Comment on After 1.5 years of learning selfhosting, this is where I'm at

• xantoxis@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Well people use ansible for a wide variety of things so there’s no straightforward answer. It’s a Python program, it can in theory do anything, and you’ll find people trying to do anything with it. That said, some common ways to replace it include

  • you need terraform or pulumi or something for provisioning infrastructure anyway, so a ton of stuff can be done that way instead of using ansible. Infra tools aren’t really the same thing, but there are definitely a few neat tricks you can do with them that might save you from reaching for ansible.
  • Kubernetes + helm is a big bear to wrestle, but if your company is also a big bear, it’s worth doing. K8s will also solve a lot of the same problems as ansible in a more maintainable way.
  • Containerization of components is great even if you don’t use kubernetes.
  • if you’re working at the VM level instead of the container level, cloud-init can allow you to take your generic multipurpose image and make it configure itself into whatever you need at boot. Teams sometimes use ansible in the cloud-init architecture, but it’s usually doing only a tiny amount of localhost work and no dynamic invetory in that role, so it’s a lot nicer there.
  • maybe just write a Python program or even a shell script? If your team has development skills at all, a simple bespoke tool to solve a specific problem can be way nicer.

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  • notfromhere@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Very insightful. I definitely need to check out cloud-init as that is one thing you mentioned I have practically no experience with. Side note, I hate other people’s helm with a passion. No consistency in what is exposed, anything not cookie cutter and you’re customizing the helm chart to the point it’s probably easier to start with a custom template to begin with, which is what I started doing!

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