I recently had to solve a problem of deploying ansible-playbook as an executable on developer Vagrant stacks, without installing or relying on an existing Python interpreter.
I utilized PyInstaller in order to package ansible-playbook as a binary, and while PyInstaller did a fantastic job, it came with a bit of a learning curve [at least for me].
So, I’ve decided to open source the tools needed in order to package ansible and related ansible-* executables without a Python stack on the target host, should it be helpful to others.
Goals
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Make it easy for direct users of the project to build the latest stable version of Ansible as executable(s) themselves.
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Reduce friction/ increase adoption of Ansible, particularly where Python cannot be installed or where the end-user is not Python-savvy.
Non-Goals -
Not planning to support legacy versions of Ansible.
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At this time, as an unofficial project, not planning to provide pre-built binaries for users to download. This is merely a tool to make it easy for you to build these binaries yourself on your target architecture. Furthermore, if this project gets in the business of distributing binaries, they should probably be signed binaries and under the control of the official Ansible project.
I’m interested in the Community’s thoughts on this, and most especially:
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Do you align with the above Goals? What do you think?
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Is the name “ansible-build” acceptable to use, or does it improperly infer that this is an official Ansible project?
Thank you for your input and your support!
- SG