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Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

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Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#11

Post by 1996 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #10
1996 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notebooks allows you to have snippets of code next to the historic results of their execution It is not just litterate programming, but more like an IDE that does not require your code to keep working (CI/CD... ) : you can refactor at your own pace, iterate, introspect past results, etc. You prototype like crazy, iterate much faster, and can tweak much more. However, notebooks are not popular with many programmers. T…

This isn't data science. The output of a playbook is dependent on a huge amount of external dependencies and state, and the execution can conditionally depend on that. Maybe programmers should use notebooks more (and I have no opinion on that) but this isn't a situation where they would confer much benefit.

I have more of an opinion there: Maybe programming should be more like data science. Prototypes are thrown away, but must exist at one point. They should be encouraged - like versionning, it is part of a core of good practices that admit few exceptions

External dependencies, state etc will all be handled, once excution is ironed out

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#13

Post by jarpineh »

I have been making Jupyter notebook for managing our container environment. Some work is still only possible through Ansible, so I've been wondering how to integrate that. Well, I need not wonder no more!

This looks very promising:

* auto completion!

* integrated documentation!

* exporting Ansible YAML!

I didn't yet have change to play with this, so I just note the ways I see Jupyter can be good fit for Ansible. You can try each step and see it working before moving to next one. There doesn't seem to be support yet for richer results view nor Jupyter Widgets, but imagine looking at actual error messages and result views instead of JSON as text. Getting and setting parameters for playbooks could be done using external data sources instead of hand-crafting inventories and config files. You could use same approach as Ara [1] and trace execution of tasks.

I assume you can run Ansible kernel from JupyterLab instance, so you can do file management and use terminal right on the machine you're running Ansible commands. Also, I'd imagine connecting with Jupyter Console (formerly IPython) to same kernel state as notebook is running with is possible here as well. This provides Terminal goodness alongside browser's visuals.

[1] Ara: http://ara.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#14

Post by throwaway5752 »

1996 wrote: post #11
throwaway5752 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't data science. The output of a playbook is dependent on a huge amount of external dependencies and state, and the execution can conditionally depend on that. Maybe programmers should use notebooks more (and I have no opinion on that) but this isn't a situation where they would confer much benefit.

I have more of an opinion there: Maybe programming should be more like data science. Prototypes are thrown away, but must exist at one point. They should be encouraged - like versionning, it is part of a core of good practices that admit few exceptions External dependencies, state etc will all be handled, once excution is ironed out

Sure, but that's not super different that series of commits along a feature branch. I think they accomplish the same goal. But am not dismissing notebooks as a way of doing that. I'm more familiar with ipython than jupyter, but particularly for more algorithmically complex programming tasks I think notebooks are a good tool.

I disagree with you only that this might be a good way of prototyping for something like ansible playbooks/modules, chef recipes, puppet manifests, etc. So much of the state is external (and intrinsic to what is being built) that I don't think it's a match of the rhythm of development there. But just my two cents, the best process is what works for you.

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#15

Post by kbumsik »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #8
vinayan3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it looks like a REPL for Ansible. If it does let you build each task in a cell then you could develop the whole playbook interactively and incrementally. It could reduce the turn around time of having to run a long playbook and waiting till the latest step you wrote.

Doesn't ansible core have ansible console already? This seems very bizarre and solution in search of a problem. An alexa skill for ansible would be interesting, but I wouldn't use it, either. edit: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/cli/ansible-console.... "REPL console for executing Ansible tasks."

What Jupyter (regardless of its kernel: Ansible, Python etc...) does is just adding a GUI interface on top of an existing REPL console you mentioned. For example, you already have a working iPython REPL console, you don't really need the heavy Jupyter system to run scientific Python codes.

If you prefer to use the REPL consoles directly for your own propose then Jupyter will add no value on it. However, Jupyter let you save results for each commands without running them again, and you can add Markdown documentations. This is useful when you want document your codes (with results) and share them with others.

Jupyter is merely a productivity tool like an IDE, not a framework. Jupyter may not be suitable for running production codes anyway.

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#16

Post by import_awesome »

jarpineh wrote: post #13

I have been making Jupyter notebook for managing our container environment. Some work is still only possible through Ansible, so I've been wondering how to integrate that. Well, I need not wonder no more! This looks very promising: * auto completion! * integrated documentation! * exporting Ansible YAML! I didn't yet have change to play with this, so I just note the ways I see Jupyter can be good fit for Ansible. You…

Try it on Binder here:

https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/ansible/ansible-jupyter-kernel/ma...

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#18

Post by massaman_yams »

tejtm wrote: post #17

Until there is a meaningful `git diff` for jupyter notebooks I can't see them being a step in the right direction for anything but transient experiments (and of course what Jypyter is great at; communication, documentation, low barriers etc.)

This is effectively a solved problem, but it does require some tooling. Pre-commit hooks can strip things like execution count and/or outputs from the notebook: https://gist.github.com/minrk/6176788

Re: Show HN: Ansible Kernel – Run Ansible Tasks and Plays with Jupyter Notebook

#20

Post by jarpineh »

import_awesome wrote: post #16
jarpineh wrote: post #13

I have been making Jupyter notebook for managing our container environment. Some work is still only possible through Ansible, so I've been wondering how to integrate that. Well, I need not wonder no more! This looks very promising: * auto completion! * integrated documentation! * exporting Ansible YAML! I didn't yet have change to play with this, so I just note the ways I see Jupyter can be good fit for Ansible. You…

Try it on Binder here: https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/ansible/ansible-jupyter-kernel/ma...

Hi, and thank you. It works well. Example play books already contain the basics I'd need for my playbooks.

Could you perhaps elaborate how the kernel directs Ansible?

Also, is there any difference between local and remote Ansible runs?

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