OpenStack Ansible Modules

These are a set of modules for interacting with OpenStack as either an admin or an end user. If the module does not begin with os_, it's either deprecated or soon to be. This document serves as developer coding guidelines for modules intended to be here.

Naming

• All modules should start with os_
• If the module is one that a cloud consumer would expect to use, it should be named after the logical resource it manages. Thus, os_server not os_nova. The reasoning for this is that there are more than one resource that are managed by more than one service and which one manages it is a deployment detail. A good example of this are floating IPs, which can come from either Nova or Neutron, but which one they come from is immaterial to an end user.
• If the module is one that a cloud admin would expect to use, it should be be named with the service and the resouce, such as os_keystone_domain.
• If the module is one that a cloud admin and a cloud consumer could both use, the cloud consumer rules apply.

Interface

• If the resource being managed has an id, it should be returned.
• If the resource being managed has an associated object more complex than an id, it should also be returned.

Interoperability

• It should be assumed that the cloud consumer does not know a bazillion details about the deployment choices their cloud provider made, and a best effort should be made to present one sane interface to the ansible user regardless of deployer insanity.
• All modules should work appropriately against all existing known public OpenStack clouds.
• It should be assumed that a user may have more than one cloud account that they wish to combine as part of a single ansible managed infrastructure.

Libraries

• All modules should use openstack_full_argument_spec to pick up the standard input such as auth and ssl support.
• All modules should extends_documentation_fragment: openstack to go along with openstack_full_argument_spec.
• All complex cloud interaction or interoperability code should be housed in the shade library.
• All OpenStack API interactions should happen via shade and not via OpenStack Client libraries. The OpenStack Client libraries do no have end users as a primary audience, they are for intra-server communication. The python-openstacksdk is the future there, and shade will migrate to it when its ready in a manner that is not noticable to ansible users.