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Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

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Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#11

Post by ghayes »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #2

What do people use Ansible for that can't be done with Terraform and vice-versa?

For example: I use terraform to create two EC2 nodes on a VPC and an ALB load balancer. Then I use Ansible to connect to those nodes and install Nginx and (re-)deploy my application code. If you're not going the route of full containerization, this is, in my opinion, the lowest common denominator set of provisioning tools and quite robust for nearly any workflow.

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#12

Post by cbrookins »

cpitman wrote: post #9
cosmotic wrote: post #4

What does modern mean in this context?

Reading through their website ( https://ansible-semaphore.com/ ), it seems like it comes down to responsive UI with material design, and being written in Go. It's not clear what this offers over Ansible AWX ( https://github.com/ansible/awx ), which is the traditional Ansible UI.

AWX forces you to use Docker. Not a fan.

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#13

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

tptacek wrote: post #3
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #2

What do people use Ansible for that can't be done with Terraform and vice-versa?

Terraform is not great at provisioning "inside" of Unix servers, and Ansible is not great at provisioning cloud resources.

Yep. Terraform + Ansible or Puppet is the way to go.

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#14

Post by Arubis »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #2

What do people use Ansible for that can't be done with Terraform and vice-versa?

To answer your question pedantically, probably nothing; with enough time and effort, you could bend either tool to perform the general duties of the other. Terraform is capable of injecting and running shell scripts; Ansible can likewise interface with AWS and other cloud providers (or your own hardware). As sibling commenters have noted, that’s simply not the ideal primary use for each tool.

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#15

Post by tptacek »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terraform is not great at provisioning "inside" of Unix servers, and Ansible is not great at provisioning cloud resources.

Yep. Terraform + Ansible or Puppet is the way to go.

I don't think I agree anymore; most of what I'd get done with Ansible now I'd do with a container, and if all you need to get done on the host is networking and a reasonable Docker setup, Terraform is good enough to get that done. I'm a lot less likely to ever use Ansible now.

But, I mean, the answer to the question above is easy. :)

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#17

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #2

What do people use Ansible for that can't be done with Terraform and vice-versa?

It's so sad that these are the tools we have to work with. They are both so shitty, in such subtle ways, to the point that I tear my hair out once a week because of them. And the corporate IT world will never invest in development of truly free replacements just to make other people's lives easier. It's truly depressing.

Re: Semaphore – Modern UI for Ansible

#19

Post by senorsmile »

tptacek wrote: post #15
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Terraform + Ansible or Puppet is the way to go.

I don't think I agree anymore; most of what I'd get done with Ansible now I'd do with a container, and if all you need to get done on the host is networking and a reasonable Docker setup, Terraform is good enough to get that done. I'm a lot less likely to ever use Ansible now. But, I mean, the answer to the question above is easy. :)

ansible can be used to build container images in an idempotent way. And ansible is greatat creating deployment logic among other things. Where puppet , chef et al. are primarily for automating a direct machine, Ansible is a general purpose automation framework. Terraform is definitely better at provisioning cloud resources, but Ansible is much better at automating pretty much anything else that you could think of.
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