debops.sysnews default variables

APT packages

sysnews__base_packages

List of the default APT packages to install for System News support.

sysnews__base_packages: [ 'sysnews' ]
sysnews__packages

List of additional APT packages to install for System News support.

sysnews__packages: []

News notification

sysnews__notification

Enable or disable notification about unread News items after login.

sysnews__notification: True
sysnews__notification_min_uid

Specify the minimum UID number for an UNIX account to see the notification. This is done so that the news notification does not show up after switching to the root account via su or sudo.

sysnews__notification_min_uid: '900'
sysnews__notification_max_uid

Specify the maximum UID number for an UNIX account to see the notification. This might be useful if you want to limit the System News to only for the system administrators in a multi-person team.

The value usually would be 999 for non-clustered hosts where normal users start at 1000, and 9999 for clustered hosts where users in the LDAP database might start at 10000. By default, all users will see the notification.

sysnews__notification_max_uid: ''
sysnews__notification_command

The shell command executed to display System News notification after login.

sysnews__notification_command: '/usr/bin/news -l -n'

Misc configuration

sysnews__group

Name of the UNIX system group which grants write access to the /var/lib/sysnews/ directory. This group is defined in the sysnews Debian package and preferably shouldn't be changed.

sysnews__group: 'staff'
sysnews__entry_contact

The string used as the contact information for the host administrators, inserted in one of the default System News entries if set.

sysnews__entry_contact: '{{ ansible_local.machine.contact|d("") }}'

System News static entries

These variables define configuration of the System News entries which will not expire automatically. See sysnews__entries for more details.

sysnews__default_entries

List of default System News entries defined by the role.

sysnews__default_entries:

  - name: 'Welcome to System News'
    content: |
      This host has support for the "System News" bulletin, which can be read
      using the 'news' command.

      Members of the '{{ sysnews__group }}' UNIX system group can create news entries in the form
      of text files located in the '/var/lib/sysnews/' directory. The news items
      will automatically expire after a month, unless they are specifically
      marked for no expiration.

      Read the news(1) manpage for more details.
    state: 'present'

  - name: 'This machine is managed using Ansible'
    content: |
      Ansible is a Configuration Management tool used to configure hosts in an
      automated fashion.

      Any changes in files which are managed using Ansible may be unexpectedly
      lost if not accounted for by the system administrator. These files can be
      recognized by a special annotation near the top of the file which informs
      that this file is managed remotely.
      {% if sysnews__entry_contact|d() %}

      If you want to perform system modifications on this host, consider
      contacting the system administrators first. They can be reached using
      {{ sysnews__entry_contact }}
      {% endif %}
    state: 'present'
sysnews__entries

List of System News entries which should be present on all hosts in the Ansible inventory.

sysnews__entries: []
sysnews__group_entries

List of System News entries which should be present on hosts in a specific Ansible inventory group.

sysnews__group_entries: []
sysnews__host_entries

List of System News entries which should be present on specific hosts in the Ansible inventory.

sysnews__host_entries: []
sysnews__combined_entries

This list combines all of the other System News entry lists and passes them to the role tasks.

sysnews__combined_entries: '{{ sysnews__default_entries
                               + sysnews__entries
                               + sysnews__group_entries
                               + sysnews__host_entries }}'