doc/manuals/chapters/ansible.adoc

[[ansible]]
== Ansible Setup

Since the set of steps to set up a full {app-name} environment can be quite long
and tedious, nowadays the Osmocom RnD and Production {app-name} setups are
installed and maintained using Ansible scripts. The set of ansible scripts is
available  in Osmocom's git repository
link:https://git.osmocom.org/osmo-ci/[osmo-ci.git] under 'ansible' subdirectory,
with the rest of ansible scripts to set jenkins slaves, etc.

Since these set of scripts is mainly aimed at Osmocom's own setup, and debian is
used there, so far only debian hosts are supported officially, though patches to
support other distributions are welcome.

In there, the 'setup-gsm-tester.yml' file is responsible of doing all required
steps to set up a host to become either a <<install_main_unit,Main Unit>> or a a
<<install_slave_unit,Slave Unit>>. The ansible file can be run as follows:
----
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts setup-gsm-tester.yml
----

You will need root-alike access in the remote host in order to let ansible
install everything {app-name}, however, no root-specific user is required as
long as your remote user has sudo access on that host. If that's your case, add
the following parameters to 'ansible-playbook':
----
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts -b -K -u your_remote_user setup-gsm-tester.yml
----

The 'setup-gsm-tester.yml' file is mostly an aggregator of tasks. Most
{app-name} related tasks can be found under subdirectory 'roles/gsm-tester-*'.

Since different (for instance Production vs RnD) can have different
characteristics, some per-host variables can be found under directory
host_vars/, specifying for instance the number of expected modems attached to
the Main Unit, the DHCP server static leasing for devices, etc.

The different tasks usually have tags to differentiate which kind of {app-name}
host they are required by. They are also set to differentiate sets of tasks
required if a specific feature is being used in the host (for instance, willing
to manage modems with ofono). This allows playing with the '-t' and
'--skip-tags' when running 'ansible-playbooks' in order to run specific set of
tasks on each host.

For instance, to run tasks required to set up a Slave Unit, one can run:
----
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts setup-gsm-tester.yml -t osmo-gsm-tester-proc
----

To run all modem-related tasks:
----
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts setup-gsm-tester.yml -t modem
----

Don't forget to read all README.md files available in different subdirectories
to find out more detailed information on how to run the scripts.