OpenStack Ansible Modules

These are a set of modules for interacting with OpenStack as either an admin or an end user. If the module does not begin with os_, it’s either deprecated or soon to be. This document serves as developer coding guidelines for modules intended to be here.

Naming

  • All module names should start with os_
  • Name any module that a cloud consumer would expect to use after the logical resource it manages: os_server not os_nova. This naming convention acknowledges that the end user does not care which service manages the resource - that is a deployment detail. For example cloud consumers may not know whether their floating IPs are managed by Nova or Neutron.
  • Name any module that a cloud admin would expect to use with the service and the resource: os_keystone_domain.
  • If the module is one that a cloud admin and a cloud consumer could both use, the cloud consumer rules apply.

Interface

  • If the resource being managed has an id, it should be returned.
  • If the resource being managed has an associated object more complex than an id, it should also be returned.

Interoperability

  • It should be assumed that the cloud consumer does not know a bazillion details about the deployment choices their cloud provider made, and a best effort should be made to present one sane interface to the Ansible user regardless of deployer insanity.
  • All modules should work appropriately against all existing known public OpenStack clouds.
  • It should be assumed that a user may have more than one cloud account that they wish to combine as part of a single Ansible-managed infrastructure.

Libraries

  • All modules should use openstack_full_argument_spec to pick up the standard input such as auth and ssl support.
  • All modules should include extends_documentation_fragment: openstack.
  • All complex cloud interaction or interoperability code should be housed in the openstacksdk library.
  • All OpenStack API interactions should happen via the openstacksdk and not via OpenStack Client libraries. The OpenStack Client libraries do no have end users as a primary audience, they are for intra-server communication.

Testing

  • Integration testing is currently done in OpenStack’s CI system
  • Testing in openstacksdk produces an obvious chicken-and-egg scenario. Work is under way to trigger from and report on PRs directly.