sscheib / ansible-role-service_management

Simple role to manage services of different service managers without losing the flexibility of using each individual module specialized on the respective service manager (systemd, sysvinit, etc.). This allows using a central role which takes care of calling the correct service manager.

service_management

Simple role to manage services of different service managers without losing the flexibility of using each individual module specialized on the respective service manager (systemd, sysvinit, etc.). This allows using a central role which takes care of calling the correct service manager.

Currently supported service managers with a specific module:

• systemd
• sysvinit (not tested, but should work)
• openwrt_init

The following service managers are supported with the ansible.builtin.service module:

• BSD init
• OpenRC
• Solaris SMF
• upstart

The detection of the used service manager on a system is done via host_vars[inventory_hostname].ansible_facts.service_mgr, so the user does not need to specify the service manager.

All parameters are checked (ansible.builtin.assert) to ensure that they are set properly. The checks have been implemented based on the documentation of the respective module.

I know that this seems counterintuitive, because it basically is not the way Python is used ('Ask for forgiveness and not for permission'), and respectively Ansible, but in my humble opinion, this way ensures that the role is kept up-to-date and works as intended. Of course, this has the backdraw that it needs to be updated whenever a new module option is implemented or the way of passing a certain argument has changed. I rather go by 'better safe than sorry' 🙂

Role Variables

variable	default	required	description
svm_services	unset	true	List of services to manage. See below example for the exact definition.
svm_quiet_assert	false	false	Whether to quiet the assert statements

Variable svm_services

The definition of the variable svm_services depends on the service manager that is going to get used. In any case at least name and one of state or enabled is required.

systemd

svm_services:
  - name: 'qemu-guest-agent'
    state: 'started'
    enabled: true
    daemon_reexec: false
    daemon_reload: false
    force: false
    masked: false
    no_block: false
    scope: 'system'

sysvinit

svm_services:
  - name: 'qemu-guest-agent'
    enabled: true
    state: 'started'
    arguments: '--additional-argument add-this-to-the-commandline'
    daemonize: true
    pattern: 'look for this string'
    runlevels:  # this is supposed to be a list of strings, but might also work as integers (not tested!)
      - '1'
      - '7'
      - '9'
    sleep: 1337

openwrt_init

svm_services:
  - name: 'zabbix_agentd'
    state: 'started'
    enabled: true
    pattern: 'look for this string'

other service managers

svm_services:
  - name: 'zabbix_agentd'
    state: 'started'
    enabled: true
    arguments: '--additional-argument add-this-to-the-commandline'
    pattern: 'look for this string'
    runlevel: 1
    sleep: 1337

Dependencies

If you want to use openwrt_init, the community.general collection is required.

Other than that: None.

Example Playbook

---
- name: 'Manage services'
  hosts: 'all'
  gather_facts: false
  roles:
    - role: 'service_management'
      vars:
        svm_services:
          - name: 'qemu-guest-agent'
            state: 'started'
            enabled: true
            daemon_reexec: false
            daemon_reload: false
            force: false
            masked: false
            no_block: false
            scope: 'system'
...

License

GPL-2.0-or-later