dgmorales/ansible repository overview

⁠Overview

This a docker image for running ansible. It was made as a convenient way to run ansible from within windows, but it can be used on any docker plataform as well.

Instead of running a service inside a detached container, you run /usr/bin/ansible or /usr/bin/ansible-playbook inside an interactive mode container, mapping your current windows directory (containing your ansible code) inside the container.

⁠Prereqs

Docker, and some aliases shown bellow.

On Windows, I have only using both Docker Toolbox and Docker for Windows (with linux containers).

⁠Handy Aliases

These allow you to use "ansible" and "ansible-playbook" nearly transparently.

⁠Aliases for Docker on linux and Docker Toolbox on windows

alias ansible-playbook='docker run -it --rm -w /code -v \`pwd\`:/code dgmorales/ansible'
alias ansible='docker run -it --rm -w /code -v \`pwd\`:/code  --entrypoint /usr/bin/ansible dgmorales/ansible'

You can place these lines inside ~/.bash_profile (create this file if necessary), so they will always be available.

⁠Docker for Windows aliases

Docker for Windows does not use bash shell as toolbox does, so we instead use powershell functions as aliases:

function ansible {
  docker run -it --rm -w /code -v ${pwd}:/code --entrypoint /usr/bin/ansible dgmorales/ansible $args
}

function ansible-playbook {
  docker run -it --rm -w /code -v ${pwd}:/code dgmorales/ansible $args
}

Place these at $Home\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Profile.ps1 and they will be loaded automatically on the powershell terminal.

⁠More details and LIMITATIONS

• The aliases map (using -v) your current windows directory to /code inside the container, BUT...
• That only works if your current windows directory is below c:\Users (that's a limitation of docker's volume mapping feature when using docker machine/docker toolbox).
• /code is used as the CWD (-w) for the commands run in the container.
• Because of this mapping, you should always run ansible from your repo's root dir.
• The container is auto removed at the end (--rm)
• The ansible.cfg inside the container sets the SSH known hosts file to be /code/.known_hosts