Use Cases for server-ansible-roles
by John W. Himpel
All,
At today's Fedora Server meeting on IRC, it was requested that we open a thread on the Server mailing list to provide
use cases. This is my attempt to start that discussion.
Use Case #1:
A small site without an experienced Systems Administrator wishes to host their own email server. This would normally
involve installing postfix, sendmail or some other Message Transfer Agent (MTA). It would also normally involve
installing dovecot or some other Message Delivery Agent (MDA). While rpms exist for the above services, the rpms
contain generic configuration files that require manual “tweaking” before the services will work together as one unit.
One potential server-ansible-role might install the postfix rpm. Another server-ansible role might install the sendmail
rpm. Yet another rpm might install the dovecot rpm. A yet-to-be-developed server-ansible-role might configure postfix
and dovecot to work together. A second yet-to-be developed server-ansible-role might configure sendmail and dovecot to
work together.
The site may wish to only allow for secure transmissions between the MTA and the sending User Agent (UA) as well as
between the MDA and the UA. That would involve installing the the certbot rpm, requesting the necessary certificates
from the Letsencrypt CA, and configuring the MTA and MDA configuration files to provide secure transmissions. A server-
ansible-role could do all of this assuming the MTA was postfix and another server-ansible-role could do all of this
assuming the MTA was sendmail.
The site may wish to implement Spamassassin, Clamav, DKIM, DMARC and SPF in a matter similar to that described above.
Other possibilities include configuring the MTA and MDA to host multiple virtual domains and/or virtual users. This
would require installing an RPM for a database of choice and making all the necessary configuration file changes
required to integrate it into the sites MTA/MDA infrastructure.
For a site considering migration from other OS’s to Fedora, completing this process could take days if not weeks. With
all the old and outdated documentation on the web, it almost becomes a trial and error situation. With carefully
crafted server-ansible-roles, it should be a matter of instructions on how to access the server-ansible-roles repository
and providing well-documented defaults/main.yml and vars/main.yml files. The unfamiliar Systems Administrator then only
needs to provide the site-specific values in the Ansible variables files.
Use Case #2:
In reality, I suppose this is just a variation on Use Case #1.
The site wishes to host dhcp, dns and other network management related services locally. The site also might wish to
use dnssec to help with network security and integrity. I know that DNS over HTTPS (DoH) vs DNS over TLS (DoT) is
somewhat controversial, but configuration of these options could be provided by server-ansible-roles.
My network-foo is not strong enough to know if/how Unbound fit into the picture. But again with the proper server-
ansible-roles, it should be able to integrate into this architecture.
Use Case #3:
Again, this might just be a variation on Use Case #1.
Radicale is a program that will synchronize calendars, contacts, and to-do lists between applications that support
CalDAV, CardDAV and http. It allows a user to keep this information in sync between a desktop, laptop and/or a smart
phone on linux, windows and ios. It involves installing rpms for radicale, (apache or nginx), and most-likely git (for
version control of the data files). Configurations for radicale and the web server need to be altered according to user
preferences. Such configuration changes include things like authentication, reverse proxy, wsgi, rights management,
etc. Hopefully, two server-ansible-roles would perform all the necessary configuration changes (one role for apache
and another for nginx).
Use Case #4:
If we wanted to be real ambitious, a role for installing and configuring Wildfly (or any other large complex piece of
software). It could be installed via the provider’s installation method which would probably include software installed
in /opt that are specific to the individual application. Or we could perhaps develop server-ansible-roles to download
all the individual component pieces, package them into rpms, submit them to the Fedora Packaging processes for inclusion
into basic fedora.
I would envision continuing using rpm packages (not coprs and not flatpacks) for basic software installation. I would
envision a git-like repository maintained by the Fedora Server working group (along with other stakeholders) to provide
the server-ansible-roles necessary to integrate all of the pieces together. The key to making all of this work is good,
user-focused, up-to-date documentation on the wiki, web site and in the server-ansible-roles.
Let the conversation begin.
2 years
Short info about today's IRC meeting (2021-05-26)
by Peter Boy
Again, for all of us lazy people, a brief summary right here.
For greater details see meetbot
Summary: https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2021-05-26/fedora-server...
Full log: https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2021-05-26/fedora-server...
First of all a big SORRY!
I had unexpected problems with my equipment. I could read everything, but writing did not work. Until I had rebooted. Unfortunately, it was not a good start. Thanks to michel_slm who saved the day.
Only topic discussed was:
=== issues deploying services via RPM and Ansible ===
à la our working project
=== Providing easy installation and pre-configuration for key services with Ansible ===
Discussion was exciting and extensive. It took all the time.
Many thanks to <richm> (lead for the linux system Ansible roles project) for participation.
AGREED:: langdon, jwhimpel, swefredde, pboyHB condense the discussion via mailing list into 2-3 questions we can discuss next meeting pboyHB archives it at the wiki page
Watch fedora server mailing list.
== Next meeting: ==
Wednesday, June 2, 17:00 !!UTC!! #fedora-meeting
Agenda:
- decision about PRD, maybe voting
- continuing Ansible discussion
2 years
Short info about today's IRC meeting (2021-05-19)
by Peter Boy
Again, for all of us lazy people, a brief summary right here.
For greater details see meetbot
Summary: https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2021-05-19/fedora-server...
Full log: https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2021-05-19/fedora-server...
=== Planning for next Fedora release(s) ===
== Subitem: Improved support for off-premise Kickstart and pxe installation
* Longer discussion about different patterns and focal points
* We need a Wiki page to help to systematize the discussion
ACTION: pboy will set up a first version of subpage about "Improved support for off-premise Kickstart and pxe installation“
== Subitem: Providing easy installation and pre-configuration for key services with Ansible
* Longer discussion about how to facilitate installation and administration of central services as application Server à la Wildfly / jBoss
** Helper rpms that only contain the systemd environment and an installation script do not comply with Fedora policy
** Ansible collections and things should be referencing packages and leverage Fedora content rather than external stuff
AGREED: Dedicate on of the next meeting to discuss Ansible in Fedora Server
ACTION: pboy, swefredde, jwhimpel set up a wiki page for further discussion
2 years
Call for Agenda Items on 2020-05-26 17:00 UTC meeting (today!)
by Peter Boy
Hi,
Still to be discussed is our work plan.
1.
Providing easy installation and pre-configuration for key services with Ansible - wiki page
Continuation of the last meeting
2.
Explore opportunities for cooperation with Cloud WG / SIG
AND
Facilitated and improved support for using Base Cloud Images
Our last discussion of this topic was more than a quarter of a year ago. As far as I know there is nothing new so far. Maybe we should take the former topic off our agenda and build another solution or the latter.
Some details about differences and issues with Cloud Base Image and Fedora Server VM:
https://fedoramagazine.org/setting-up-a-vm-on-fedora-server-using-cloud-i...
It may be reasonable to rename topic 2 of our goals(in our PRD)
from currently
"Facilitated and improved support for using Base Cloud Images as virtual machines in Feder Server Edition.“
to
"Facilitated and improved support for installing and using Fedora Server VMs in Fedora Server Edition"
That includes Cloud Base Images as well as other solutions.
3.
Revisiting defaults... filesystem/partitioning
No specific information yet
4.
Easy integration into multi-node environments with tools like Ansible
No discussion about that topic so far.
5.
Buildup of a renewed documentation on Fedora Server specific topics
see current state at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/
2 years
