The RackN team takes our already super easy Ansible integration to a new level with added SSH Key control and dynamic inventory with the recent OpenCrowbar v2.3 (Drill) release. These two items make full metal control more accessible than ever for Ansible users.
The platform offers full key management. You can add keys at the system, deployment (group of machines) and machine levels. These keys can be set by the operator and can be added and removed after provisioning has been completed. If you want to control access to groups on a servers or group of server basis, OpenCrowbar provides that control via our API, CLI and UI.
We also provide a API path for Ansible dynamic inventory. Using the simple Python client script (reference example), you can instantly a complete upgraded node inventory of your system. The inventory data includes items like number of disks, CPUs and amount of RAM. If you’ve grouped machines in OpenCrowbar, those groups are passed to Ansible. Even better, the metadata schema includes the networking configuration and machine status.
With no added configuration, you can immediately use Ansible as your multi-server CLI for ad-hoc actions and installation using playbooks.
Of course, the OpenCrowbar tools are also available if you need remote power control or want a quick re-image of the system.
RackN respects that data centers are heterogeneous. Our vision is that your choice of hardware, operating system and network topology should not break DevOps deployments! That’s why we work hard to provide useful abstracted information. We want to work with you to help make sure that OpenCrowbar provides the right details to create best practice installations.
For working with bare metal, there’s no simpler way to deliver consistent repeatable results.
