Allow podman executable override with env #53

NikolineLykPedersen · 2021-08-10T10:29:14Z

The idea behind this pull request is to add the posibility of changing the podman executable from the default, podman, to something else through an environment variable, MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE. This could for instance be podman-remote instead of podman. In that case the environment variable could be exported as:

$ export MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE=podman-remote

The variable has been named MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE to match the similar variable in ansible, namely ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE

Changes have been made both in driver.py, create.yml, and destroy.yml, and have been tested with MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE=podman-remote

We needed this functionality at my work, and I thought others might be able to use it as well :)

Add possibility of setting podman executable through environment variable

Add podman_exec variable to enable using other podman executables, by setting environment variable MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE

sshnaidm · 2021-08-10T10:58:25Z

LGTM, can you please add it to documentation? (Do we have documentation? 👀 ) Or at least to write an example of usage in comments.

Update with short explanation on how to change podman executable

Make bold instead of subtitle

Add comment to explain how to change podman executable

NikolineLykPedersen · 2021-08-10T12:16:37Z

LGTM, can you please add it to documentation? (Do we have documentation? 👀 ) Or at least to write an example of usage in comments.

Of course :) I have attempted to add some explanation, both as a comment oin the code and as a couple of lines in the README.rst :)

sshnaidm · 2021-08-10T12:20:04Z

Great, thanks!

src/molecule_podman/driver.py

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ssbarnea · 2021-08-10T13:18:41Z

I am also using podman-remote on MacOS, but on that platform podman itself is podman-remote so no need to change anything.

On the other hand podman itself has the --remote argument so changing the executable does not make much sense to me.

Ideally podman should add --remote to the cli when CONTAINER_HOST variable is defined. If it does not do that yet, I would support a feature in molecule driver that does this.

Still, I do not support a feature that is not portable and podman-remote does not exist on macos, there is only podman.

Something like `if not-macos and CONTAINER_HOST in os.environ: add '--remote' to podman cli makes more sense to me.

Before doing anything about this lets consult with podman cores, as they may give us some hints on the future plans, so we can avoid a hack that could easily break.

src/molecule_podman/driver.py

sshnaidm · 2021-08-10T13:27:55Z

I am also using podman-remote on MacOS, but on that platform podman itself is podman-remote so no need to change anything.

On the other hand podman itself has the --remote argument so changing the executable does not make much sense to me.

Ideally podman should add --remote to the cli when CONTAINER_HOST variable is defined. If it does not do that yet, I would support a feature in molecule driver that does this.

Still, I do not support a feature that is not portable and podman-remote does not exist on macos, there is only podman.

Something like `if not-macos and CONTAINER_HOST in os.environ: add '--remote' to podman cli makes more sense to me.

No need depend on CONTAINER_HOST var, podman-remote can work without it with additional external config, it's completely not required.
If MacOS doesn't support something, we can add a comment and add an issue, it's not a reason to hold all 99.999% of users that don't use podman-remote on MacOS and it's not an issue of molecule-podman project.

Change formatting of ansible_connection_options

add comma in ansible_connection_options

src/molecule_podman/playbooks/create.yml

ssbarnea

Please wait until we get feedback from podman team on containers/podman#11196 -- based on that we can decide which way to do.

To be clear I am extremely interested about ensuring podman remoting support works fine with our driver, is critical.

README.rst

src/molecule_podman/driver.py

src/molecule_podman/playbooks/create.yml

webknjaz

I think this change may be valuable in some cases but I second Sorin's feedback — we way want to wait for the upstream to make a related decision first.

Meanwhile, I think that there's a workaround — add a custom podman script to some directory that you manage in front of the $PATH, and in that wrapper script, you could choose to run anything you like (for now).

sshnaidm · 2021-08-11T10:19:02Z

@NikolineLykPedersen you can try to export Ansible environment variable as export ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE=podman-remote when running molecule.
I don't agree that this patch should solve all podman remote problems, whether they exist or not, and don't see any blockers to merge this because it just pass through the remote option that exists in ansible podman collection. All the rest is completely out of scope and not related.

ssbarnea · 2021-08-11T10:34:48Z

I think we do have a very good reason for creating a test for remote podman usage inside both the collection and this driver. That would help us avoid regressions in this area. Still, that would not be the subject of this PR.

ssbarnea · 2021-08-11T10:40:38Z

@sshnaidm Was ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE a typo or an idea? I was not able to find anything about it on google but I kinda like avoiding adding a molecule specific environment variable. Something like ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE or even PODMAN_EXECUTABLE could be easier to reuse by multiple tools for the same goal.

On the other hand, I know that podman environment variables do start with CONTAINER_, so maybe even using that prefix could make sense.

sshnaidm · 2021-08-11T12:03:57Z

ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE exists in Ansible Podman connection plugin for years: https://github.com/containers/ansible-podman-collections/blob/d1698121a9585f63dd7eb7ab5ba1eeb02c60f995/plugins/connection/podman.py#L63-L70
Together with ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXTRA_ARGS for podman executable. It's there from 2.9: ansible/ansible@e3c7e35

Change from bold to title Co-authored-by: Sviatoslav Sydorenko <wk.cvs.github@sydorenko.org.ua>

Co-authored-by: Sviatoslav Sydorenko <wk.cvs.github@sydorenko.org.ua>

Move definition of podman_exec out of the module-level + add step to find full path for podman_exec and give error, if it can't be found

NikolineLykPedersen · 2021-08-13T08:44:59Z

@NikolineLykPedersen you can try to export Ansible environment variable as export ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE=podman-remote when running molecule.

I've tried with ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE=podman-remote, but it doesn't affect how containers are created or logged into by molecule. But thanks for the suggestion :)

I might look at the workaround suggested above. Thanks for all the feedback :)

Add task to determine path to podman executable + use path to poodman executable in podman login and build commands

Also use path to executable in Create molecule instance + correct way path was stored as variable

ssbarnea

I still find this a hack that we may need to remove in the future but on the other hand a workaround today may prove more useful than a perfect solution in 2 years.

Add importstatements

ssbarnea · 2021-08-19T15:21:48Z

@NikolineLykPedersen Check https://github.com/ansible-community/molecule-podman/invitations that should allow you to test changes without manual approval.

ssbarnea · 2021-08-19T16:40:47Z

@NikolineLykPedersen please fix the linting problems. If you do it quick we may include that in 1.0.0 release.

You can use changed_when: true/false to avoid these errors.

Fix linting errors

Remove trailing whitespaces

fix linting issues

Fix more linting issues

NikolineLykPedersen · 2021-08-20T08:29:46Z

All the linting problems should be fixed now :)

…y#53)

NikolineLykPedersen added 3 commits August 10, 2021 11:52

Update driver.py

95b3ad5

Add possibility of setting podman executable through environment variable

Update create.yml

fd55f1c

Add podman_exec variable to enable using other podman executables, by setting environment variable MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE

Update destroy.yml

7cf1f9c

Add podman_exec variable to enable using other podman executables, by setting environment variable MOLECULE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE

NikolineLykPedersen added 3 commits August 10, 2021 14:07

Update README.rst

4ee84b2

Update with short explanation on how to change podman executable

Update README.rst

29163e8

Make bold instead of subtitle

Update driver.py

59e5894

Add comment to explain how to change podman executable

sshnaidm reviewed Aug 10, 2021

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NikolineLykPedersen added 2 commits August 10, 2021 14:36

Update driver.py

8865a45

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Update driver.py

9c9f52d

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sshnaidm suggested changes Aug 10, 2021

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NikolineLykPedersen added 2 commits August 10, 2021 15:29

Update driver.py

4b55cfe

Change formatting of ansible_connection_options

Update driver.py

807e4b4

add comma in ansible_connection_options

sshnaidm approved these changes Aug 10, 2021

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ssbarnea reviewed Aug 10, 2021

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ssbarnea suggested changes Aug 11, 2021

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ssbarnea added the feature This issue/PR relates to a feature request. label Aug 11, 2021