ansible/docs/docsite/rst/galaxy/user_guide.rst

Galaxy User Guide

Ansible Galaxy refers to the Galaxy website, a free site for finding, downloading, and sharing community developed roles.

Use Galaxy to jump-start your automation project with great content from the Ansible community. Galaxy provides pre-packaged units of work such as roles <playbooks_reuse_roles>, and new in Galaxy 3.2, collections <collections> You can find roles for provisioning infrastructure, deploying applications, and all of the tasks you do everyday. The collection format provides a comprehensive package of automation that may include multiple playbooks, roles, modules, and plugins.

Finding collections on Galaxy

To find collections on Galaxy:

1. Click the Search icon in the left-hand navigation.
2. Set the filter to collection.
3. Set other filters and press enter.

Galaxy presents a list of collections that match your search criteria.

Installing collections

Installing a collection from Galaxy

Downloading a collection from Automation Hub

You can download collections from Automation Hub at the command line. Automation Hub content is available to subscribers only, so you must download an API token and configure your local environment to provide it before you can you download collections. To download a collection from Automation Hub with the ansible-galaxy command:

1. Get your Automation Hub API token. Go to https://cloud.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/token/ and click Get API token from the version dropdown to copy your API token.
2. Configure Red Hat Automation Hub server in the server_list option under the [galaxy] section in your ansible.cfg file.

[galaxy]
server_list = automation_hub

[galaxy_server.automation_hub]
url=https://cloud.redhat.com/api/automation-hub/
auth_url=https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token
token=my_ah_token

3. Download the collection hosted in Automation Hub.

ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection

Getting started with Automation Hub An introduction to Automation Hub

Installing an older version of a collection

Install multiple collections with a requirements file

Downloading a collection for offline use

Listing installed collections

To list installed collections, run ansible-galaxy collection list. See collections_listing for more details.

Configuring the ansible-galaxy client

Finding roles on Galaxy

Search the Galaxy database by tags, platforms, author and multiple keywords. For example:

$ ansible-galaxy search elasticsearch --author geerlingguy

The search command will return a list of the first 1000 results matching your search:

Found 2 roles matching your search:

Name                              Description
----                              -----------
geerlingguy.elasticsearch         Elasticsearch for Linux.
geerlingguy.elasticsearch-curator Elasticsearch curator for Linux.

Get more information about a role

Use the info command to view more detail about a specific role:

$ ansible-galaxy info username.role_name

This returns everything found in Galaxy for the role:

Role: username.role_name
    description: Installs and configures a thing, a distributed, highly available NoSQL thing.
    active: True
    commit: c01947b7bc89ebc0b8a2e298b87ab416aed9dd57
    commit_message: Adding travis
    commit_url: https://github.com/username/repo_name/commit/c01947b7bc89ebc0b8a2e298b87ab
    company: My Company, Inc.
    created: 2015-12-08T14:17:52.773Z
    download_count: 1
    forks_count: 0
    github_branch:
    github_repo: repo_name
    github_user: username
    id: 6381
    is_valid: True
    issue_tracker_url:
    license: Apache
    min_ansible_version: 1.4
    modified: 2015-12-08T18:43:49.085Z
    namespace: username
    open_issues_count: 0
    path: /Users/username/projects/roles
    scm: None
    src: username.repo_name
    stargazers_count: 0
    travis_status_url: https://travis-ci.org/username/repo_name.svg?branch=master
    version:
    watchers_count: 1

Installing roles from Galaxy

The ansible-galaxy command comes bundled with Ansible, and you can use it to install roles from Galaxy or directly from a git based SCM. You can also use it to create a new role, remove roles, or perform tasks on the Galaxy website.

The command line tool by default communicates with the Galaxy website API using the server address https://galaxy.ansible.com. Since the Galaxy project is an open source project, you may be running your own internal Galaxy server and wish to override the default server address. You can do this using the --server option or by setting the Galaxy server value in your ansible.cfg file. For information on setting the value in ansible.cfg see galaxy_server.

Installing roles

Use the ansible-galaxy command to download roles from the Galaxy website

$ ansible-galaxy install namespace.role_name

Setting where to install roles

By default, Ansible downloads roles to the first writable directory in the default list of paths ~/.ansible/roles:/usr/share/ansible/roles:/etc/ansible/roles. This installs roles in the home directory of the user running ansible-galaxy.

You can override this with one of the following options:

• Set the environment variable ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH in your session.
• Define roles_path in an ansible.cfg file.
• Use the --roles-path option for the ansible-galaxy command.

The following provides an example of using --roles-path to install the role into the current working directory:

$ ansible-galaxy install --roles-path . geerlingguy.apache

intro_configuration

All about configuration files

Installing a specific version of a role

When the Galaxy server imports a role, it imports any git tags matching the Semantic Version format as versions. In turn, you can download a specific version of a role by specifying one of the imported tags.

To see the available versions for a role:

1. Locate the role on the Galaxy search page.
2. Click on the name to view more details, including the available versions.

You can also navigate directly to the role using the /<namespace>/<role name>. For example, to view the role geerlingguy.apache, go to https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy/apache.

To install a specific version of a role from Galaxy, append a comma and the value of a GitHub release tag. For example:

$ ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.apache,v1.0.0

It is also possible to point directly to the git repository and specify a branch name or commit hash as the version. For example, the following will install a specific commit:

$ ansible-galaxy install git+https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-apache.git,0b7cd353c0250e87a26e0499e59e7fd265cc2f25

Installing multiple roles from a file

You can install multiple roles by including the roles in a requirements.yml file. The format of the file is YAML, and the file extension must be either .yml or .yaml.

Use the following command to install roles included in requirements.yml:

$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml

Again, the extension is important. If the .yml extension is left off, the ansible-galaxy CLI assumes the file is in an older, now deprecated, "basic" format.

Each role in the file will have one or more of the following attributes:

src

The source of the role. Use the format namespace.role_name, if downloading from Galaxy; otherwise, provide a URL pointing to a repository within a git based SCM. See the examples below. This is a required attribute.

scm

Specify the SCM. As of this writing only git or hg are allowed. See the examples below. Defaults to git.

version:

The version of the role to download. Provide a release tag value, commit hash, or branch name. Defaults to the branch set as a default in the repository, otherwise defaults to the master.

name:

Download the role to a specific name. Defaults to the Galaxy name when downloading from Galaxy, otherwise it defaults to the name of the repository.

Use the following example as a guide for specifying roles in requirements.yml:

# from galaxy
- name: yatesr.timezone

# from GitHub
- src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx

# from GitHub, overriding the name and specifying a specific tag
- name: nginx_role
  src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx
  version: master

# from GitHub, specifying a specific commit hash
- src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx
  version: "ee8aa41"

# from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.gz
- name: http-role-gz
  src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.gz

# from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.bz2
- name: http-role-bz2
  src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.bz2

# from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.xz (Python 3.x only)
- name: http-role-xz
  src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.xz

# from Bitbucket
- src: git+https://bitbucket.org/willthames/git-ansible-galaxy
  version: v1.4

# from Bitbucket, alternative syntax and caveats
- src: https://bitbucket.org/willthames/hg-ansible-galaxy
  scm: hg

# from GitLab or other git-based scm, using git+ssh
- src: git@gitlab.company.com:mygroup/ansible-base.git
  scm: git
  version: "0.1"  # quoted, so YAML doesn't parse this as a floating-point value

Installing roles and collections from the same requirements.yml file

You can install roles and collections from the same requirements files, with some caveats.

---
roles:
  # Install a role from Ansible Galaxy.
  - name: geerlingguy.java
    version: 1.9.6

collections:
  # Install a collection from Ansible Galaxy.
  - name: geerlingguy.php_roles
    version: 0.9.3
    source: https://galaxy.ansible.com

Note

While both roles and collections can be specified in one requirements file, they need to be installed separately. The ansible-galaxy role install -r requirements.yml will only install roles and ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml -p ./ will only install collections.

Installing multiple roles from multiple files

For large projects, the include directive in a requirements.yml file provides the ability to split a large file into multiple smaller files.

For example, a project may have a requirements.yml file, and a webserver.yml file.

Below are the contents of the webserver.yml file:

# from github
- src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx

# from Bitbucket
- src: git+http://bitbucket.org/willthames/git-ansible-galaxy
  version: v1.4

The following shows the contents of the requirements.yml file that now includes the webserver.yml file:

# from galaxy
- name: yatesr.timezone
- include: <path_to_requirements>/webserver.yml

To install all the roles from both files, pass the root file, in this case requirements.yml on the command line, as follows:

$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml

Dependencies

Roles can also be dependent on other roles, and when you install a role that has dependencies, those dependencies will automatically be installed to the roles_path.

There are two ways to define the dependencies of a role:

• using meta/requirements.yml
• using meta/main.yml

Using meta/requirements.yml

.. versionadded:: 2.10

You can create the file meta/requirements.yml and define dependencies in the same format used for requirements.yml described in the Installing multiple roles from a file section.

From there, you can import or include the specified roles in your tasks.

Using meta/main.yml

Alternatively, you can specify role dependencies in the meta/main.yml file by providing a list of roles under the dependencies section. If the source of a role is Galaxy, you can simply specify the role in the format namespace.role_name. You can also use the more complex format in requirements.yml, allowing you to provide src, scm, version, and name.

Dependencies installed that way, depending on other factors described below, will also be executed before this role is executed during play execution. To better understand how dependencies are handled during play execution, see playbooks_reuse_roles.

The following shows an example meta/main.yml file with dependent roles:

---
dependencies:
  - geerlingguy.java

galaxy_info:
  author: geerlingguy
  description: Elasticsearch for Linux.
  company: "Midwestern Mac, LLC"
  license: "license (BSD, MIT)"
  min_ansible_version: 2.4
  platforms:
  - name: EL
    versions:
    - all
  - name: Debian
    versions:
    - all
  - name: Ubuntu
    versions:
    - all
  galaxy_tags:
    - web
    - system
    - monitoring
    - logging
    - lucene
    - elk
    - elasticsearch

Tags are inherited down the dependency chain. In order for tags to be applied to a role and all its dependencies, the tag should be applied to the role, not to all the tasks within a role.

Roles listed as dependencies are subject to conditionals and tag filtering, and may not execute fully depending on what tags and conditionals are applied.

If the source of a role is Galaxy, specify the role in the format namespace.role_name:

dependencies:
  - geerlingguy.apache
  - geerlingguy.ansible

Alternately, you can specify the role dependencies in the complex form used in requirements.yml as follows:

dependencies:
  - name: geerlingguy.ansible
  - name: composer
    src: git+https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-composer.git
    version: 775396299f2da1f519f0d8885022ca2d6ee80ee8

Note

Galaxy expects all role dependencies to exist in Galaxy, and therefore dependencies to be specified in the namespace.role_name format. If you import a role with a dependency where the src value is a URL, the import process will fail.

List installed roles

Use list to show the name and version of each role installed in the roles_path.

$ ansible-galaxy list
  - ansible-network.network-engine, v2.7.2
  - ansible-network.config_manager, v2.6.2
  - ansible-network.cisco_nxos, v2.7.1
  - ansible-network.vyos, v2.7.3
  - ansible-network.cisco_ios, v2.7.0

Remove an installed role

Use remove to delete a role from roles_path:

$ ansible-galaxy remove namespace.role_name

collections Shareable collections of modules, playbooks and roles playbooks_reuse_roles Reusable tasks, handlers, and other files in a known directory structure