How_to_use_galaxy_roles_in_your_config.adoc

Galaxy and external roles

To use galaxy roles in your config, just do the following:

1. Create requirements.yml file in the config directory, for example:

   ansible/configs/{{env_type}}/requirements.yml

   ---
   - src: geerlingguy.docker
     name: docker
     version: '2.5.1'

2. Use the role in the playbooks

   ansible/configs/{{env_type}}/pre_software.yml

   - name: Some play
     hosts:
       - myhosts
     become: true
     gather_facts: False
     tasks:
       - name: install docker
         include_role:
           name: docker

Note	Note that in the previous example, we use include_role which is dynamic. If you try to use the role with role or import_role it will fail because the role is dynamically downloaded at runtime.

Important

Please use a pinned version in the requirements.yml file so the success of the deployment of your config does not depend on the stability of upstream galaxy roles. Make sure you use version pinning in requirements.yml - src: geerlingguy.docker name: docker version: '2.5.1'

When you run Ansible Agnostic Deployer, it will automatically fetch and create the role in your config directory: ansible/configs/{{env_type}}/roles/docker for example.

Non-Galaxy external roles

Roles in requirements.yml don’t have to be in Galaxy, you can use any git repo.

Another example of requirements.yml with git repo

---
# External role to setup grader host virtualenv and FTL grading infra

- src: https://github.com/redhat-gpte-devopsautomation/ftl-injector
  name: ftl-injector
  version: v0.7

Development workflow

During development, the roles will be deployed and get in your way git-wise. To avoid that, there is a rule in the top-level .gitignore to ignore those dynamic roles:

gitignore

ansible/configs/*/roles

The convention is:

the "static" roles, those versioned in this repository, must live in ansible/roles and the "dynamic" roles in your config directory ansible/configs/{{env_type}}/roles.

Note	Dynamic roles are not pushed in git, only the requirements.yml file is versioned.

Multiple requirement files

Sometimes, for the same config, we need several requirements.yml. For example, one for PROD, one for DEV, etc.

You can create as many files as you want. When calling the playbook just override the requirements_path variable:

ansible-playbook main.yml -e requirements_path=ansible/configs/{{env_type}}/requirements-prod.yml [...]