Role Name

A template for an ansible role that configures some GNU/Linux subsystem or service. A brief description of the role goes here.

Requirements

Any prerequisites that may not be covered by Ansible itself or the role should be mentioned here. This includes platform dependencies not managed by the role, hardware requirements, external collections, etc. There should be a distinction between control node requirements (like collections) and managed node requirements (like special hardware, platform provisioning).

Collection requirements

For instance, if the role depends on some collections and has a meta/collection-requirements.yml file for installing those dependencies, it should be mentioned here that the user should run

ansible-galaxy collection install -vv -r meta/collection-requirements.yml

on the control node before using the role.

Role Variables

A description of all input variables (i.e. variables that are defined in defaults/main.yml) for the role should go here as these form an API of the role. Each variable should have its own section e.g.

template_foo

This variable is required. It is a string that lists the foo of the role. There is no default value.

template_bar

This variable is optional. It is a boolean that tells the role to disable bar. The default value is true.

Variables that are not intended as input, like variables defined in vars/main.yml, variables that are read from other roles and/or the global scope (ie. hostvars, group vars, etc.) can be also mentioned here but keep in mind that as these are probably not part of the role API they may change during the lifetime.

Example of setting the variables:

template_foo: "oof"
template_bar: false

Variables Exported by the Role

This section is optional. Some roles may export variables for playbooks to use later. These are analogous to "return values" in Ansible modules. For example, if a role performs some action that will require a system reboot, but the user wants to defer the reboot, the role might set a variable like template_reboot_needed: true that the playbook can use to reboot at a more convenient time.

Example:

template_reboot_needed

Default false - if true, this means a reboot is needed to apply the changes made by the role

Example Playbook

Including an example of how to use your role (for instance, with variables passed in as parameters) is always nice for users too:

- name: Manage the template subsystem
  hosts: all
  vars:
    template_foo: "foo foo!"
    template_bar: false
  roles:
    - linux-system-roles.template

More examples can be provided in the examples/ directory. These can be useful, especially for documentation.

License

Whenever possible, please prefer MIT.

Author Information

An optional section for the role authors to include contact information, or a website (HTML is not allowed).

richm/snapshot