setup

This repository hosts a series of Ansible roles that I use to get my development machines set up. Essentially, they are a series of pretty much OS-agnostic scripts that install all the things I need/want for development as well as my preferred configuration files where relevant.

The roles are divided into three groups: simple, composite, and personalized roles. These three groups are found in roles/simple, roles/composite and roles/personalized, respectively. Simple roles depend on no other roles. For example simple/tmux installs tmux with the package manager on your system. Composite roles, on the other hand, are composed of other, typically simple roles. For example, composite/tmux-with-system-clipboard-interop will install tmux and the tools you need make tmux interoperate with the system clipboard on your system. So if you run OS X, this entails installing the reattach-to-user-namespace brew formula, while if you are one some Linux or BSD running Xorg, it installs the xclip utility. The personalized roles are roles that install and configure programs exactly how I want them: For example, the personalized/vim installs vim, downloads my personal configuration and installs it appropriately.

How do I use it?

• Run bootstrap-ansible.sh to install Ansible on your system.

• Create an Ansible playbook that includes the roles you want. See example.yml

• Run ansible-playbook filename-of-playbook.yml -i default-host --ask-become-pass to run a playbook. If you are on FreeBSD, you have to use ansible-playbook filename-of-playbook.yml -i freebsd-host --ask-become-pass. If you run inside a Vagrant machine or have passwordless sudo in other ways, you can drop the --ask-become-passoption.

Using Vagrant to test the scripts

The Vagrantfile contains test configurations for Ubuntu, Debian and FreeBSD.

To spin up a virtual machine of interest, type vagrant up <distroname>, where <distroname> is either ubuntu, freebsd or debian.

Use vagrant ssh <distroname> to log into the machine. You'll find the repository in /vagrant/. From here you can run the ansible scripts as if you had just acquired a fresh box.

(I am aware that you can use Ansible as a vagrant provisioner. However, the point of this repository is to simualte that you are setting up a local machine, including explicitly installing Ansible.)

What about testing on OS X?

Ideally, I'd like to have a Vagrant box for OS X also. I am intrigued by these instructions for generating Virtualbox images for OS X, and might try it someday.

Supported operating systems

Mac OS X is my daily driver and the only truly first-class citizen in this setup. Nevertheless, my goal is to have a fully-scripted setup compatible with all major unices, particularly Ubuntu, FreeBSD and Debian. If you come across a role that is incorrectly coded for your system, please send me a pull request!

I am intrigued. Are there other repositories like these?

Sure! Check out osxc.