Looking for guidance for a new `homebrew_service` module

Archives Ansible Developer
1

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a module to manage system services with the homebrew services command. Basically it allows to start, stop, enable and restart services of packages that have been installed using the Homebrew package manager.

The underlying tool doesn’t support all possible states of the other service-type Ansible modules, so I need to develop a simplified module interface for the homebrew_service module. I’m looking for guidance from core devs whether the module would be mergeable with the interface I’m planning.

Here’s a draft of my current module interface:

`

DOCUMENTATION = ‘’’
module: homebrew_service
short_description: Manage services of Homebrew formulae
description:

  • Controls services of Homebrew formulae using the C(brew services) command.
    version_added: “2.10”
    author:
  • Lukas Bestle (@lukasbestle)
    options:
    name:
    description:
  • Name of the Homebrew formula that provides the service.
    type: str
    required: true
    state:
    description:
  • C(started)/C(stopped) are idempotent actions that will not run
    commands unless necessary.
  • C(restarted) will always bounce the service.
    type: str
    choices: [ restarted, started, stopped ]
    required: true
    enabled:
    description:
  • Whether the service should start on login/boot.
  • B(Note) that switching a running service between being enabled and disabled
    requires restarting the service. The restart will be performed automatically.
  • B(Note) that you cannot set I(state=stopped) together with I(enabled=yes) as
    stopping a Homebrew service automatically disables it.
  • “The default value is: for I(state=started): C(yes); for I(state=stopped): C(no);
    for I(state=restarted): keep the current value.”
    type: bool
    requirements:
  • macOS (Homebrew on Linux is not supported).
  • Homebrew must already be installed on the target system.
    notes:
  • This module supports C(check_mode).
    ‘’’

EXAMPLES = ‘’’

  • name: Start service httpd on each login and start it now, if not started
    homebrew_service:
    name: httpd
    state: started

  • name: Start service httpd in this session, if not started
    homebrew_service:
    name: httpd
    state: started
    enabled: no

  • name: Start service dnsmasq as a system service on each boot and start it now, if not started
    homebrew_service:
    name: dnsmasq
    state: started
    become: yes

  • name: Stop service httpd, if started
    homebrew_service:
    name: httpd
    state: stopped

  • name: Stop system service dnsmasq, if started
    homebrew_service:
    name: dnsmasq
    state: stopped
    become: yes

  • name: Restart service httpd, in all cases
    homebrew_service:
    name: httpd
    state: restarted

  • name: Ensure that the service httpd is enabled and restart it, in all cases
    homebrew_service:
    name: httpd
    state: restarted
    enabled: yes
    ‘’’

`

Would this interface be alright for this module to get merged? Or is it a problem that the interface is slightly inconsistent with the other service-type modules? What I want to avoid is that I develop the module and it won’t get merged because the features differ from the other modules (which has happened with the launchd module before).

I look forward to your opinions and your feedback.

Cheers,
Lukas

2

Hi Lukas,

I would suggest looking to make it an Ansible collection. With talking to the core team, it seems that collections are being pushed more and more due to back ups in the core Ansible project PR process.

Take a look here for more details:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/collections_using.html