Expose this role in a galaxy collection

[evrardjp]

Without a galaxy collection, this role will always be considered as a second citizen.

Currently, the galaxy content searches inside collections first. Tthe standalone roles are relegated to page 2 (minimum), after the collections. That always apply, even if you sort by the amount of downloads (in which this role should be first).

Quote from the ansible website:
"You must migrate roles to collections if you want to distribute them as certified Ansible content."

I think it might make sense to expose this role inside a galaxy collection, but I feel it will be a pain to manage... Any idea?

[Kariton]

What is the goal of "this" collection?
and what do you want do include beside keepalived?

I know that LVS / IPVS is a nice addition.

• evrardjp.SOMETHING.keeplaived
• evrardjp.SOMETHING.lvs
• evrardjp.SOMETHING.lvs_realserver_maintenance
  (to reference my usecase with this role)

so someone could do stuff like this:

---

- hosts: loadbalancers, host.example.tld
  tasks:
#    - name: "configure keepalived"
#      ansible.builtin.import_role:
#       name: evrardjp.SOMETHING.keeplaived
#      when: "'loadbalancers' in group_names"

#    - name: "configure lvs"
#      ansible.builtin.import_role:
#       name: evrardjp.SOMETHING.lvs
#      when: "'loadbalancers' in group_names"

    - name: "set lvs RS maintenance"
      ansible.builtin.import_role:
        name: evrardjp.SOMETHING.lvs_realserver_maintenance
        vars:
          state: true # lvsadm cli command - not persistent
          # state: persistent # keepalived (re)configuration through 'evrardjp.SOMETHING.keeplaived' - is persistent (im aware that ipvsadm can also be used in a persistent way without keepalived.
          realserver: 'host.example.tld'
      when: "'loadbalancers' in group_names"

    - name: "do stuff on RS"
      ansible.builtin.import_role:
        name: some_role
      when: "'loadbalancers' not in group_names"

    - name: "unset lvs RS maintenance"
      ansible.builtin.import_role:
        name: evrardjp.SOMETHING.lvs_realserver_maintenance
        vars:
          state: false
          realserver: 'host.example.tld'
      when: "'loadbalancers' in group_names"

which would be the equivalent of my use case (provided example in this discussion: #222)

this would only save the "include sub playbook" for the user.
the workflow will be the same.

I thing a quiet easy step would be to create a "single role collection"
evrardjp.SOMETHING.keeplaived

justmy2cents

[Kariton]

to organize and separate issues / PRs etc. maybe git submodule is feasible.
each role in its own repo - included in the collection via submodule.

this way you are able to include roles maintained by different people.
if you which and the consent.

[evrardjp]

For that, I thought of using subtrees, but yeah, same thing.

[Kariton]

Some other roles that may fit:

• conntrackd
• HA Proxy

[evrardjp]

I have seen a few different haproxy role, and sometimes are lacking "user friendliness" on how to do operations (enabling the maintenance modes, etc).

Doing this under a collection might help and motivate people to collaborate... I hope :)

[Kariton]

IIRC there is no "generally documented" haproxy role with support for EL available on galaxy.

Oefenwebs role looks promising though.
Its only for Debian/Ubuntu.

But I havent looked into haproxy roles for a few weeks.

[evrardjp]

yes, I thought keepalived, haproxy, lvs, and maybe work on routing daemons for easy anycasting.

This could be named evrardjp.ha.*

[Kariton]

you could create a new repository as collection and we try some stuff and experiment with it to get an idea on how this would work out.
within the next few changes my example lvs_maintenance might be a good second role to work with.

it basically depends on the keepalived variables (layout).

you may can comment some stuff right away in the discussion there.

[evrardjp]

That makes sense, and it's indeed the goal: Regroup people with HA use cases, make sure those use cases are tested together, and aim for simplicity.

[evrardjp]

I am very new to ansible collections.

This is what I scaffolded (please read the README) today: https://github.com/evrardjp/ansible-collection-ha

[Kariton]

never worked with subtree before but i will definitely try it.