This playbook is meant to be run using [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/).
Ansible typically runs on your local computer and carries out tasks on a remote server.
If your local computer cannot run Ansible, you can also run Ansible on some server somewhere (including the server you wish to install to).
## Supported Ansible versions
To manually check which version of Ansible you're on, run: `ansible --version`.
For the **best experience**, we recommend getting the **latest version of Ansible available**.
We're not sure what's the minimum version of Ansible that can run this playbook successfully.
The lowest version that we've confirmed (on 2022-11-26) to be working fine is: `ansible-core` (`2.11.7`) combined with `ansible` (`4.10.0`).
If your distro ships with an Ansible version older than this, you may run into issues. Consider [Upgrading Ansible](#upgrading-ansible) or [using Ansible via Docker](#using-ansible-via-docker).
## Upgrading Ansible
Depending on your distribution, you may be able to upgrade Ansible in a few different ways:
- by using an additional repository (PPA, etc.), which provides newer Ansible versions. See instructions for [CentOS](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html#installing-ansible-on-rhel-centos-or-fedora), [Debian](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html#installing-ansible-on-debian), or [Ubuntu](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html#installing-ansible-on-ubuntu) on the Ansible website.
- by removing the Ansible package (`yum remove ansible` or `apt-get remove ansible`) and installing via [pip](https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installation/) (`pip install ansible`).
If using the `pip` method, do note that the `ansible-playbook` binary may not be on the `$PATH` (https://linuxconfig.org/linux-path-environment-variable), but in some more special location like `/usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook`. You may need to invoke it using the full path.
**Note**: Both of the above methods are a bad way to run system software such as Ansible.
If you find yourself needing to resort to such hacks, please consider reporting a bug to your distribution and/or switching to a sane distribution, which provides up-to-date software.
## Using Ansible via Docker
Alternatively, you can run Ansible inside a Docker container (powered by the [devture/ansible](https://hub.docker.com/r/devture/ansible/) Docker image).
This ensures that you're using a very recent Ansible version, which is less likely to be incompatible with the playbook.
You can either [run Ansible in a container on the server itself](#running-ansible-in-a-container-on-the-server-itself) or [run Ansible in a container on another computer (not the server)](#running-ansible-in-a-container-on-another-computer-not-the-server).
### Running Ansible in a container on the server itself
To run Ansible in a (Docker) container on the server itself, you need to have a working Docker installation.
Docker is normally installed by the playbook, so this may be a bit of a chicken and egg problem. To solve it:
- you **either** need to install [Docker](services/ansible.md) manually first. Follow [the upstream instructions](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/) for your distribution and consider setting `mash_playbook_docker_installation_enabled: false` in your `vars.yml` file, to prevent the playbook from installing Docker
- **or** you need to run the playbook in another way (e.g. [Running Ansible in a container on another computer (not the server)](#running-ansible-in-a-container-on-another-computer-not-the-server)) at least the first time around
Once you have a working Docker installation on the server, **clone the playbook** somewhere on the server and configure it as per usual (`inventory/hosts`, `inventory/host_vars/..`, etc.), as described in [configuring the playbook](configuring-playbook.md).
You would then need to add `ansible_connection=community.docker.nsenter` to the host line in `inventory/hosts`. This tells Ansible to connect to the "remote" machine by switching Linux namespaces with [nsenter](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/nsenter.1.html), instead of using SSH.
Alternatively, you can leave your `inventory/hosts` as is and specify the connection type in **each**`ansible-playbook` call you do later, like this: `just install-all --connection=community.docker.nsenter` (or `ansible-playbook --connection=community.docker.nsenter ...`).
Finally, you can execute `just` or `ansible-playbook ...` (e.g. `ansible-playbook --connection=community.docker.nsenter ...`) commands as per normal now.
If you don't use SSH keys for authentication, simply remove that whole line (`-v $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa:/root/.ssh/id_rsa:ro`).
To authenticate at your server using a password, you need to add a package. So, when you are in the shell of the ansible docker container (the previously used `docker run -it ...` command), run:
```bash
apk add sshpass
```
Then, to be asked for the password whenever running an `ansible-playbook` command add `--ask-pass` to the arguments of the command.
#### Resolve directory ownership issues
Because you're `root` in the container running Ansible and this likely differs fom the owner (your regular user account) of the playbook directory outside of the container, certain playbook features which use `git` locally may report warnings such as:
> fatal: unsafe repository ('/work' is owned by someone else)
> To add an exception for this directory, call:
> git config --global --add safe.directory /work
These errors can be resolved by making `git` trust the playbook directory by running `git config --global --add safe.directory /work`
