# main.yml
---
- name: copy vimrc file
copy:
src: config/.vimrc
dest: ~/
mode: 0644
After we've added those two files to repository you will have be something like this.
And now we just need to run ansible-pull command
# you may need run it as a sudo
ansible-pull -U $YOUR_REPO -i all main.yml
Params:
-iis a list of hosts.-Uis the git repository URL.
Remember man is your best friend, take a look at man ansible-pull to
know more about its parameters.
The best part you can quickly test and see the result by running my sample:
ansible-pull -U https://gitlab.com/gabrielgio/homestation.git -C debcf3458df511aef9f7dca0cb73f6cf6baddd5d -i all main.yml
The idea here is to keep your repository as a source of truth when comes to
configuration, you can add ansible-pull to a CRON tab, so you just need to
push something to your repository and after a few minutes not only your machine
but all the machines that have it setup will run the playbooks. You can use
this method as a straightforward way to install software, update machines or
even distribute tooling company-wise.