# Ansible for OpenStack sanity-checks

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-for-openstack-sanity-checks/12562>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 23, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-for-openstack-sanity-checks/12562 "2013-03-23T03:00:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce73a5/32.png) [@Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lorin_Hochstein1)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-for-openstack-sanity-checks/12562/1 "2013-03-23T03:00:31Z")

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Every time I do an OpenStack deployment, I make some mistake in a config file, which ends up being difficult to debug. It would be really great if I had a tool that can perform a bunch of sanity checks to try and spot anything inconsistent with the setup.

I think ansible’s check mode would be very well-suited to doing these kinds of sanity check. I can even envision modules that work only in check mode: for example, checking if the amount of unused disk is above a certain threshold, or checking the contents of certain database fields. I think this would be really valuable as we’re building the OpenStack stuff, to define these kinds of assertion checks. Examples include:

- vlan\_interface isn’t itself set to a vlan
- /etc/nova/nova.conf is owned by the nova user
- the interface column in the floating iP table matches the public\_interface value in nova.conf
- a glance server is specified for the compute nodes

Lorin

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-for-openstack-sanity-checks/12562/2 "2013-03-23T15:38:31Z")

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I do not want to overload the semantics of --check mode for this purpose.

There is already a syntax check flag.

In your case, you seem to have very very specific needs, so I'd  
recommend a wrapper script before we create a whole-other scriptable  
validation setup. Could be a project unto itself!

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-for-openstack-sanity-checks/12562/3 "2013-03-23T15:38:45Z")

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BTW, I'm suggesting \*not\* creating that other project, to be clear 🙂