The collection of ideas & the personal experiments (short examples) on automation tools.
- Node-RED flow deployment with Ansible
- Node-RED flow deployment with Pexpect, Paramiko : Revisited Ansible Solution (1)
- TBD
- TBD
1. Node-RED flow deployment with Ansible
Flow re-deployment had been discussed (i.g., How can I remotely deploy a flow file in Node-RED? ) I explored different options meeting the following criteria:
- simple
- supports scripts
- control node-red stop/start
- flow.json re-deployment
- module management (install/uninstall/update)
- control multiple nodes
IMO After spending a few days of watching clips & reading examples, Ansible easily meets those requirements.
Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates. ... from Ansible Document
Ansible manages machines(or nodes) in an agent-less manner. Ansible connects via SSH to the machines it wants to manage and pushes what it’s supposed to do.
Install ansible & sshpass
$ brew install ansible
$ brew install http://git.io/sshpass.rb
Create hosts(inventory) in /etc/ansible or designated location (-i option).
[dev]
192.168.201.75 ansible_user=pi
[prod]
192.168.201.75 ansible_user=pi
NOTE npm/node-red installation, settings.js copy operation can be managed by ansible-playbook as well.
Download & Install OS Images
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ Pick Raspbian Stretch with desktop and recommended software(2018-11-13-raspbian-stretch-full.zip for this example).
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md
Enable ssh
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/
Install npm (Palette Manager won't be visible from node-red). Restart node-red after npm installation.
$ sudo systemctl stop nodered.service (or node-red-stop)
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install npm
$ sudo systemctl start nodered.service (or node-red-start)
Install node-red-dashboard from Palette Manager or CLI.
$ cd $HOME/.node-red
$ npm install node-red-dashboard
Edit settings.js
// The file containing the flows. If not set, it defaults to flows_<hostname>.json
flowFile: 'flows.json', // uncomment this line
In this example,two playbooks(flow1.yml & flow2.yml) were executed one after another and new flows.json was copied over to Pi each time.
$ ansible --version
ansible 2.7.6
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts -k flow1.yml
SSH password:
PLAY [dev] ***************************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ***************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.201.75]
TASK [stop node-red] *****************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.201.75]
TASK [install bonjour] ***************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.201.75]
TASK [copy new flows.json] ***********************************************************************
changed: [192.168.201.75]
TASK [start node-red] ****************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.201.75]
PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************************************
192.168.201.75 : ok=5 changed=3 unreachable=0 failed=0
---
- hosts: dev
tasks:
- name: stop node-red
become: yes # sudo deprecated
shell:
systemctl stop nodered.service
- name: install bonjour # just as an example.
become: yes
npm:
name: bonjour
path: /usr/lib/node_modules/node-red
state: latest
# registry: https://registry.npmjs.org
- name: copy new flows.json
copy:
src: flows1.json
dest: /home/pi/.node-red/flows.json
- name: start node-red
become: yes
shell:
systemctl start nodered.service