Quick start

You can try out DebOps without installing it on your computer, by using a Docker container or a Vagrant virtual machine to execute Ansible commands.

Start the Ansible Controller host

DebOps uses the concept of an "Ansible Controller", a central management host where Ansible playbooks are executed in a "push" mode against other hosts. Normally DebOps would be installed on that host either manually or through a package manager, however you can set one up using either a Docker container or a Vagrant virtual machine and execute Ansible commands from there.

The Ansible Controller can also be managed by DebOps as long as it's based on a compatible operating system, ie. Debian or Ubuntu. A suitable configuration to do so will be automatically generated for you in the ~/src/controller/ directory located on the container/VM.

Warning

The default configuration assumes that this is a testing environment - for example, Diffie-Hellman parameters generated by the debops.dhparam role are very small, only 512 bytes, to make their generation faster. If you want to use the configuration located in ~/src/controller/ directory against production hosts, you should review it before doing so.

Quick start with Docker

Start a Docker container which acts as an Ansible Controller host with DebOps support, based on Debian Buster:

docker run -it --rm debops/debops

The DebOps Docker images are automatically regenerated and should contain latest changes. You can look at the DebOps Dockerfile for details about the image configuration.

Quick start with Vagrant

Start a Vagrant VM which acts as an Ansible Controller host with DebOps support, based on Debian Stretch:

git clone -b stable-1.1 https://github.com/debops/debops ; cd debops
vagrant up && vagrant ssh

The configuration relies heavily on your Vagrant environment. Having a real domain is beneficial. The box can be used to manage other Debian hosts as well.

Vagrant will include contents of the cloned DebOps repository in the /vagrant/ directory on the created VM. This can be useful for project development.

See the DebOps Vagrantfile for more details and configuration variables.

Run the DebOps playbook against the host

When your desired container/VM is up and ready, you can find the prepared DebOps project configuration in the ~/src/controller/ subdirectory of the unprivileged user account. To run the DebOps playbook against the host, execute the commands:

cd ~/src/controller
debops run site

Docker notes

Not everything will work as expected inside a Docker container, for example various daemons are not restarted properly. However you can still use the container to manage remote DebOps hosts, and inspect the configuration files generated when DebOps has been run against the container itself.

Some of the remote host state as well as the general environment is managed on the Ansible Controller itself. If you want to use a Docker container as one, you might want to enable a persistent storage volume for the project directories, where secrets, Certificate Authorities and other data are kept safe.