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Ansible inventory management for AWS EC2 on a Small Scale
At TRI, we do everything the hard way… on a small scale. Many online services “best practices” and offerings are fine when you have a large operating budget and staff, and that leaves “smaller” shops with some notable problems to solve. Until recently, we ran a bunch of AWS EC2 instances using Ansible, but Ansible…
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Ansible, python and mysql… untangling the mess
Nearly every “how to” article or tutorial on the web describes one way of using Ansible, python, and connecting to MySQL as if that was the only solution. Many don’t note code versions used, or even the pub date, and the Internet is rife with simply bad advice. I finally gave up researching all this…
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Why you shouldn’t care whether Ansible runs are re-entrant
I recently wrote about a problem I had as a result of imagining that Ansible runs were re-entrant. (Spoiler: they are generally not.) After kicking this around a little I realized that you should not care whether Ansible runs are re-entrant. I like cherry pie so I will explain myself with a pie analogy. If you…
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Re-entrant vs idempotent in Ansible roles
I wasted a couple hours tracking down a problem with a raft of new AWS ec2 instances generated using Ansible, and it’s worth explaining because it showcases problem common in a lot of Ansible roles. While Ansible docs talk up the concept of “idempotency” (the ability to run a playbook multiple times without screwing up…