Ansible Galaxy refers to the Galaxy website, a free site for finding, downloading, and sharing community developed roles.
Use Galaxy to jump-start your automation project with great content from the Ansible community. Galaxy provides pre-packaged units of work such as roles, and new in Galaxy 3.2, collections. You can find roles for provisioning infrastructure, deploying applications, and all of the tasks you do everyday. The collection format provides a comprehensive package of automation that may include multiple playbooks, roles, modules, and plugins.
To find collections on Galaxy:
Galaxy presents a list of collections that match your search criteria.
You can use the ansible-galaxy collection install command to install a collection on your system.
Note
By default, ansible-galaxy uses https://galaxy.ansible.com as the Galaxy server (as listed in the ansible.cfg file under GALAXY_SERVER). You do not need any further configuration. See Configuring the ansible-galaxy client if you are using any other Galaxy server, such as Red Hat Automation Hub).
To install a collection hosted in Galaxy:
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection
You can also directly use the tarball from your build:
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace-my_collection-1.0.0.tar.gz -p ./collections
Note
The install command automatically appends the path ansible_collections to the one specified with the -p option unless the parent directory is already in a folder called ansible_collections.
When using the -p option to specify the install path, use one of the values configured in COLLECTIONS_PATHS, as this is where Ansible itself will expect to find collections. If you don’t specify a path, ansible-galaxy collection install installs the collection to the first path defined in COLLECTIONS_PATHS, which by default is ~/.ansible/collections
You can also keep a collection adjacent to the current playbook, under a collections/ansible_collections/ directory structure.
play.yml ├── collections/ │ └── ansible_collections/ │ └── my_namespace/ │ └── my_collection/<collection structure lives here>
See Collection structure for details on the collection directory structure.
To download a collection from Automation Hub with the ansible-galaxy command:
server_list option under the [galaxy] section in your ansible.cfg file.[galaxy] server_list = automation_hub [galaxy_server.automation_hub] url=https://cloud.redhat.com/api/automation-hub/ auth_url=https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token token=my_ah_token
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection
See also
By default ansible-galaxy installs the latest collection that is available but you can add a version range identifier to install a specific version.
To install the 1.0.0 version of the collection:
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection:1.0.0
To install the 1.0.0-beta.1 version of the collection:
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection:==1.0.0-beta.1
To install the collections that are greater than or equal to 1.0.0 or less than 2.0.0:
ansible-galaxy collection install my_namespace.my_collection:>=1.0.0,<2.0.0
You can specify multiple range identifiers which are split by ,. You can use the following range identifiers:
*: Any version, this is the default used when no range specified is set.!=: Version is not equal to the one specified.==: Version must be the one specified.>=: Version is greater than or equal to the one specified.>: Version is greater than the one specified.<=: Version is less than or equal to the one specified.<: Version is less than the one specified.Note
The ansible-galaxy command ignores any pre-release versions unless the == range identifier is used to explicitly set to that pre-release version.
You can also setup a requirements.yml file to install multiple collections in one command. This file is a YAML file in the format:
--- collections: # With just the collection name - my_namespace.my_collection # With the collection name, version, and source options - name: my_namespace.my_other_collection version: 'version range identifiers (default: ``*``)' source: 'The Galaxy URL to pull the collection from (default: ``--api-server`` from cmdline)'
The version key can take in the same range identifier format documented above.
Roles can also be specified and placed under the roles key. The values follow the same format as a requirements file used in older Ansible releases.
---
roles:
# Install a role from Ansible Galaxy.
- name: geerlingguy.java
version: 1.9.6
collections:
# Install a collection from Ansible Galaxy.
- name: geerlingguy.php_roles
version: 0.9.3
source: https://galaxy.ansible.com
Note
While both roles and collections can be specified in one requirements file, they need to be installed separately. The ansible-galaxy role install -r requirements.yml will only install roles and ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml -p ./ will only install collections.
ansible-galaxy clientBy default, ansible-galaxy uses https://galaxy.ansible.com as the Galaxy server (as listed in the ansible.cfg file under GALAXY_SERVER).
You can configure this to use other servers (such as Red Hat Automation Hub or a custom Galaxy server) as follows:
--server command line argument to limit to an individual server.To configure a Galaxy server list in ansible.cfg:
server_list option under the [galaxy] section to one or more server names.url option for each server name.For Automation Hub, you additionally need to:
auth_url option for each server name.The following example shows how to configure multiple servers:
[galaxy] server_list = automation_hub, my_org_hub, release_galaxy, test_galaxy [galaxy_server.automation_hub] url=https://cloud.redhat.com/api/automation-hub/ auth_url=https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token token=my_ah_token [galaxy_server.my_org_hub] url=https://automation.my_org/ username=my_user password=my_pass [galaxy_server.release_galaxy] url=https://galaxy.ansible.com/ token=my_token [galaxy_server.test_galaxy] url=https://galaxy-dev.ansible.com/ token=my_test_token
Note
You can use the --server command line argument to select an explicit Galaxy server in the server_list and the value of this argument should match the name of the server. To use a server not in the server list, set the value to the URL to access that server (all servers in the server list will be ignored). Also the --api-key argument is not applied to any of the predefined servers. It is only applied if no server list is defined or a URL was specified by --server.
Galaxy server list configuration options
The GALAXY_SERVER_LIST option is a list of server identifiers in a prioritized order. When searching for a collection, the install process will search in that order, e.g. automation_hub first, then my_org_hub, release_galaxy, and finally test_galaxy until the collection is found. The actual Galaxy instance is then defined under the section [galaxy_server.{{ id }}] where {{ id }} is the server identifier defined in the list. This section can then define the following keys:
url: The URL of the galaxy instance to connect to, this is required.token: A token key to use for authentication against the Galaxy instance, this is mutually exclusive with username
username: The username to use for basic authentication against the Galaxy instance, this is mutually exclusive with token
password: The password to use for basic authenticationauth_url: The URL of a Keycloak server ‘token_endpoint’ if using SSO auth (Automation Hub for ex). This is mutually exclusive with username. auth_url requires token.As well as being defined in the ansible.cfg file, these server options can be defined as an environment variable. The environment variable is in the form ANSIBLE_GALAXY_SERVER_{{ id }}_{{ key }} where {{ id }} is the upper case form of the server identifier and {{ key }} is the key to define. For example I can define token for release_galaxy by setting ANSIBLE_GALAXY_SERVER_RELEASE_GALAXY_TOKEN=secret_token.
For operations where only one Galaxy server is used, i.e. publish, info, login then the first entry in the server_list is used unless an explicit server was passed in as a command line argument.
Note
Once a collection is found, any of its requirements are only searched within the same Galaxy instance as the parent collection. The install process will not search for a collection requirement in a different Galaxy instance.
Search the Galaxy database by tags, platforms, author and multiple keywords. For example:
$ ansible-galaxy search elasticsearch --author geerlingguy
The search command will return a list of the first 1000 results matching your search:
Found 2 roles matching your search: Name Description ---- ----------- geerlingguy.elasticsearch Elasticsearch for Linux. geerlingguy.elasticsearch-curator Elasticsearch curator for Linux.
Use the info command to view more detail about a specific role:
$ ansible-galaxy info username.role_name
This returns everything found in Galaxy for the role:
Role: username.role_name
description: Installs and configures a thing, a distributed, highly available NoSQL thing.
active: True
commit: c01947b7bc89ebc0b8a2e298b87ab416aed9dd57
commit_message: Adding travis
commit_url: https://github.com/username/repo_name/commit/c01947b7bc89ebc0b8a2e298b87ab
company: My Company, Inc.
created: 2015-12-08T14:17:52.773Z
download_count: 1
forks_count: 0
github_branch:
github_repo: repo_name
github_user: username
id: 6381
is_valid: True
issue_tracker_url:
license: Apache
min_ansible_version: 1.4
modified: 2015-12-08T18:43:49.085Z
namespace: username
open_issues_count: 0
path: /Users/username/projects/roles
scm: None
src: username.repo_name
stargazers_count: 0
travis_status_url: https://travis-ci.org/username/repo_name.svg?branch=master
version:
watchers_count: 1
The ansible-galaxy command comes bundled with Ansible, and you can use it to install roles from Galaxy or directly from a git based SCM. You can also use it to create a new role, remove roles, or perform tasks on the Galaxy website.
The command line tool by default communicates with the Galaxy website API using the server address https://galaxy.ansible.com. Since the Galaxy project is an open source project, you may be running your own internal Galaxy server and wish to override the default server address. You can do this using the –server option or by setting the Galaxy server value in your ansible.cfg file. For information on setting the value in ansible.cfg see GALAXY_SERVER.
Use the ansible-galaxy command to download roles from the Galaxy website
$ ansible-galaxy install namespace.role_name
By default, Ansible downloads roles to the first writable directory in the default list of paths ~/.ansible/roles:/usr/share/ansible/roles:/etc/ansible/roles. This installs roles in the home directory of the user running ansible-galaxy.
You can override this with one of the following options:
ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH in your session.roles_path in an ansible.cfg file.--roles-path option for the ansible-galaxy command.The following provides an example of using --roles-path to install the role into the current working directory:
$ ansible-galaxy install --roles-path . geerlingguy.apache
See also
When the Galaxy server imports a role, it imports any git tags matching the Semantic Version format as versions. In turn, you can download a specific version of a role by specifying one of the imported tags.
To see the available versions for a role:
You can also navigate directly to the role using the /<namespace>/<role name>. For example, to view the role geerlingguy.apache, go to https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy/apache.
To install a specific version of a role from Galaxy, append a comma and the value of a GitHub release tag. For example:
$ ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.apache,v1.0.0
It is also possible to point directly to the git repository and specify a branch name or commit hash as the version. For example, the following will install a specific commit:
$ ansible-galaxy install git+https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-apache.git,0b7cd353c0250e87a26e0499e59e7fd265cc2f25
You can install multiple roles by including the roles in a requirements.yml file. The format of the file is YAML, and the file extension must be either .yml or .yaml.
Use the following command to install roles included in requirements.yml:
$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml
Again, the extension is important. If the .yml extension is left off, the ansible-galaxy CLI assumes the file is in an older, now deprecated, “basic” format.
Each role in the file will have one or more of the following attributes:
Use the following example as a guide for specifying roles in requirements.yml:
# from galaxy - name: yatesr.timezone # from GitHub - src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx # from GitHub, overriding the name and specifying a specific tag - name: nginx_role src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx version: master # from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.gz - name: http-role-gz src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.gz # from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.bz2 - name: http-role-bz2 src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.bz2 # from a webserver, where the role is packaged in a tar.xz (Python 3.x only) - name: http-role-xz src: https://some.webserver.example.com/files/master.tar.xz # from Bitbucket - src: git+https://bitbucket.org/willthames/git-ansible-galaxy version: v1.4 # from Bitbucket, alternative syntax and caveats - src: https://bitbucket.org/willthames/hg-ansible-galaxy scm: hg # from GitLab or other git-based scm, using git+ssh - src: [email protected]:mygroup/ansible-base.git scm: git version: "0.1" # quoted, so YAML doesn't parse this as a floating-point value
You can install roles and collections from the same requirements files, with some caveats.
---
roles:
# Install a role from Ansible Galaxy.
- name: geerlingguy.java
version: 1.9.6
collections:
# Install a collection from Ansible Galaxy.
- name: geerlingguy.php_roles
version: 0.9.3
source: https://galaxy.ansible.com
Note
While both roles and collections can be specified in one requirements file, they need to be installed separately. The ansible-galaxy role install -r requirements.yml will only install roles and ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml -p ./ will only install collections.
For large projects, the include directive in a requirements.yml file provides the ability to split a large file into multiple smaller files.
For example, a project may have a requirements.yml file, and a webserver.yml file.
Below are the contents of the webserver.yml file:
# from github - src: https://github.com/bennojoy/nginx # from Bitbucket - src: git+http://bitbucket.org/willthames/git-ansible-galaxy version: v1.4
The following shows the contents of the requirements.yml file that now includes the webserver.yml file:
# from galaxy - name: yatesr.timezone - include: <path_to_requirements>/webserver.yml
To install all the roles from both files, pass the root file, in this case requirements.yml on the command line, as follows:
$ ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml
Roles can also be dependent on other roles, and when you install a role that has dependencies, those dependencies will automatically be installed.
You specify role dependencies in the meta/main.yml file by providing a list of roles. If the source of a role is Galaxy, you can simply specify the role in the format namespace.role_name. You can also use the more complex format in requirements.yml, allowing you to provide src, scm, version, and name.
The following shows an example meta/main.yml file with dependent roles:
---
dependencies:
- geerlingguy.java
galaxy_info:
author: geerlingguy
description: Elasticsearch for Linux.
company: "Midwestern Mac, LLC"
license: "license (BSD, MIT)"
min_ansible_version: 2.4
platforms:
- name: EL
versions:
- all
- name: Debian
versions:
- all
- name: Ubuntu
versions:
- all
galaxy_tags:
- web
- system
- monitoring
- logging
- lucene
- elk
- elasticsearch
Tags are inherited down the dependency chain. In order for tags to be applied to a role and all its dependencies, the tag should be applied to the role, not to all the tasks within a role.
Roles listed as dependencies are subject to conditionals and tag filtering, and may not execute fully depending on what tags and conditionals are applied.
If the source of a role is Galaxy, specify the role in the format namespace.role_name:
dependencies: - geerlingguy.apache - geerlingguy.ansible
Alternately, you can specify the role dependencies in the complex form used in requirements.yml as follows:
dependencies:
- name: geerlingguy.ansible
- name: composer
src: git+https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-role-composer.git
version: 775396299f2da1f519f0d8885022ca2d6ee80ee8
When dependencies are encountered by ansible-galaxy, it will automatically install each dependency to the roles_path. To understand how dependencies are handled during play execution, see Roles.
Note
Galaxy expects all role dependencies to exist in Galaxy, and therefore dependencies to be specified in the namespace.role_name format. If you import a role with a dependency where the src value is a URL, the import process will fail.
Use list to show the name and version of each role installed in the roles_path.
$ ansible-galaxy list - ansible-network.network-engine, v2.7.2 - ansible-network.config_manager, v2.6.2 - ansible-network.cisco_nxos, v2.7.1 - ansible-network.vyos, v2.7.3 - ansible-network.cisco_ios, v2.7.0
Use remove to delete a role from roles_path:
$ ansible-galaxy remove namespace.role_name
See also
© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2019 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.9/galaxy/user_guide.html