Inventory

Overview

The MiniPaaS Ansible role (minipaas-role/) uses a simple inventory layout.
Hosts are grouped as managers or workers. Variables configure extra firewall ports, Telegram alerts, and the swarm-cronjob release; see Variables.

This keeps the provisioning layer small, predictable, and easy to maintain.

Basic Inventory Structure

A minimal inventory.ini:

[managers]
manager1 ansible_host=1.2.3.4

[workers]
worker1 ansible_host=1.2.3.5

The role installs Docker, configures the system, and performs swarm init or swarm join depending on the group.

Group Variables

Group variables apply to all hosts in a group. Examples:

`group_vars/managers.yml`

minipaas_extra_ports:
  - 8080

`group_vars/workers.yml`

minipaas_extra_ports:
  - 3000

Host Variables

Use host_vars/<hostname>.yml to configure specific hosts.

Example: enabling Telegram alerts on a specific node:

telegram_bot_token: "123:ABC"
telegram_chat_id: "999111222"

Inline Variables in the Inventory

For small setups, scalar variables can be set directly in inventory.ini:

[managers]
manager1 ansible_host=1.2.3.4

[workers]
worker1 ansible_host=1.2.3.5 ansible_user=deploy

Use group_vars/ or host_vars/ for list values such as minipaas_extra_ports.

Inline variables override defaults and group vars.

Recommended Structure

inventory.ini
group_vars/
  managers.yml
  workers.yml
host_vars/
  manager1.yml
  worker1.yml

This approach keeps configurations organized and easy to scale.

Summary

Your inventory defines:

which hosts are managers
which hosts are workers
optional firewall ports
optional monitoring/alerting configuration

All other provisioning behavior is automatic and requires no additional settings.

Usage Variables