This is a cookiecutter project for creating Ansible roles targeting multiple distributions. If you are looking for a simpler role template, use this one.
This includes tests using Molecule and YAML Lint to work with [Azure Pipelines].
To use this, first install cookiecutter, then run cookiecutter gh:samdoran/cookiecutter-ansible-role and answer the prompts.
Molecule uses Docker by default to spin up local containers for testing. I have created several containers that have Ansible installed and work well for testing Ansible roles. Feel free to use them or change to your own in molecule/default/molecule.yml.
To test your role, you first need to install Molecule by running pip install molecule, or using your package manager of choice. You may also pip install molecule[docker] to also install the docker Python library, or pip install molecule[lint] to install ansible-lint, yamllint, and flake8.
Next, run molecule test. This will run the entire default test scenario, which creates a test container, runs the linters, runs the role twice, then destroys the container.
I frequently find I want to interact with the test instance rather than destroying it. To create a test instance, run your role, then leave the container running, run molecule converge. You can then interact with the container using docker exec -it [container name] bash. To rerun your role against the existing container, just run molecule converge again.
Once you are done with the container, run molecule destroy to remove it.
You can also run molecule lint, molecule idempotence, etc. to just run a specific test if desired.
The default scenario runs molecule/default/playbook.yml. You can customize this playbook to suit your needs.
In Molecule 3, [linting behavior changed]. I have configured this template to lint using the same behavior as Molecule 2 but using the new syntax. It's possible to change this behavior by modifying the commands in lint: in the molecule.yml file. Linting can be disabled completely by deleting the lint:.
The molecule.yml file is setup to accept three environment variables:
MOLECULE_DISTRIBUTION: controls the distribution to test against
MOLECULE_COMMAND: the command to run inside the container
MOLECULE_PLAYBOOK: the name of the playbook to run
Valid values for MOLECULE_DISTRIBUTION based on how I name my test containers are:
- centos7 (the default)
- centos8
- ubuntu16
- ubuntu18
- ubuntu20
- debian9
- debian10
- fedora30
- fedora31
For example, to test your role on Debian 10, run env MOLECULE_DISTRIBUTION=debian10 molecule test.
The included .azure_pipelines.yml file uses a test matrix to test various distributions. It will run molecule test --all on each of the distributions.
A special thank you to Jeff Geerling for being a trailblazer with Molecule (and Ansible role testing in general). I would be lost without his amazing work.