1<section>
 2  <a href="/posts/2019-03-07Automating_desktop_setup_with_ansible-pull_part-1.html">See part 1</a>
 3  <p>
 4    Now we're going to setup ansible to work with a git repository. The process is
 5    quite similar to ansible-playbook, the only difference is that the source for
 6    the playbook will be a remote repository and not a local file. Following the
 7    previous example we'll get vim setup automated.
 8  </p>
 9  <p>
10     Create a git repository wherever you see
11     fit, <a href="https://about.gitlab.com/">gitlab</a>
12     and <a href="https://github.com/">github</a> offer free repositories. For
13     this task we need to add only two file: one for the yml file describing the
14     tasks and the .vimrc file.
15  </p>
16  <p>
17    In the .vimrc add your own configuration, you can see
18    mine
19    <a href="https://gitlab.com/gabrielgio/homestation/-/blob/debcf3458df511aef9f7dca0cb73f6cf6baddd5d/.vimrc">
20      over here
21    </a>, it is pretty simple as I don't use it but for simple text editing
22    (like this post) so you can start with that if you don't have one.
23  </p>
24  <p>
25    The yml file will have two tasks, one is to install vim, just like we did in the part 1.
26<pre><code># main.yml
27---
28- name: install vim
29  dnf:
30    name: vim
31    state: latest</code></pre>
32  </p>
33  <p>
34    To copy .vimrc file to your $HOME we going to
35    use <a href="https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/copy_module.html">copy
36    module</a>:
37  </p>
38  <p>
39    After we've added those two files to repository you will have be something
40    <a href="https://gitlab.com/gabrielgio/homestation/-/tree/debcf3458df511aef9f7dca0cb73f6cf6baddd5d">
41      like this.
42    </a>
43    <br/>
44    Parms:
45    <ul>
46      <li><strong>-i</strong> is a list of hosts</li>
47      <li><strong>-U</strong> is the get repository url</li>
48    </ul>
49  </p>
50  <p>
51    Remember man is your best friend, take a look at <code>man ansible-pull</code> to know
52    more about its parameters.
53  </p>
54  <p>
55    The best part you can quickly test and see the result by running my sample:
56<pre><code>ansible-pull \
57    -U https://gitlab.com/gabrielgio/homestation.git \
58    -C debcf3458df511aef9f7dca0cb73f6cf6baddd5d \
59    -i all \
60    main.yml</code></pre>
61  </p>
62  <p>
63    The idea here is to keep your repository as a source of truth when comes to
64    configuration, you can add ansible-pull to a CRON tab, so you just need to
65    push something to your repository and after a few minutes not only your
66    machine but all the machines that have it setup will run the playbooks. You
67    can use this method as a simple way to install software, update machines or
68    even distribute tooling company-wise.
69  </p>
70</section>