Getting started

How to add news manually

The System News entries added by this role using sysnews__*_entries variables are permanent, ie. they will not expire automatically after a month.

System administrators can add more temporary news entries by putting text files in the /var/lib/sysnews/ directory, with the filename being the title of a news item. This directory is owned by the staff UNIX system group, and any users in this group can also add entries in that directory. Custom news entries will be automatically removed after a month.

To make temporary news items permanent, you can edit the /var/lib/sysnews/.noexpire file. Put names of the custom files to retain outside of the ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK section, this way your custom changes will be preserved during the next Ansible run of this role.

Example inventory

The debops.sysnews role can be enabled on a host when it's added to a particular Ansible inventory group:

[debops_service_sysnews]
hostname

Example playbook

If you are using this role without DebOps, here's an example Ansible playbook that uses the debops.sysnews role:

---

- name: Manage System News entries
  collections: [ 'debops.debops', 'debops.roles01',
                 'debops.roles02', 'debops.roles03' ]
  hosts: [ 'debops_service_sysnews' ]
  become: True

  environment: '{{ inventory__environment | d({})
                   | combine(inventory__group_environment | d({}))
                   | combine(inventory__host_environment  | d({})) }}'

  roles:

    - role: sysnews
      tags: [ 'role::sysnews', 'skip::sysnews' ]