Make your Ansible playbooks maintainable, flexible, and scalable
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The document discusses how to make Ansible playbooks flexible, maintainable, and scalable. It recommends staying organized by keeping playbooks in source control and including documentation. It also stresses the importance of testing playbooks early and often using tools like YAML linting, Ansible syntax checks, Ansible lint, and test environments. Finally, it suggests simplifying playbooks by using flat variables instead of nested dictionaries, optimizing tasks to disable facts gathering when unnecessary, and using templates instead of lineinfile modules.
![• Heed [DEPRECATION WARNING]s
• Read through porting guides
• Disable annoying WARN messages:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/maintainableplaybooks-jeffgeerling-ansiblefest2018-181005021153/85/Make-your-Ansible-playbooks-maintainable-flexible-and-scalable-23-320.jpg)
![• Heed [DEPRECATION WARNING]s
• Read through porting guides
• Disable annoying WARN messages:
- name: Check if firewalld is installed.
command: yum list installed firewalld
args:
warn: no
register: firewalld_installed](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/maintainableplaybooks-jeffgeerling-ansiblefest2018-181005021153/85/Make-your-Ansible-playbooks-maintainable-flexible-and-scalable-24-320.jpg)
![[defaults]
callback_whitelist = profile_roles, profile_tasks, timer](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/maintainableplaybooks-jeffgeerling-ansiblefest2018-181005021153/85/Make-your-Ansible-playbooks-maintainable-flexible-and-scalable-38-320.jpg)
![Monday 10 September 22:31:08 -0500 (0:00:00.851) 0:01:08.824 ******
===============================================================================
geerlingguy.docker ------------------------------------------------------ 9.65s
geerlingguy.security ---------------------------------------------------- 9.33s
geerlingguy.nginx ------------------------------------------------------- 6.65s
geerlingguy.firewall ---------------------------------------------------- 5.39s
geerlingguy.munin-node -------------------------------------------------- 4.51s
copy -------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.34s
geerlingguy.backup ------------------------------------------------------ 4.14s
geerlingguy.htpasswd ---------------------------------------------------- 4.13s
geerlingguy.ntp --------------------------------------------------------- 3.94s
geerlingguy.swap -------------------------------------------------------- 2.71s
template ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2.64s
...
[defaults]
callback_whitelist = profile_roles, profile_tasks, timer](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/maintainableplaybooks-jeffgeerling-ansiblefest2018-181005021153/85/Make-your-Ansible-playbooks-maintainable-flexible-and-scalable-39-320.jpg)
Make your Ansible playbooks maintainable, flexible, and scalable
- 1. Make your Ansible playbooks flexible / maintainable / scalable J E F F G E E R L I N G ( @ G E E R L I N G G U Y) # A N S I B L E FEST
- 2. D E V E L O P E R A U T H O R P H O T O G R A P H E R
- 3. H O S T E D A PA C H E S O L R
- 4. D R U PA L V M & M A C D E V P L AY B O O K
- 5. M E D I A E C O M M E R C E P L AT F O R M
- 6. L E S S O N S L E A R N E D 1. Stay organized 2. Test early and often 3. Simplify, optimize
- 8. S TAY O R G A N I Z E D
- 10. • Playbooks always run from build server
- 11. – J E F F G E E R L I N G “If it's important, it will be forgotten.”
- 12. R E A D M E 1. Purpose 2. Links (CI, docs, issue tracking) 3. Instructions for local testing
- 13. S M A L L F I L E S • < 100 lines per file • Start by splitting out related tasks with include_* • Progress to single-responsibility roles
- 14. R O L E S • Make roles generic • Share roles among projects • Contribute to / use from Galaxy?
- 17. T E S T E A R LY A N D O F T E N
- 19. The Ansible CI Spectrum
- 20. • yamllint • ansible-playbook --syntax-check • ansible-lint • molecule test (integration) • ansible-playbook --check (against prod) • Parallel infrastructure
- 21. • yamllint • ansible-playbook --syntax-check • ansible-lint • molecule test (integration) • ansible-playbook --check (against prod) • Parallel infrastructure increasing complexity
- 23. • Heed [DEPRECATION WARNING]s • Read through porting guides • Disable annoying WARN messages:
- 24. • Heed [DEPRECATION WARNING]s • Read through porting guides • Disable annoying WARN messages: - name: Check if firewalld is installed. command: yum list installed firewalld args: warn: no register: firewalld_installed
- 25. • Target latest Ansible release • Keep CI environment updated
- 26. S I M P L I F Y, O P T I M I Z E
- 27. S I M P L I F Y, O P T I M I Z E
- 28. – J E F F G E E R L I N G “YAML is not a programming language.”
- 30. • Prefer simple, flat variables over dicts
- 31. • Prefer simple, flat variables over dicts apache: startservers: 2 maxclients: 2!
- 32. • Prefer simple, flat variables over dicts apache: startservers: 2 maxclients: 2! apache_startservers: 2 apache_maxclients: 250 ✅
- 33. • Prefer simple, flat variables over dicts apache: startservers: 2 maxclients: 2! apache_startservers: 2 apache_maxclients: 250 ✅
- 34. S P E E D
- 35. • CI is useless if slow S P E E D
- 36. • CI is useless if slow • Disable gather_facts if not needed • forks config - fully utilize resources S P E E D
- 37. M O D U L E S • package - pass list to name instead of a loop • copy - only for single files or small dirs • lineinfile - try to switch to template instead of looping on one file
- 38. [defaults] callback_whitelist = profile_roles, profile_tasks, timer
- 39. Monday 10 September 22:31:08 -0500 (0:00:00.851) 0:01:08.824 ****** =============================================================================== geerlingguy.docker ------------------------------------------------------ 9.65s geerlingguy.security ---------------------------------------------------- 9.33s geerlingguy.nginx ------------------------------------------------------- 6.65s geerlingguy.firewall ---------------------------------------------------- 5.39s geerlingguy.munin-node -------------------------------------------------- 4.51s copy -------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.34s geerlingguy.backup ------------------------------------------------------ 4.14s geerlingguy.htpasswd ---------------------------------------------------- 4.13s geerlingguy.ntp --------------------------------------------------------- 3.94s geerlingguy.swap -------------------------------------------------------- 2.71s template ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2.64s ... [defaults] callback_whitelist = profile_roles, profile_tasks, timer
- 40. Try other callback plugins! (my fave: yaml)
- 41. L E S S O N S L E A R N E D 1. Stay organized 2. Test early and often 3. Simplify, optimize
- 42. T H A N K Y O U ! # A N S I B L E FEST