Hi all,
Is there a pip package that included the plugins directory (inventory plugins, etc)? The “ansible” package doesn’t seem to include the plugins, which makes automatic management a bit messier. I’d rather not have to git clone a copy just to use the plugins.
Thanks in advance,
-scott
I am fine with shipping them (disabled) in the main OS packages in an
examples dir but do not believe pip is the proper way here.
Remember Ansible is mostly written in Python but this is not enforced.
-- Michael
It seems unfortunate to not include at least the Python modules in the pip install.
The main issue here is that my desire is to have Ansible installed only in a virtualenv. Using an OS package enforces a particular Ansible version across the entire machine.
-scott
Still, it’s not impossible – It only requires that you add the plugins in a path and configure it or have an ansible.cfg.
(Note, this is really a discussion for ansible-devel list)
Anyway, Ansible is an application, not a library. Inventory plugins are also not Python modules, they are programs. There are also configuration files for them.
I’m not sure where someone would expect them to be installed in that case, and pip is a way of installing Python programs, which should not be the interface most people have to interact with in order to install ansible. (They absolutely should not have to understand virtualenv either)
I’d still take the view that most of these are examples and in many cases users may wish to adapt them more to their environments.
I’m not familiar with language-agnostic non-python content typically being installed in pip in this way, and in non-virtualenv state, I’d want these artifacts going in the same place the package manager would place them.
So that’s the question to be resolved.
Still, it's not impossible -- It only requires that you add the plugins in a path and configure it or have an ansible.cfg.
No, it’s not impossible, but it requires multiple steps as opposed to “pip install ansible”.
Anyway, Ansible is an application, not a library. Inventory plugins are also not Python modules, they are programs. There are also configuration files for them.
Pip is used to install both Python applications and libraries (if not, why is there an Ansible pip package in the first place?). Sphinx comes with bin entries as well. Everything that a particular application needs to run is installed, Python or not: eg. Python code that uses C modules. The first random pip package I just looked at had bash scripts as well. 
There’s even PythonPerl in PyPi.
I'm not sure where someone would expect them to be installed in that case, and pip is a way of installing Python programs, which should not be the interface most people have to interact with in order to install ansible. (They absolutely should not have to understand virtualenv either)
As a user, my expectation would be that the plugins would be installed in a place similar to the modules, such as share/ansible.
I'd still take the view that most of these are examples and in many cases users may wish to adapt them more to their environments.
Interesting… to me they seem like a part of the application. I was quite confused that I couldn’t use ec2.py out of the box after doing a pip install of Ansible, and it didn’t seem quite “batteries included” as a result.
I'm not familiar with language-agnostic non-python content typically being installed in pip in this way, and in non-virtualenv state, I'd want these artifacts going in the same place the package manager would place them.
See above. I don’t think it’s all that odd. YMMV, but I’m speaking as someone who wants to use Ansible as an application in a virtualenv.
So that's the question to be resolved.
-scott
Ansible has bin entries too, though it’s a question of where example content should go in a virtualenv.