Ansible tasks¶

MetalSoft has the ability to execute Ansible playbooks via the site controller at certain moments in time. This is done via the Ansible Task Type (taskType: ExtensionTaskAnsible) attached to an workflow or other Extension types.

Warning

The Ansible Runner capability must be enabled on the site controller in order for this task type to be supported. See Enabling the Ansible Runner Capability for more details.

The way it gets executed is relatively complex:

Execution process:

Depending on the stage a Job Graph will be updated with several tasks that will prepare and execute the ansible playbook on the site controller.
The global controller downloads the ansible bundle specified in the extension’ assets[*].url section and sends it to the site controller. For example this is https://repo.metalsoft.io/.extensions_ms/workflows/power_dns.zip in the example below.
The site controller then unzips it and executes ansible against the specified playbook such as deploy_dns_flexible in the example below with the provided variables.json see below more details.

Task Object Schema¶

{
    "label": "create-or-update-dns-and-ptr-records-for-instance",
    "taskType": "ExtensionTaskAnsible",
    "options": {
        "asset": "power-dns-configuration",
        "playbook": "deploy_dns_flexible.yaml"
    }
}

Options¶

asset - The asset to call
playbook - The playbook to execute that must exist within the asset bundle.
executionTimeout - Timeout for the execution
executionTimeoutTick - How often to retry in case of an error

variables.yaml¶

When the Ansible bundle is executed the following variables.yaml will be available in the directory. The content will depend on the execution stage:

For serverRegistered, serverDecommissioned, switchRegistered: The Server and Network objects are available. The user can refer to the Server and NetworkDevice objects’ parameters depending on the asset that is being changed. Refer to your environment’s API documentation.
For serverInstanceGroupCreateDNS, serverInstanceGroupUpdateDNS, serverInstanceGroupDeleteDN,serverInstanceUpdateDNS, serverInstanceDeleteDNS check the RecordSet object in the API documentation. A server DNS record set object similar to this:

"serverInstanceGroupDNSRecordSet": {
    "zone": {
    "zoneName": "eveng-qa02.metalcloud.io",
    "soaEmail": "admin.eveng-qa02.metalcloud.io",
    "nameServers": [
        "ns1.evenq-qa02.metalcloud.io"
    ],
    "ttl": 3600,
    "isDefault": true
    },
    "infrastructureId": 3870,
    "serverInstanceGroup": {
    "label": "instance-array-3386"
    },
    "hostname": "lambda",
    "fqdn": "lambda.eveng-qa02.metalcloud.io",
    "ips": [
    {
        "status": "allocated",
        "ip": "10.20.50.36"
    }
    ]
}

For serverCreateDNS, serverDeleteDNS an object similar to is provided in variables.json:

"serverDNSRecordSet": {
    "zone": {
      "zoneName": "us08.metalsoft.io",
      "soaEmail": "admin.us08.metalsoft.io",
      "nameServers": ["n1.metalsoft.io"],
      "ttl": 3600,
      "isDefault": true
    },
    "serverId": 10,
    "serialNumber": "serial-number",
    "managementAddress": "192.168.100.100",
    "hostname": "server-10",
    "fqdn": "server-10.us08.metalsoft.io",
      "ip": {
      "status": "allocated",
      "ip": "192.168.100.100"
    },
    "operation": "create"
}

For switchCreateDNS, switchDeleteDNS the following payload is provided:

"switchDNSRecordSet": {
    "zone": {
      "zoneName": "us08.metalsoft.io",
      "soaEmail": "admin.us08.metalsoft.io",
      "nameServers": ["n1.metalsoft.io"],
      "ttl": 3600,
      "isDefault": true
    },
    "switchId": 10,
    "managementAddress": "192.168.100.100",
    "hostname": "switch-10",
    "fqdn": "switch-10.us08.metalsoft.io",
    "ip": {
      "status": "allocated",
      "ip": "192.168.100.100"
    },
    "operation": "create"
}

Extension Example¶

{
  "kind": "ExtensionDefinition",
  "schemaVersion": "1.1",
  "name": "powerdns-automation",
  "label": "powerdnsautomation",
  "extensionType": "workflow",
  "vendor": "MetalSoft",
  "extensionVersion": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Manages DNS records via PowerDNS API during server lifecycle",
  "icon": "dns",
  "dependencies": {
    "controllerVersion": "string"
  },
  "inputs": [],
  "outputs": [],
  "assets": [
    {
      "label": "power-dns-configuration",
      "name": "power-dns-configuration",
      "assetType": "Bundle",
      "url": "https://repo.metalsoft.io/.extensions_ms/workflows/power_dns.zip"
    }
  ],
  "onAssetChange": [
    {
      "stage": "serverInstanceGroupCreateDNS",
      "tasks": [
        {
          "label": "create-dns-records-for-instance-group",
          "taskType": "ExtensionTaskAnsible",
          "options": {
            "asset": "power-dns-configuration",
            "playbook": "deploy_dns_flexible.yaml"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
  ]
}