Ansible Version Manager (AVM)

Ansible Version Manager (AVM) is a tool to manage multi Ansible installation by creating a python virtual environment for each version.

Why

• Running multiple version of Ansible on the same host.
• Using the development version of ansible for testing and using stable version for production.
• Make your CI run multiple versions for testing i.e. travis, concourse, jenkins, ... or test-kitchen or molecule.
• Create a wrapper script to manage Ansible within your teams and make upgrading roll back easier for many users with different OS and shells.
• If you need add python packages to and make it accessible to Ansible without effecting your global python installation. i.e. boto, dnspython, netaddr or others

Incompatibly as of 1.0.0 version

• Change in variable names
• Stopped using bash arrays i.e. ANSIBLE_VERSIONS[0] to be more Posix and use flat variables i.e. ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_0

For more info check Setup variables

How

You have two options using a setup script or command to install

Setup wrapper script

Create a wrapper script this would be useful for CI or if you want your team to have unified installation.

#!/bin/sh
set -e
# What version of AVM setup to use
export AVM_VERSION="v1.0.0"

## Install Ansible 1.9.6 using pip and label it 'v1.9'
export ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_0="1.9.6"
export INSTALL_TYPE_0="pip"
export ANSIBLE_LABEL_0="v1.9"

## Install Ansible 2.2.3.0 using pip and label it 'v2.2'
export ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_1="2.2.3.0"
export INSTALL_TYPE_1="pip"
export ANSIBLE_LABEL_1="v2.2"

## Install Ansible 2.3.1.0 using pip and label it 'v2.3'
export ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_2="2.3.1.0"
export INSTALL_TYPE_2="pip"
export ANSIBLE_LABEL_2="v2.3"

## Install Ansible from devel using git and label it 'devel'
export ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_2="devel"
export INSTALL_TYPE_2="git"
export ANSIBLE_LABEL_2="devel"

# Whats the default version
export ANSIBLE_DEFAULT_VERSION="v1.9"

## Create a temp dir to download avm
avm_dir="$(mktemp -d 2> /dev/null || mktemp -d -t 'mytmpdir')"
git clone https://github.com/ahelal/avm.git "${avm_dir}" > /dev/null 2>&1
## Run the setup
/bin/sh "${avm_dir}/setup.sh"

exit 0

Setup Command

You would need first to install avm

git clone https://github.com/ahelal/avm.git
cd avm
./setup.sh

then you can use the avm cli to install

# Install stable release (defaults to pip)
avm install --version 2.2.0.0 --label production

# Install development release
avm install --version devel --label dev --type git

# if you have some python lib to install in the virtual env you can also add python requirements.txt file
avm install --version 2.0.0.0 --label legacy --requirements /path/to/requirements.txt

avm command usage

Once install you can use avm the cli to switch between version. for more info run avm --help

Usage:
    avm  info
    avm  list
    avm  path <version>
    avm  use <version>
    avm  activate <version>
    avm  install (-v version) [-t type] [-l label] [-r requirements]

Options:
    info                        Show ansible version in use
    list                        List installed versions
    path <version>              Print binary path of specific version
    use  <version>              Use a <version> of ansible
    activate <version>          Activate virtualenv for <version>

Setup variables

If you are using Setup wrapper script you can override any of the following variables in your script.

Name	default	Description
AVM_VERSION	master	avm version to install. Supports releases, tags, branches. if set to "local" will use pwd as source of installation.
AVM_VERBOSE		Setup verbosity could be empty, v, vv or vvv
SETUP_USER	$USER	The setup user that will have avm and use avm.
SETUP_USER_HOME	$USER home dir	The home dir of setup user.
AVM_IGNORE_SUDO		Simply ignore sudo errors.
DEFAULT_INSTALL_TYPE	pip	Default installation type if not defined.
AVM_UPDATE_VENV	0
ANSIBLE_BIN_PATH	/usr/local/bin	Path to install the ansible and avm binary.
ANSIBLE_VERSIONS_X
ANSIBLE_LABEL_X
INSTALL_TYPE_X
UBUNTU_PKGS

Supported platforms

Currently tested under

• OSX
• Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04
• Alpine 3.4 (early support)

support shells

• bash
• dash
• zsh
• busybox ash

Alpine docker

Experimental support for Alpine in docker

if your installing for non root user you require

apk add sudo
echo "auth       sufficient pam_rootok.so" > /etc/pam.d/su

if your creating an image that does not have python or gcc you can do a cleanup at the end

apk del build-dependencies

Debugging

Verbosity

Setup verbosity could be empty or v, vv or vvv

i.e. AVM_VERBOSE="vv" your_setup.sh

v : Show verbose messages, but mute stdout, stderr vv : Show verbose messages and stdout, stderr vvv : Show verbose messages, stdout, stderr and set -x

In depth debugging

By default avm uses the AVM_VERSION to download and checkout that branch. if you want to debug and change the script you can use AVM_VERSION=local to use a local version of avm.

License

License (MIT)

Contribution

Your contribution is welcome.