Running tasks inside LXD container through ansible

Question

Trying to figure out the best way to get ansible to do its magic within the containers. Was thinking of using ssh in each container, but then that is server-dependent. or I have to come via the proxy which seems like more work than should be necessary. Again, I am already creating containers, deleting etc… I am talking about running commands within the container with ansible not via lxc exec containername bash which I can do now. Anyone figure out the best way to do it.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 23 '21 at 23:54

taken from https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/lxc_container_module.html#examples

you can try the following:

- name: Run a complex command within a "running" container
  community.general.lxc_container:
    name: test-container-started
    container_command: |
      apt-get update
      apt-get install -y curl wget vim apache2
      echo 'hello world.' | tee /opt/started
      if [[ -f "/opt/started" ]]; then
          echo 'hello world.' | tee /opt/found-started
      fi

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 21:59

community.general.lxc_container is definitely deprecated and does not support lxd, since it point to bin/lxc-create hard-coded it can not run just commands, maybe commands can be run only during creations.

But is still the only working tool for creating, stooping, and starting the containers in Ansible.

There is a reason why it is not fixed or adjusted to lxd.

There is another easier way to do it, see this official lxd demo LXD and Ansible. Shortly, it is based on the connection type changing from 'ssh' to 'lxd'. Additional pre-configuration is needed when connecting remotely.

#ansible.cfg
[defaults]
inventory = hosts.yml
#hosts.yml
all:
  vars:
    ansible_connection: lxd
    ansible_user: root
    ansible_become: no
  children:
    local:
      vars:
        ansible_lxd_remote: local
        ansible_lxd_project: demo
      hosts:
        c1:
        v1:
    yyy:
      vars:
        ansible_lxd_remote: tuxedo
      hosts:
        lxc-tuxedo-1:
    xxx:
      vars:
        ansible_connection: ssh
        ansible_user: ada
      hosts:
        alu-rpi:
#demo.yml

name: Setup apache
hosts: all
tasks:

name: install the apache package
apt:
  name: apache2
  state: present

name: Make sure apache is running
systemd:
  name: apache2.service
  state: started




bash
ansible-playbook demo.yml -l yyy # lxd container via lxd connection
ansible-playbook demo.yml -l xxx # rasberry pi via ssh

Running tasks inside LXD container through ansible

2 Answers2

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