[Discuss] Anyone use Ansible ? Ansible Semaphore?

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Rich Pieri)]

I do use Ansible. I wouldn't say extensively, but definitely for
deploying standard configurations. That's the key point: standard
configurations. When everything you deploy is a one-off, bespoke
system, tools like Ansible can be more work than just doing the work.

For example, to add a user to a system you ssh in, run a useradd
command, and a passwd command. Done.

Doing this on one machine is simple and quick. Doing it with Ansible is
not so simple and not so quick. Assuming you have an Ansible control
node ready, you need to prep the target machine with a recent version
of Python plus anything Ansible plays need to function like package
management tools, and create an account with sudo privileges for Ansible
to use for running its plays. Then you need to add the machine to the
inventory (if it isn't already), create a playbook (or add to an
existing playbook) with the user/group information and password for the
new user, and then you can run the playbook to make the changes.

That's a lot of overhead for a one-off task. But you get 3 or 4 machines
that need this user added? Now you're scaling automation.

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