Installing Ansible on Oracle Linux 7 for test and development use

There are a few alternative ways of installing Ansible on Linux, and the install guide for Ansible 2.7 (the current version at the time of writing) does a great job in explaining them all in detail.  There is a potentially easier way to get to a current Ansible version if you are using Oracle Linux 7, but it comes with a very important limitation. Let’s get that out of the way first.

You need to be aware that the RPM-based installation of Ansible as described in this blog post requires you to enable Oracle’s EPEL repository. As per https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-7.html, the EPEL repository is listed under “Packages for Test and Development” (bottom of the page) and these come with the following warning:  Note: The contents in the following repositories are for development purposes only. Oracle suggests these not be used in production. 

This is really important!

If you are ok with the limitation I just quoted from Oracle’s YUM server, please read on. If not, head back to the official Ansible documentation and use a different method instead. I only use Ansible in my own lab and therefore don’t mind.

Updating the repository configuration file

Back to the topic of Ansible … Before I get around to install Ansible on my machines I update my yum repository configuration file. Things are changing quickly, and I found /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol7.repo to be outdated at times. I always refresh it from yum.oracle.com just to be sure I’m not missing out on the new stuff.

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# mv -iv public-yum-ol7.repo public-yum-ol7.repo.$(date +%y%m%d)
# wget http://yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol7.repo

With the new file in place, use your preferred method to enable the ol7_developer_EPEL repository. I simply edit public-yum-ol7.repo, there are other ways like yum-config-manager getting you there. But be advised: I just noticed the from December 17 at least the UEK Release 5 repository might be enabled by default leading to a potentially unwanted kernel upgrade.

Install Ansible

With the developer EPEL repository enabled, you have access to a great many Ansible versions. At the time of writing, these were available:

# yum --showduplicates list ansible
Loaded plugins: ulninfo
Available Packages
ansible.noarch                      2.3.1.0-1.el7                       ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.4.2.0-1.el7                       ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.5.0-2.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.5.1-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.5.2-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.6.1-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.6.2-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.6.4-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.6.5-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL
ansible.noarch                      2.7.0-1.el7                         ol7_developer_EPEL

# yum info ansible
Loaded plugins: ulninfo
Available Packages
Name        : ansible
Arch        : noarch
Version     : 2.7.0
Release     : 1.el7
Size        : 11 M
Repo        : ol7_developer_EPEL/x86_64
Summary     : SSH-based configuration management, deployment, and task execution system
URL         : http://ansible.com
Licence     : GPLv3+
Description : Ansible is a radically simple model-driven configuration management,
            : multi-node deployment, and remote task execution system. Ansible works
            : over SSH and does not require any software or daemons to be installed
            : on remote nodes. Extension modules can be written in any language and
            : are transferred to managed machines automatically.

Happy testing!