bertbaron/ansible repository overview

⁠Ansible Docker container

Ansible client container aimed to behave as much as possible as a locally installed Ansible.

Allows to run Ansible with a configuration on your local host using ssh keys and config from your localhost, updating any host in your network. This makes it very easy to get started with Ansible.

⁠Setup

⁠Install

The easiest way to use this image is to install the wrapper scripts in a folder in your path. For example:

docker pull bertbaron/ansible
docker run --rm -ti -v /usr/local/bin:/workdir bertbaron/ansible setup

This will create wrapper scripts for the ansible commands in /usr/local/bin.¹

The scripts run ansible as usual, mounting the current working directory to /workdir and the ~/.ssh directory to /home/user/.ssh.

¹ You can use any other folder (i.e. $HOME/bin), just make sure the folder is in your path

⁠Updating / switching between ansible versions

Instead of running the setup command again the version can also be easily updated using:

ansible-update

⁠Uninstall

To uninstall, run:

ansible-uninstall

⁠Usage

The scripts can be used as is, but note that you need to specify the hosts file explicitly because the command only sees the current working directory. Personally I use a simple wrapper script like the following:

#!/bin/bash
ansible-playbook -i hosts -b --vault-password-file=/home/user/.ssh/.pwd site.yml "$@"

⁠About this image

Reasons to use Ansible from a container:

• No other local requirements than docker
• Ansible version independent from the one that may be provided by the OS package management

Reason to make yet another Ansible container:

• In contrary to other containers I tried this container allows to use the authorized ssh keys on the host

Reasons not to use this image:

• Only a selection of ansible versions available (see https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/bertbaron/ansible/tags⁠)
• Limited support
• A more complex (production) site may require more control over the way Ansible is used