Configuration¶
Ansible¶
To begin using ARA, you’ll first need to set up Ansible so it knows about the the ARA callback and, if necessary, the ara_record and ara_read modules.
The callback and modules are bundled when installing ARA but you need to know where they have been installed in order to let Ansible know where they are located.
This location will be different depending on your operating system, how you are installing ARA and whether you are using Python 2 or Python 3.
ARA ships a set of convenience Python modules to help you configure Ansible to use it.
They can be used like so:
$ python -m ara.setup.path
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara
$ python -m ara.setup.action_plugins
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/actions
$ python -m ara.setup.callback_plugins
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/callbacks
Using ansible.cfg¶
This sets up a new ansible.cfg file to load the callbacks and modules from the appropriate locations:
$ python -m ara.setup.ansible | tee ansible.cfg
[defaults]
callback_plugins=/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/callbacks
action_plugins=/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/actions
Or alternatively, if you have a customized ansible.cfg file, you can retrieve only what you need using the other helpers such as the following:
python -m ara.setup.callback_pluginspython -m ara.setup.action_plugins
Using environment variables¶
Depending on the context and your use case, configuring Ansible using
environment variables instead of an ansible.cfg file might be more convenient.
ARA provides a helper module that prints out the necessary export commands:
$ python -m ara.setup.env
export ANSIBLE_CALLBACK_PLUGINS=/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/callbacks
export ANSIBLE_ACTION_PLUGINS=/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ara/plugins/actions
Note that the module doesn’t actually run those exports, you’ll want to run them yourself, add them in a bash script or a bashrc, etc.
ARA¶
ARA uses the same mechanism and configuration files as Ansible to retrieve it’s configuration. It comes with sane defaults that can be customized if need be.
The order of priority is the following:
- Environment variables
./ansible.cfg(In the current working directory)~/.ansible.cfg(In the home directory)/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
When using the ansible.cfg file, the configuration options must be set under the ara namespace, as follows:
[ara]
variable = value
Note
The callback, CLI client and web application all share the same settings. For example, if you configure the database location, all three will use that location.
Parameters and their defaults¶
| Environment variable | [ara] ansible.cfg variable | Default value |
|---|---|---|
| ARA_DIR | dir | ~/.ara |
| ARA_DATABASE | database | sqlite:///~/.ara/ansible.sqlite |
| ARA_HOST | host | 127.0.0.1 |
| ARA_PORT | port | 9191 |
| ARA_APPLICATION_ROOT | application_root | / |
| ARA_LOG_CONFIG | logconfig | None |
| ARA_LOG_FILE | logfile | ~/.ara/ara.log |
| ARA_LOG_LEVEL | loglevel | INFO |
| ARA_LOG_FORMAT | logformat | %(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s |
| ARA_IGNORE_FACTS | ignore_facts | ansible_env |
| ARA_IGNORE_PARAMETERS | ignore_parameters | extra_vars |
| ARA_IGNORE_EMPTY_GENERATION | ignore_empty_generation | True |
| ARA_IGNORE_MIMETYPE_WARNINGS | ignore_mimetype_warnings | True |
| ARA_PLAYBOOK_OVERRIDE | playbook_override | None |
| ARA_PLAYBOOK_PER_PAGE | playbook_per_page | 10 |
| ARA_RESULT_PER_PAGE | result_per_page | 25 |
| SQLALCHEMY_ECHO | sqlalchemy_echo | False |
| SQLALCHEMY_POOL_SIZE | sqlalchemy_pool_size | None (default managed by flask-sqlalchemy) |
| SQLALCHEMY_POOL_TIMEOUT | sqlalchemy_pool_timeout | None (default managed by flask-sqlalchemy) |
| SQLALCHEMY_POOL_RECYCLE | sqlalchemy_pool_recycle | None (default managed by flask-sqlalchemy) |
ARA_DIR¶
Base directory where ARA will store it’s log file and sqlite database, unless specified otherwise.
ARA_DATABASE¶
ARA records Ansible data in a database. The callback, the CLI client and the web application all need to know where that database is located.
ARA ensures the database exists and it’s schema is created when it is run.
ARA comes out of the box with sqlite enabled and no additional setup required. If, for example, you’d like to use MySQL instead, you will need to create a database and it’s credentials:
CREATE DATABASE ara;
CREATE USER ara@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ara.* TO ara@localhost;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
And then setup the database connection:
export ARA_DATABASE="mysql+pymysql://ara:password@localhost/ara"
# or
[ara]
database = mysql+pymysql://ara:password@localhost/ara
When using a different database driver such as MySQL (pymysql), you also need to make sure you install the driver:
# From pypi
pip install pymysql
# For RHEL derivatives
yum install python-PyMySQL
# For Debian or Ubuntu
apt-get install python-pymysql
Alternatively, if you prefer PostgreSQL, you can do the following in psql:
CREATE ROLE ara WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'password';
CREATE DATABASE ara OWNER ara;
GRANT ALL ON DATABASE ara TO ara;
Be sure you update your pg_hba.conf afterwards if needed.
Then, setup the database connection:
export ARA_DATABASE="postgresql+psycopg2://ara:password@localhost:5432/ara"
# or
[ara]
database = postgresql+psycopg2://ara:password@localhost:5432/ara
You will need to install the database driver by:
# From pypi
pip install psycopg2
# For RHEL derivatives
yum install python-psycopg2
# For Debian or Ubuntu
apt-get install python-psycopg2
ARA_HOST¶
The host on which the development server will bind to by default when using the
ara-manage runserver command.
It is equivalent to the -h or --host argument of the
ara-manage runserver command.
ARA_PORT¶
The port on which the development server will listen on by default when using
the ara-manage runserver command.
It is equivalent to the -p or --port argument of the
ara-manage runserver command.
ARA_APPLICATION_ROOT¶
The path at which the web application should be loaded.
The default behavior is to load the application at the root (/) of your
host.
Change this parameter if you’d like to host your application elsewhere.
For example, /ara would make the application available under
http://host/ara instead of http://host/.
ARA_LOG_CONFIG¶
Path to a python logging config file.
If the filename ends in .yaml or .yml the file will be loaded as yaml.
If the filename ends in .json the file will be loaded as json. The
resulting dict for either will be treated as a logging config dict
and passed to logging.config.dictConfig.
Otherwise it will be assumed to a logging config file and the path will be passed to logging.config.fileConfig.
If this option is given it superseeds the other individual log options.
ARA_LOG_FILE¶
Path to the logfile to store ARA logs in.
ARA_LOG_LEVEL¶
The loglevel to adjust debug or verbosity.
ARA_LOG_FORMAT¶
The log format of the logs.
ARA_IGNORE_FACTS¶
When Ansible gathers host facts or uses the setup module, your host facts are recorded by ARA and are also available as part of your reports.
By default, only the host fact ansible_env is not saved due to the
sensitivity of the information it could contain such as tokens, passwords or
otherwise privileged information.
This configuration allows you to customize what ARA will and will not save. It is a list, provided by comma-separated values.
ARA_IGNORE_PARAMETERS¶
ARA will, by default, save every parameter and option passed to
ansible-playbook (except extra-vars) and make them available as part of
your reports.
If, for example, you use extra_vars to send a password or secret variable to your playbooks, it is likely you don’t want this saved in ARA’s database.
This configuration allows you to customize what ARA will and will not save. It is a list, provided by comma-separated values.
ARA_IGNORE_EMPTY_GENERATION¶
When using ara generate html, whether or not to ignore warnings provided
by flask-frozen about endpoints for which the application found no available
data.
For example, if you do not use the ara_record module as part of your
playbooks, this avoids printing a MissingURLGeneratorWarning because there
is no recorded data to render.
ARA_IGNORE_MIMETYPE_WARNINGS¶
When using ara generate html, whether or not to ignore file mimetype
warnings provided by flask-frozen.
ARA_PLAYBOOK_OVERRIDE¶
This configuration is exposed mostly for the purposes of the
ara generate html and ara generate junit commands but you can use it
as well.
ARA_PLAYBOOK_OVERRIDE will limit the playbooks displayed in the web application
to the list of playbook IDs specified.
This is expected to be playbook IDs (ex: retrieved through
ara playbook list) in a comma-separated list.
ARA_PLAYBOOK_PER_PAGE¶
This is the amount of playbooks runs shown in a single page in the ARA web
interface. The default is 10 but you might want to tweak this number up
or down depending on the amount of hosts, tasks and task results contained in
your playbooks.
This directly influences the weight of the pages that will end up being
displayed. Setting this value too high might yield very heavy pages.
Set this parameter to 0 to disable playbook listing pagination entirely.
ARA_RESULT_PER_PAGE¶
This is the amount of results shown in a single page in the different data
tables such as hosts, plays and tasks of the ARA web interface.
The default is 25 but you might want to tweak this number up or down
depending on your preference.
This has no direct impact on the weight of the page being sent for the reports
as these data tables are rendered on the client side.
Set this parameter to 0 to disable pagination for results entirely.
The CLI client and the web application¶
The CLI client and the web application do not need to be run on the same machine that Ansible is executed from but they do need a database and know it’s location.
Both could query a local sqlite database or a remote MySQL database, for example.