Red Hat Launches Ansible-Native Container Workflow Project

Orome1 quotes a report from Help Net Security: Red Hat launched Ansible Container under the Ansible project, which provides a simple, powerful, and agent-less open source IT automation framework. Available now as a technology preview, Ansible Container allows for the complete creation of Docker-formatted Linux containers within Ansible Playbooks, eliminating the need to use external tools like Dockerfile or docker-compose. Ansible's modular code base, combined with ease of contribution, and a community of contributors in GitHub, enables the powerful IT automation platform to manage today's infrastructure, but also adapt to new IT needs and DevOps workflows. Help Net Security reports: "The automated container creation and deployment offered by Ansible factor into Red Hat's existing container infrastructure stack, which now includes: A stable, container-centric operating system in Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host; An enterprise-grade, Kubernetes- and Docker-native container application platform through Red Hat OpenShift and the recently announced next-generation OpenShift Online public cloud service; Infrastructure management, automation and monitoring across hybrid environments with Red Hat CloudForms, Red Hat insights, Red Hat Satellite and Ansible Tower by Red Hat; Massively-scalable private and hybrid cloud architecture for large-scale container deployment through Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Cloud Suite, which also includes Red Hat OpenShift."

So ...

[fahrbot-bot]

I use Ubuntu. Is there a Snap for this?

and ...

[Anonymous Coward]

why would I want to use ansible rather than docker-compose, which is more natural for docker?

Re: and ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the benefit of this approach over yours is that this approach has more hipster-compliant buzzwords. That's a very important factor to consider when choosing technologies these days.

Re:

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

We're an ansible shop. So, the fact that this now blends our software builds with our deployment builds is actually cool for us, in a non-buzzword way. YMMV.

Huh? Apparently I need to update my container know

[raymorris]

I read "blahblah now has blah support for blahblah Docker in blah, meaning blahblah for Red Hat blah and blah". Apparently my knowledge about containers is a bit out date and I need to do some reading.

I bet some of those names might related to a way that I can easily isolate my browser within a container, without any significant performance impact. I'll need to learn some new vocabulary first, though.

Re:Huh? Apparently I need to update my container k

[ADRA]

Ansible is a deployment mechanism that runs automated installations, like when you release new versions internally using continuous deployment and you're not deploying using 'heavy weight' deployment schemes like RPM/APT/MSI/ISO/etc...

Docker containers are light-weight simple isolated execution environments running in Linux, so that you can ideally choose to run Service X on machine Y without knowing or caring about the individual setup (there's usually some form of configuration management hub for detecting the new service and giving it work).

What this press release is saying is essentially you can manage mass deployment of Ansible-> docker deployments using Redhat based central applications management tools natively without relying on hand rolling all that crap yourself, which could be a nice enhancement if you've got a largely Redhat shop and an interest in continuous deployments.

Thanks. Ansible ~ Puppet ~ Chef

[raymorris]

Thanks for that. Sounds like I can pretend that Ansible is something like Chef or Puppet and I get the gist. Maybe lieghter,

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I can pretend that Ansible is something like Chef or Puppet

You don't need to pretend. It's literally in the next step in the shitty scripts to cfengine to puppet/chef line.

Re:

[Bite The Pillow]

I recognized the part after "What this press release is saying is essentially you can manage mass deployment of Ansible-> docker deployments using Redhat based central applications management tools natively without relying on hand rolling all that"

And I have to say, I was doing that 40 years ago.

Re:

[omtinez]

40 years ago? Then it certainly was not WEB SCALE

Re:

[luis_a_espinal]

40 years ago? Then it certainly was not WEB SCALE

I'm sure this will go GOOOSBH over the collective heads of many slashdoters :/

Re:

[Dog-Cow]

Since the Linux kernel didn't exist 40 years ago, we can tell that you're just a better-than-thou shithead who thinks that managing a lab of 5 Unix servers somehow compares to provisioning hundreds of (virtual) machines on demand.

Re:

[dave420]

You weren't, though, were you? You might have been doing something that sounds vaguely similar, or even uses some similar terminology (unlikely, but possible).

Thanks, that led my down another path of learning

[raymorris]

Thanks for that. That appears to be fairly simple to use, on a newer kernel. Reading about it also led me to a couple of other security topics I want to read more about.

Re:

[sg_oneill]

Whats with all these posts where people get angry because they dont know what a particular technology is. This isn't "news for clueless old people" its "news for nerds", a prerequisite of which is RTFA and if that doesnt work, "Use google" .

Its bad enough all the climate denialist whackjobs you get here from time to time, but folks being proud of their technological illiteracy? GTFO

What part of "I need to up my knowledge" is unclea

[raymorris]

Exactly what part of "I need to update my knowledge" is unclear to you? Or did you not bother to read even the subject line of my post before replying with your idiocy?

Re:

[Thelasko]

There are more buzzwords (with Capitalization!) than actual words in the summary. Can we get a non-press release summary?

I have to reply because I moderated this incorrectly. I totally agree. The summary is unreadable. I have no idea what they are talking about. It's just a pile of buzzwords.

Which provides a simple, powerful, and agent-less

[future assassin]

>which provides a simple, powerful, and agent-less open source IT automation framework.

So is this like an automate butler software or something? Shall we call it Geoffrey?

Re:

[organgtool]

So is this like an automate butler software or something?

Yes, it helps you automate the process of deploying new instances of system components.

Shall we call it Geoffrey?

No. That is too similar in name and association with Jenkins, an open-source continuous integration tool.

So, kinda like....??

[inode_buddha]

So, kinda like CF Engine + a bit of scripting?

Re:

[allo]

ansible is kind of cfengine/puppet/chef/salt/... but with more native tools (no server side daemon, etc.) in the unix style (have a lot of small programs working together). The simplest modules just run shell commands via ssh, some more advanced use small python scripts.

More over-the-top toys

[mccalli]

cd /path/to/myproject/
wget http://my.artefact.repository/... [my.artefact.repository]
tar xvfz myproject-1.2.3.tgz
rm current
ln -s myproject-1.2.3 current
cd current
./myproject-ctl.sh restart


If it's good enough for your grandparents, it's good enough for you. Stick it in an ssh script if you want to run it across multiple machines.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Error: unknown library libXmul.so

Python 2?

[Rob van der Linde]

Nice, but is this codebase designed for Python 2 or something? I am seeing some from __future__ import statements in the code which I find a bit meh today. Personally, I wouldn't release any new project that supported Python 2 anymore, and write straight Python 3 code.