PyInfra 3.8.0

Disclosure: PyInfra core contributor here.

We just shipped 3.8.0.

PyInfra is an agentless infrastructure automation tool. Same job description as Ansible, Salt, Chef. SSH into hosts, describe desired state, it diffs and converges. No agent, no central server, no daemon.

The difference: your "playbook" is just Python. Not Python cosplaying as YAML. Not Jinja smuggled inside YAML inside a Helm chart inside a Kustomize overlay. Actual Python:

    from pyinfra.operations import apt, files, server

    apt.packages(packages=["nginx"], update=True)
    files.template(src="nginx.conf.j2", dest="/etc/nginx/nginx.conf")
    server.service(service="nginx", running=True, enabled=True)

Idempotent operations. Facts gathered from hosts, branched on with normal `if` statements. Real loops, real imports, a real debugger, real type hints. Your editor autocompletes arguments because, brace yourself, they are just function signatures.

About YAML. Wonderful format. For about eleven minutes. Then someone needs an `if`, and you have `{% if %}` inside a string inside a list inside a map. Then someone types `no` as a country code for Norway and it ships to prod as `False`. Then someone indents with a tab and the parser dies without saying where. Congratulations, you reinvented a programming language. Badly. The honest move is to admit you wanted code, then write code.

PyInfra skips the eleven good minutes and goes straight to code.

Release notes in the link. Happy to answer questions.

Infrastructure as Code, not infrastructure as YAML.

I tried something like that, using PyInfra to setup VMs for agent. But gave up, too much complexity for too little gain. Just ask the agent to create a small install script.

At a previous job we used it to test our ansible playbooks via molecule, which were part of a CI/CD pipeline to create AWS AMIs.

It worked well and was nicer to deal with than test kitchen for testing UNIXy things (is service running and/or enabled, does file have right permissions, does file include $TEXT, etc). It was very useful for us during big linux upgrades, such as when ubuntu went from upstart to systemd. It can also be good at capturing edge cases with brittle outcomes (especially as ansible went through enormous changes after the red hat acquisition).

Dislikes? I had to fight with pyenvs a bit..

On my homelab. It really feels like a dream come true for my usecase. No more puppet agents. No more declarative syntax, that you have to work around to do basic imperative ways. Or use a module, that stopped being maintained 3 years ago. Just plop a file here and there through ssh.

Same here, my home lab is all pyinfra. I’m not sure if it’s my previous experience with ansible that made it simple for me or just the relative size of my home lab compared to larger companies where I’ve used ansible - but it seemed much easier to me and easier to follow.