Add example of ansible provisioning with playbook

[afbjorklund]

Example for:

• Additional provisioning formats beyond shell scripts #2282

This has the same problem with relative paths, as was fixed for the scripts:

• Allow providing scripts as separate files #2442

INFO[0022] Waiting for ansible playbook "./ansible/playbook.yaml" 
ERROR! the playbook: ./ansible/playbook.yaml could not be found

commit 3b33549

Currently it uses the working directory, so it only works from the git repo top.

$ limactl start ./templates/ansible.yaml

---

With the awesome Unicode Unicow:

INFO[0067] Waiting for ansible playbook "./templates/ansible/playbook.yaml" 
╭──────────────────────╮
⟨ PLAY [My first play] ⟩
╰──────────────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

╭────────────────────────╮
⟨ TASK [Gathering Facts] ⟩
╰────────────────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [ansible]
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────╮
⟨ TASK [hostname : write hostname using jinja2] ⟩
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [ansible]
╭──────────────────────╮
⟨ TASK [Ping my hosts] ⟩
╰──────────────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [ansible]
╭──────────────────────╮
⟨ TASK [Print message] ⟩
╰──────────────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [ansible] => {
    "msg": "Hello world"
}
╭────────────╮
⟨ PLAY RECAP ⟩
╰────────────╯
        ╲   ^__^
         ╲  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ansible                    : ok=4    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/getting_started/get_started_playbook.html
• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_templating.html

[jandubois]

Is there a way to reference environment variables from inside the playbook?

I realized that tests in #2570 don't verify that the $PARAM_FOO variables are visible to ansible provisioning (and probably they aren't). So it would be good if we could incorporate a test for that in the example?

[afbjorklund]

Is there a way to reference environment variables from inside the playbook?

I think you can do something like {{ lookup('env','ENV_VAR') }}

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/env_lookup.html

Then there is the ansible_env, but that it set rather than get

[afbjorklund]

I will add a separate test for params, they should be propagated but they fail to validate:

field param key "ANSIBLE" is not used in any provision, probe, copyToHost, or portForward

We will just add them to the environment of the ansible-playbook (local) execution.

• Make sure that ansible params check the playbook #2677

[AkihiroSuda]

Not sure if we want to put non-lima yamls to the template store.
Maybe we should have a examples/ directory?

[jandubois]

Not sure if we want to put non-lima yamls to the template store.

We don't because they would be included in limactl create --list-templates, which would be confusing.

[afbjorklund]

It needs to be next to the template, so that it can be referenced.

provision:
- mode: ansible
  playbook: ./templates/ansible/playbook.yaml

It could probably use the new feature for scripts:

• Assemble templates using the new base setting #3072

[afbjorklund]

Should be rewritten with the new feature to assemble templates.

i.e. provision.playbook should be converted to use locator as well

provision:
- mode: ansible
  file:
    url: ./templates/ansible/playbook.yaml

Currently it is being read into script, but should also be for playbook.

NOTE: The playbook is recursive, so needs to be parsed to be embedded...

templates/ansible
├── playbook.yaml
├── README.md
└── roles
    └── hostname
        ├── tasks
        │   └── main.yaml
        └── templates
            └── test.j2

4 directories, 4 files

Unfortunately Ansible does not provide a good way to use a single yaml file.

I have no idea if embedding works for scripts that include functions from files...

[jandubois]

Should be rewritten with the new feature to assemble templates.

Yes, it should. Once created, instances should not rely on any external files.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any tools to flatten playbooks; we would have to implement it ourselves. I'll create an issue for it, but I won't get around to it for quite a while.