Nau playbooks

This repository holds the specific playbooks required to manage the Open edX installation at NAU.

Clone the required repositories

This repository uses another different repository.

The secure-nau-data repository is the private NAU repository where the keys and passwords are stored, on per environment.

Commands to clone the dependencies:

git clone -b master git@github.com:fccn/secure-nau-data.git nau-data
git clone -b master git@github.com:fccn/nau_playbooks.git nau_playbooks

Install Python 3.11

Because of the old version of Open edX that we use on NAU, we need to use the older Python 3.11 version.

Double check that you are using the Python 3.11 version, with:

python --version

To install the pip on the older Python version 3.11, run:

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
python3.11 get-pip.py

uv

uv venv --seed venv -p python3.11

Installing OS packages

Some python pip dependencies or some ansible modules also require some operating system packages.

sudo apt install -y build-essential software-properties-common python3-software-properties curl git libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libfreetype6-dev python3-pip python3-apt python3-dev tree libmysqlclient-dev libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-minimal

Initializing Python Virtual Environment and Install dependencies

python3.11 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt
ansible-galaxy install -p vendor/roles -r requirements.yml

Run an ansible playbook

To run an ansible playbook, like for example the deploy.yml playbook, use a similar command:

ansible-playbook -i nau-data/envs/<env>/hosts.ini deploy.yml --limit XPTO

Using --check and --diff (Dry Run Mode)

When working with Ansible playbooks, it's a good practice to preview changes before applying them to your systems. Two flags are particularly useful for this:

--check flag

The --check flag runs the playbook in "dry-run" mode. It simulates the execution without actually making any changes to the target systems. This allows you to see what tasks would be executed and catch potential errors before they happen.

ansible-playbook -i nau-data/envs/<env>/hosts.ini deploy.yml --limit XPTO --check

--diff flag

The --diff flag shows the differences that would be made to files. When combined with --check, it displays what changes would occur without applying them. This is particularly useful for tasks that modify configuration files, as you can see the exact line-by-line differences.

ansible-playbook -i nau-data/envs/<env>/hosts.ini deploy.yml --limit XPTO --diff

Using both together (recommended for beginners)

For safety, always use both flags together when testing a playbook for the first time:

ansible-playbook -i nau-data/envs/<env>/hosts.ini deploy.yml --limit XPTO --check --diff

This combination will:

• Show you exactly what tasks would run
• Display file changes side-by-side
• Make no actual modifications to your systems

Once you're confident the changes are correct, run the playbook without these flags to apply the changes.