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Sure, but then again, typing shell commands into text files is assuming you already know shell commands. You have to spend time to learn your tools at some poin

Sure, but then again, typing shell commands into text files is assuming you already know shell commands. You have to spend time to learn your tools at some point. For simple configuration management, Ansible is a straight upgrade to most shells because of idempotency alone, never mind the fancier features like the more advanced modules, multi-node orchestration, or encrypted vaults. The YAML syntax is dumb and it has its issues, for sure, but it still does even the simple things much better than plain old shell. Anyone who has any familiarity at all with UNIXy systems can learn Ansible from zero well enough in a day or two for it to start becoming truly useful, and if you don't have the foundation for that... why on Earth are you setting up a web server? I mean, it's of course fine to tinker with things for learning, but I was assuming a real deployment scenario.

Arch-TK 5y ago
> Sure, but then again, typing shell commands into text files is assuming you already know shell commands. You have to spend time to learn your tools at some point. Don't I still need to know shell programming for Ansible? Or at least know all the systems I want to manage with it inside out? Yes, I need to learn tools at some point. But as I see it, I am not a system administrator of anything but my own network of 8 infrastructure hosts. The effort required to recreate this with ansible (and I don't think ansible can actually idempotently handle ALL of these devices, not without serious limitations) seems far greater than maintaining a few scripts and keeping backups. Also, I already know bash (unlike ansible). > Ansible is a straight upgrade to most shells because of idempotency alone So, as I said, I know nothing about Ansible. But idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there. Does this mean that every time I want to change my server I have to wait 15 minutes for it to re-install the distro and re-configure everything? Do I have to keep my state on a different server? I don't see how this can't be achieved with just as much hassle with a script? Surely I misunderstand this. But if I did, then surely it's not THAT idempotent. > Anyone who has any familiarity at all with UNIXy systems can learn Ansible from zero well enough in a day or two for it to start becoming truly useful My problem with this is that every time I've looked into Ansible, it didn't look like a day of work. It looked like a week of work converting my entire infrastructure to it, for very little benefit, in addition to having to change the way I do a lot of things to fit the Ansible blessed method of doing them. It may take a day to learn Ansible but it probably takes even more time than that to learn it to a standard where I would consider the knowledge reliable. It would require making mistakes and lots of practice before I felt like I could quickly recover from any mistake I could make using it as well as avoid those mistakes. Not just that, but because of my nonstandard setup I would likely have to spend extra time learning Ansible well enough that I can actually replicate my nontrivial setup.
- jjnoakes 5y ago
  > idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there No, it doesn't. In Ansible you say something like "make sure apache is installed" and if apache is installed, nothing happens. If it isn't, it gets installed. Then you say "make sure apache is running" and if apache is running, nothing happens. If it isn't, it is started.
  - Arch-TK 5y ago
    Okay, this is a rather limited form of idempotency. I don't see the advantage. My system's package manager and service manager already perform this function.
    - jjnoakes 5y ago
      You should really spend a little time learning ansible before you critique it. Ansible isn't perfect, but the things you describe aren't how ansible works in general, so they aren't even valid criticism. For example, it has idempotent modules for all sorts of things - contents in files, files and directories in the file system, etc - things that you COULD script in an ad-hoc and verbose way, but things which come built-in as one-liners in ansible. It's quite convenient.
      - Arch-TK 5y ago
        There are no resources which are seemingly suitable for my environment. If you're going to claim that I'm missing something, rather than telling me that I have things to learn (no shit sherlock), you could tell me specifically which initial impressions are wrong.
        jjnoakes 5y ago
        I did, a few comments up. This: > idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there ...is wrong. It might be true that Ansible is unusable in your environment for some reason, but that's quite different fromage this specific false claim. Here are a few more quotes that imply you should learn about Ansible before critiquing it for your use case (or, if you don't have time, then refrain from critiquing it in general): > Don't I still need to know shell programming for Ansible? No, Ansible uses a custom non-shell syntax and python modules. You can dip into shell scripts but you don't have to. Examples are everywhere in the Ansible documentation. > Does this mean that every time I want to change my server I have to wait 15 minutes for it to re-install the distro and re-configure everything? No. Ansible will examine your existing system and apply the changes you configure. Idempotency does not imply or require a functional-like OS or rebuilding from scratch; Ansible is more imperative.

Arch-TK 5y ago

> Sure, but then again, typing shell commands into text files is assuming you already know shell commands. You have to spend time to learn your tools at some point. Don't I still need to know shell programming for Ansible? Or at least know all the systems I want to manage with it inside out? Yes, I need to learn tools at some point. But as I see it, I am not a system administrator of anything but my own network of 8 infrastructure hosts. The effort required to recreate this with ansible (and I don't think ansible can actually idempotently handle ALL of these devices, not without serious limitations) seems far greater than maintaining a few scripts and keeping backups. Also, I already know bash (unlike ansible). > Ansible is a straight upgrade to most shells because of idempotency alone So, as I said, I know nothing about Ansible. But idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there. Does this mean that every time I want to change my server I have to wait 15 minutes for it to re-install the distro and re-configure everything? Do I have to keep my state on a different server? I don't see how this can't be achieved with just as much hassle with a script? Surely I misunderstand this. But if I did, then surely it's not THAT idempotent. > Anyone who has any familiarity at all with UNIXy systems can learn Ansible from zero well enough in a day or two for it to start becoming truly useful My problem with this is that every time I've looked into Ansible, it didn't look like a day of work. It looked like a week of work converting my entire infrastructure to it, for very little benefit, in addition to having to change the way I do a lot of things to fit the Ansible blessed method of doing them. It may take a day to learn Ansible but it probably takes even more time than that to learn it to a standard where I would consider the knowledge reliable. It would require making mistakes and lots of practice before I felt like I could quickly recover from any mistake I could make using it as well as avoid those mistakes. Not just that, but because of my nonstandard setup I would likely have to spend extra time learning Ansible well enough that I can actually replicate my nontrivial setup.

jjnoakes 5y ago
> idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there No, it doesn't. In Ansible you say something like "make sure apache is installed" and if apache is installed, nothing happens. If it isn't, it gets installed. Then you say "make sure apache is running" and if apache is running, nothing happens. If it isn't, it is started.
- Arch-TK 5y ago
  Okay, this is a rather limited form of idempotency. I don't see the advantage. My system's package manager and service manager already perform this function.
  - jjnoakes 5y ago
    You should really spend a little time learning ansible before you critique it. Ansible isn't perfect, but the things you describe aren't how ansible works in general, so they aren't even valid criticism. For example, it has idempotent modules for all sorts of things - contents in files, files and directories in the file system, etc - things that you COULD script in an ad-hoc and verbose way, but things which come built-in as one-liners in ansible. It's quite convenient.
    - Arch-TK 5y ago
      There are no resources which are seemingly suitable for my environment. If you're going to claim that I'm missing something, rather than telling me that I have things to learn (no shit sherlock), you could tell me specifically which initial impressions are wrong.
      - jjnoakes 5y ago
        I did, a few comments up. This: > idempotency implies that Ansible always starts from nothing and builds from there ...is wrong. It might be true that Ansible is unusable in your environment for some reason, but that's quite different fromage this specific false claim. Here are a few more quotes that imply you should learn about Ansible before critiquing it for your use case (or, if you don't have time, then refrain from critiquing it in general): > Don't I still need to know shell programming for Ansible? No, Ansible uses a custom non-shell syntax and python modules. You can dip into shell scripts but you don't have to. Examples are everywhere in the Ansible documentation. > Does this mean that every time I want to change my server I have to wait 15 minutes for it to re-install the distro and re-configure everything? No. Ansible will examine your existing system and apply the changes you configure. Idempotency does not imply or require a functional-like OS or rebuilding from scratch; Ansible is more imperative.