mac-dev-playbook VS ansible-job-report

To get your Linux ready to use after a fresh install you might have an Ansible playbook to get the system ready to go with all the tools you need.

Not public. But you can search YouTube for geerlingguy and Ansible Mac. I got the idea from him https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook

This is how I set up my Mac as well; just a local connection. Sets up out of box Mac in about 15 minutes and I can keep my two Mac's configs in perfect sync: https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook

One way I have seen is to use Ansible and a playbook - Jeff Geerling does this here but that's a bit OTT for me.

Jeff Geerling has a Mac Dev PlayBook repo that is pretty close to how I would build my system.

There is, I use this with some of my own customizations https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook

If you go down the route of using Ansible, this is a very complete script for Mac OS. Even if you don't use it, you can see how many useful apps can be installed (mac-dev-playbook)[https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook]

If you go down the route of using Ansible, this is a very complete tool for Mac OS. Even if you don't use it, you can see how many useful apps can be installed mac-dev-playbook And if Ansible if just too much, try this simple way to code, document, and replay bits of your installation scripts with this tool I wrote recently and use to deploy systems daily. markdown_exec

I symlink a few files in place via Dropbox, but have most of my local configs in a dot files repo: https://github.com/geerlingguy/dotfiles

Then for more systemwide configuration, I have an Ansible playbook I run every now and then (configures apps, dock item order, etc): https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook

If you want an example of this in action, I made an example that does what you are describing.

If you want custom feedback of job status, I have employed this method before. It's a little cumbersome for everyday use, but for big or important jobs it's one way to get a custom report of task output and host failures. Or if you're feeling extra, you can do the full version.

For RHEL servers, we use reposync to mirror patches locally, and then install them with yum. We drive the process with a series of Ansible playbooks. We have some optional host vars or group vars we can declare to tune the patching behavior per-host, or to handle custom patching scenarios. Our patching process generates a report similar to this one.

I uploaded a stripped-down version of it here, if you need ideas. More details and examples here.

I made something similar a while back to report on patch activity; try this example for some ideas.

To generate a patch report, one option is to use a jinja template to compile an HTML-formatted email. For a working example to play with, see this github.

You can generate a "pretty" HTML report using a Jinja template. This github example may be a little overkill for your needs, but it shows how you can assemble a report with per-host facts and task status using Jinja templates.

As you mentioned, using Jinja to generate HTML for job reports. When renovating our script-based patching process for Linux, we had to choose between Redhat Satellite and rolling our own. We found that Satellite was overkill for our needs, and not worth the maintenance fuss and licensing costs. The biggest draw of Satellite for management was reporting... so I tortured Jinja into making a pretty CSS-styled report at the end of our patching playbook. Everyone is happy, and we have one less tool to maintain!

For our patch reporting, we run the yum check-update command and put the output in an HTML template that is emailed to groups. The report we assemble is similar to this.