19:06:24 #startmeeting Ansible Core 19:06:24 Meeting started Tue Jan 16 19:06:24 2018 UTC. The chair is abadger1999. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 19:06:24 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 19:06:24 The meeting name has been set to 'ansible_core' 19:06:25 I've not either, and I have no idea how to operate the bot :) 19:06:29 maxamillion: We need one. 19:06:49 I I wrote one but it never got beyond being posted in a gist. 19:06:56 abadger1999: ah 19:07:20 the FESCo one is the only way I ever successfully chair a meeting, I can't for the life of me remember week to week 19:07:27 (We especially need to have cut and paste for the #startmeeting command... I always have to lookup what we call this meeting so that the archives group all the meetings together) 19:07:31 Agenda: https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/291 19:07:45 #info Agenda - https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/291 19:07:50 chair some peeps 19:07:58 oh yeah 19:08:12 I guess abadger1999 has to chair, since he started the meeting? 19:08:18 @gundalow did we get to deprecation in the last meeting? 19:08:26 abadger1999: we did not 19:08:34 at least not that I remember seeing 19:08:35 #chair sivel maxamillion jtanner gundalow resmo 19:08:35 Current chairs: abadger1999 gundalow jtanner maxamillion resmo sivel 19:08:47 #info Agenda - https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/291 19:09:01 maxamillion: basically, chair has to go through the agenda item by item, #chair (pretty much) anyone who shows up. 19:09:02 this time with feeling 19:09:08 abadger1999: rgr 19:09:19 chairee's can chair others too 19:09:26 #topic What does deprecation mean https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/291#issuecomment-355958604 19:09:32 * gundalow waves 19:09:40 #chair gundalow 19:09:40 Current chairs: abadger1999 gundalow jtanner maxamillion resmo sivel 19:09:45 And then keep the meeting moving forward and capture actions until we get to the end 19:10:03 gundalow: So this one is yours, care to speak on it? 19:11:57 Sure 19:12:27 Well, captured in the "Questions/ideas" on https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/291#issuecomment-355958604 19:13:30 gundalow: Do you have a recommended direction? Seems like htere's a bunch of binary decisions to make. 19:13:34 I like both 2 and 3, combined and not either/or 19:14:36 a) I think the same variable should be used everywhere and it should have the same meaning 19:14:52 +1 19:14:54 b) I think that variable should be named something like `will_be_deleted_in` 19:15:58 +0.5 19:16:27 Maybe keep version as an alias and change it as we evaluate whether the old code is doing it correctly? 19:16:59 (ie, so that we manually inspect for code that's using version to mean was_deprecated_in instead of will_be_deleted_in) 19:18:31 gundalow: Is there more to decide? 19:20:27 Alright, anyone want to argue for something different for (a) and (b) above? 19:20:40 If not, let's vote. 19:20:48 a) +1, b) +1 with alias 19:22:06 Vote on: Rename the version parameter in all deprecation APIs to will_be_deleted_in and port everything to use it. Keep an aliased name of "version" until we've gone through all of the calls to make sure they're doing it right. 19:22:10 +1 19:22:18 #chair shertel 19:22:18 Current chairs: abadger1999 gundalow jtanner maxamillion resmo shertel sivel 19:22:20 +1 19:22:59 back 19:23:01 sometimes you can't predict when something is going to be actually deleted 19:23:12 but if it's okay to change the value over time, sure 19:23:30 jtanner: good point. I think if the number only ever increases then that's OK 19:23:41 gundalow: +1 19:24:45 Okay, official count is +3 and 0 against so far. 19:24:55 If no one else has something to say, I think I'll say this is approved. 19:25:19 novote for me, as i don't understand the problem to be solved 19:25:26 I honestly don't have an opinion, so I am ok on it proceeding as is 19:25:30 1) What needs alias DOCUMENTATION.DEPRECATIOn.VERSION I can just bulk sed that 19:25:47 'the future' is a valid value for 'when will this be removed' 19:25:48 2) the module.deprecate's version? 19:25:52 @gundalow If you feel cnfident you've already checked those have the right meaning, go ahead and do that. 19:26:18 module.deprecate() and display.deprecate() 19:26:27 until they're checked and everything is ported. 19:26:49 well we now have validate-modules enforcing structure of DOCUMENTATION.DEPRECATION dict, so I can bulk change that to DOCUMENTATION.DEPRECATION.WILL_BE_REMOVED_IN="2.9" 19:28:05 So i can do that 19:28:23 and add aliases for paramaters for module.deprecate() and display.deprecate() 19:28:31 We happy with "will_be_removed_in"? 19:28:36 COMMENCE BIKESHEADING 19:28:44 the manual part is making sure that any use of version actually means will_be_removed_in as some of the uses are going to be when_this_was_deprecated 19:28:52 +1 with anything. 19:29:14 I mean, I'm not increadibly fond of the name, but yes bikeshed, and I'll go with whatever :) 19:29:27 OK 19:29:30 gundalow: Simply "removed_in" 19:29:51 I think people will understand the "will be" is implied if it's in the future. 19:29:55 #agreed Gundalow to to bulk update DOCUMENTATION.DEPRECATION.VERSION -> DOCUMENTATION.DEPRECATION.REMOVED_IN 19:30:00 +1 19:30:01 scheduled_removal, removal_version, removed_in, whatevs :) 19:30:21 #agreed Gundalow to add aliases for module.deprecate() and display.deprecate() version param to removed_in 19:30:26 Okay, Anything else? 19:30:26 #agreed Gundalow to document this 19:30:31 ,./topic 19:30:32 Thanks 19:30:56 Does anyone know if we finished discussing tdtrask's issue? 19:31:59 not I 19:32:03 #topic Should a package manager state=absent mirror the package tool or the other ansible modules? https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/34419#issuecomment-356784925 19:32:13 So this was partially sdiscussed last meeting 19:32:16 abadger1999: Thanks :) 19:32:28 abadger1999: iirc we aasked to have tdtrask find a real user, and get some testing 19:32:53 sivel: okay cool. 19:33:11 #action tdtrask to come back with some feedback from a real user and we can discuss this more then. 19:33:29 #action abadger1999 to add that info to the bug report 19:33:49 "For the ACI modules " ... what are ACI modules? 19:33:51 #topic Proposal: Standard way to influence module returns: https://github.com/ansible/proposals/issues/93 19:34:11 dag: You around? 19:35:31 I'm not super interested in this as a feature tbh 19:35:42 IMO this would be nearly impossible to standardize; for some (most?) modules it makes no difference, but assigning an arbitrary t-shirt size to the shape of the output seems limiting. 19:36:00 I see this as a good feature for the use case dag is talking about but I don't know that we have enough data point to proposae a standard. 19:36:07 yes o/ 19:36:08 Plus documenting which fields are returned when gets a lot more complicated. 19:36:17 #chair dag nitzmahone 19:36:17 Current chairs: abadger1999 dag gundalow jtanner maxamillion nitzmahone resmo shertel sivel 19:36:23 @abadger1999: pretty much exactly my thought 19:36:51 If your module needs to filter its output, go for it, but I don't think we have enough use cases to say a pattern has emerged 19:37:18 nitzmahone++ 19:37:21 so I guess you agree a parameter is the best option, and what would be a good name ? 19:37:35 dag parameter +1. 19:38:04 Yeah, def +1 to "use a parameter" vs other things... `output_filter`? 19:38:37 I just don't think we're at a point where we want to give it some sort of special reserved-word status or define standard values for it. 19:39:03 nitzmahone: +1 19:39:15 return_previous? 19:39:17 I guess it also depends on why you want to filter- if it's purely about verbosity, maybe a different approach would make sense 19:39:20 nitzmahone: it's not really filter, because that seems the default is unfiltered 19:39:32 it's more like adding more output then is commonly needed 19:39:39 for the debug/test/troubleshoot scenarios mentioned in the proposal, https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/20664 was kind of along the same idea 19:39:41 I personally am not a fan of polymorphic return types, but there are definitely situations where they can't be avoided 19:39:52 if it'I think that depends on how it works. Is the model that there's a lot of output and some are removed? *_filter. is the model that there's several distinct parts that can be composed? include_* that takes a list.... etc.. (and note, I'm not saying those should be the names... jsut that their are different patterns that can be used) 19:40:24 I think there are actually already a couple modules that do the `include_X` thing, but can't point to one off the top of my head 19:41:56 In general i don't think I like output=minimal|verbose|debug type parameters compared to something more informative of what is included include_output=interfaces,routes,devices 19:42:13 But I don't know if there's specific cases where the former might make sense. 19:42:20 abadger1999: but this is for a set of modules that use the same interface 19:42:42 abadger1999: so we can't go and add a different set for each module, because the output would be specific to what that module does 19:42:48 I'm also concerned what this will do for docs. That's a lot of conditional output potentially 19:42:50 aci_vlan_pool would be related to more vlan_pool related output 19:42:58 what problem do we have with just return a lot of info? 19:43:09 sivel: I think that reutnr values in docs is a lost cause already. 19:43:42 sivel: it's very confusing if you get 3x the same values but slightly different, especially if the JSON output is all condensed on a single line 19:43:42 We've always needed something better for that but we've never sat down and figured out hte hard problem of what that would look like. 19:43:43 i don't believe trimming down return values is going to make anything easier to consume. 19:43:55 and most people only need the current value, not the rest 19:44:22 My view has always just been to return as much info as possible about the execution, let the user decide what is useful to them. 19:44:26 jtanner: I guess you need to play with the ACI modules then to understand the case 19:44:40 dag: i suppose ... but i think about ec2 modules 19:44:50 This is similar to what we've started to do with facts (where it can be beneficial to limit what facts are looked up, for isntance, because of the performance when trying to gather certain information) 19:44:51 the aci modules are already suffering from some docs problems as it is 19:44:59 #chair alikins 19:44:59 Current chairs: abadger1999 alikins dag gundalow jtanner maxamillion nitzmahone resmo shertel sivel 19:45:23 abadger1999: it's not similar, we return 3x the same dictionary, one is the original values, the propose config and the final config 19:45:35 what are the aci modules? 19:45:36 sivel: in what sense ? 19:45:41 * jtanner wonders how many hours worth of meetings will go into decided what data goes into small / medium / large on each module 19:46:00 jtanner: the proposal is not meant for every module 19:46:12 but in cases where modules have this need, to do it in a standard way 19:46:27 dag: we are adding arg_spec and DOC comparison to validate-modules sanity testing, and out of 7000 errors/inconsistencies across all modules, 5000+ are aci modules 19:46:28 then couldn't a module return a dict with 'small' 'medium' 'large' keys? 19:46:40 if it's not "all" modules 19:46:41 ok, I feel this proposal is yet another in a series where it goes nowhere very quickly 19:47:02 sorry 19:47:11 sivel: why are we not seeing those then ? 19:47:18 sivel: they all pass the tests 19:47:22 I'd say, just do whatever, not sure we need to really keep discussing, as I don't think any of us see a pattern broad enough to dictate a standard here 19:47:23 not trying to derail your topic 19:47:41 dag: we can talk about it later, they aren't enabled/merged yet. feature is in dev 19:47:48 sivel: I don't do "whatever", I ask for opinions and nothing gets decided in the end 19:47:50 and it stalls 19:47:50 dag: I'd think something like include=[original, proposed, final] default=[final] would work? 19:48:13 ran into similar problem with REST api's before. Can't say I know of a great solution though 19:48:33 abadger1999: that might do, but is very specific to our use-case, but I don't mind if the decision is "we don't need a standard for this" 19:48:46 I asked gundalow, and he thought it would be best to make a proposal 19:48:51 dag: yeah...I don't think we have enough other use cases to make up a standard yet. 19:48:55 maybe I should make less proposals and just don't care... :) 19:49:39 alright 19:49:46 thanks everyone 19:49:46 Okay, anything more you need on this? 19:49:48 Cool. 19:50:21 #topic new sleep module: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/26889 19:50:57 So IIUC, this is like pause but allows ansible to not force a sync point between hosts if we're using the free strategy. 19:51:41 well, there's an issue with using pause as there's no guarantee it actually paused 19:53:09 from the "Drawbacks" - "Implement a specific function that one can already do using wait_for 19:53:12 " 19:53:14 if you have 5 hosts in your play, and the first host is skipped, that pause task is skipped 19:53:24 dag: How did this differ from wait_for? (besides being better named for the use case?) 19:53:44 wait_for runs on the remote side 19:53:47 (action, not module) 19:53:55 indeed 19:54:00 I vaguely recall adding docs that promoted wait_for for this use case. 19:54:30 wait_for + delegate can be local 19:54:33 in one of our use-cases the remote targets do not exist (they need to be provisioned first) 19:55:03 So wait_for + explicit delegate-to: localhost == what hte sleep action would do? 19:55:26 almost, it's a very efficient sleep 19:55:31 inefficient 19:55:52 inefficient sleep? 19:56:07 invoke a new subprocess, etc. 19:56:24 alright, don't both options do that? 19:56:27 also not something people will get to 19:57:53 We could add documentation to the pause module that points to wait_for. 19:58:02 (if we decide that's the righ way to do this) 19:59:51 maxamillion: dag's sleep is implemented as an action plugin. So it is executed on the controller. There's one fork for the worker but no new fork to execute the action plugin (unlike if this was done in a module) 19:59:51 I don't see the problem with adding one basic action plugin for something simple 20:00:04 would be nice to have a per task 'pre' handler for stuff like this. Assuming you could block on the 'pre' handler 20:00:38 why we need to tell people to use another module and delegate it to localhost because that somehow fulfills the same functional requirement 20:00:48 abadger1999: ah ok, I didn't realize action plugins didn't worker fork 20:00:52 We shouldn't add multiple ways to do the same thing. (deprecate an old method sure, but multiple ways to do the same thing is more for users to learn) 20:01:07 maxamillion: they do worker fork. but modules (as opposed to actions) have an additional fork. 20:01:18 fork/execute remotely via ssh. 20:01:27 the local connection plugin is just a fork. 20:01:49 gotchya, so it's 2 forks instead of 1 20:01:54 right 20:02:19 so ... make wait_for an action plugin? 20:02:19 abadger1999: there's already plenty ways to do many things in Ansible 20:02:50 dag: Could we oveload either pause or wait_for (in the existing or new action pugin) to include this functionality? 20:02:52 dag: that's true, but do we want to continue to add more ways to do things to the list of already available ways? 20:02:53 maxamillion: not possible wait_for does so many different things that people may want to do remotely 20:03:21 maxamillion: it depends everything that does REST could be done using get_url 20:03:29 does it make sense, obviously not 20:03:36 maxamillion: it would be add an action plugin for wait_for that handles this case. If not this case, then pass it on to the module as it does currently. 20:03:49 a lot of modules can be performed using win_shell and changed_when/failed_when 20:03:53 but it's not elegant 20:04:06 dag: uri, but I see your point ... and we've rejected a number of modules because they are just thin wrappers of REST APIs for that exact reason (in fact, it's even in the docs) 20:04:14 hell wait_for and delegate is also not elegant if you just want to sleep a bit (or in our case sleep randomly) 20:04:34 maxamillion: but we didn't reject everything REST 20:04:53 what would the sleep module do in check mode? 20:04:58 but I would remove the wait_for: seconds from wait_for in favor of sleep, yes 20:05:11 jtanner: it would sleep 20:05:14 jtanner: should still sleep. it doesn't make any changes. 20:05:19 indeed 20:05:20 k 20:05:24 dag: also, can't we set an action plugin to only handle the situation of timeout being the only condition set and pass off to the module otherwise? 20:05:44 maxamillion: I'm beginning to think that's the way to go. 20:06:35 maxamillion: or deprecate it, because "sleep" makes more sense, and is easier to find than "wait_for" IMO 20:07:07 and then you separate functionality from wait_for, because that's doing to many different things 20:07:19 I think I'd call it 'controller_sleep' or such, but otherwise seems ok to me. 20:08:16 alikins: I can see another name makes sense, but it's not really controller-sleep (that's more what pause does if it happens to be processed) 20:08:36 I think sleep as a name for the functionality makes sense 20:08:55 Okay, we're at the end of time for the meeting. 20:09:06 anyway, we had the same discussion once and then the decision was postponed 20:09:23 I think where we're at currently is wanting to merge this functionality into one of the current modules/plugin (either wait_for or pause). 20:10:04 and we're now trying to figure out what that would look like 20:10:20 ok, maybe add a comment so we can continue from there ;-) 20:10:23 dag: do you want to discuss more next meeting or take a look at implementing one of those? 20:10:25 k 20:10:49 #action abadger1999 to add a comment to the effect that we'd like this integrated into either wait_for or pause 20:10:53 #topic Open Floor 20:11:00 Anyone have anything to say during open floor? 20:11:21 #info 2.5.x feature freeze will be on Monday the 22nd. 20:11:34 #info 2.4.3-rc2 is coming on Wednesday, this week (tomorrow) 20:12:04 when will the stable-2.5 branch be cut? 20:12:08 nitzmahone: ^ 20:12:28 #info nitzmahone will be the release manager for 2.5.x 20:12:37 I'm leaning toward waiting until b1, which is ... (scrambles for date) 20:14:14 Could've sworn we had those all lined out somewhere. 20:15:07 A1 will probably be within a few days of core freeze, B1 a few days after community freeze 20:15:16 I thought so too... I think I owrked on that with thaumos before handing over RM duties to you. 20:15:32 All I see is the stuff in roadmap 20:15:32 it's on the roadmap doc 20:15:45 But I'm planning to cut the stable-2.5 branch the week of Feb 7. 20:15:52 https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/docs/docsite/rst/roadmap/ROADMAP_2_5.rst 20:17:03 The specific branch cut dates and alpha/beta dates weren't though- just the RC/target release dates 20:17:39 ah yes sorry, thought you just wanted the freeze dates 20:18:48 Okay, so what I have in my irc logs is that community freeze and beta1 would be 7th of February 20:19:04 So if you're planning on stable-2.5 coinciding with beta1, that sounds correct. 20:19:12 Okay, any other questions? 20:19:19 If not, I'll close in 60 seconds 20:23:53 nitzmahone: in the past the stable branch was cut only when RC1 was ready, to avoid to many backporting 20:24:03 too 20:24:29 (past == stable-2.4 IIRC) 20:24:34 Yeah, we're trying a bunch of different things this time around 20:25:02 2.6 might be even stranger. 20:25:04 I'm willing to delay to RC1 if people think that's a big problem 20:25:47 because we're tentatively thinking it will be a stablity release so we'll kind of want some other branch to land new features in for 2.7 when 2.6 is still in development. 20:25:55 (but we can cross that bridge later) 20:25:58 Okay. 20:26:02 Closing meeting. 20:26:10 #endmeeting