Testing changes in a forked repo

When working in a forked repository, there may be times where performing the ansible-playbook command from within the OC SDK collection is restricted, since most playbooks are required to be executed from the root of another Operator Collection. This requires that the OC SDK collection be installed globally, and below are the steps to do so.

Installing local collection

From the operator-collection-sdk/ibm directory issue the following command:

ansible-galaxy collection install ./operator_collection_sdk -f

Installing from forked GitHub repo 

BRANCH_NAME=$(git branch | grep -F '*' | cut -d ' ' -f2)
REPO_URL=$(git config --get remote.origin.url)
ansible-galaxy collection install git+${REPO_URL}#ibm/operator_collection_sdk,${BRANCH_NAME} -f

Executing GitHub Workflows in a forked GitHub repo

GitHub doesn’t allow GitHub workflow Secrets to be passed to forked repositories. Since the current Ansible® Molecule tests require access to an OpenShift® cluster, you are required to configure the following two variables in your workspace before successfully executing an end to end test of your changes.

  • Navigate to Setting > Secrets and variables > Actions and click the “New repository secret” button
  • Configure the OPENSHIFT_SERVER secret. This value can be retrieved using the following command:
    oc config view --minify -o jsonpath='{.clusters[*].cluster.server}'
  • Generate a new Service Account token in OpenShift and configure the OPENSHIFT_TOKEN secret in GitHub. Follow the steps below to generate a token with the proper access in the cluster
    oc create sa github -n default
oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user cluster-admin -z github -n default
TOKEN=$(oc sa new-token github -n default)
echo ${TOKEN}

Ansible Molecule Setup

The steps below describe how to setup Ansible Molecule in a vitrual environment on your machine.

  • Install virtualenv.
    pip install virtualenv
  • Create a vitualenv directory in your project.
    virtualenv ansible_venv
  • Navigate to the new virtual environment directory.
    cd ansible_venv
  • Activate the virtual environment.
    source bin/activate
  • Install the following packages after activating the virtual environment.
    pip install -r ../requirements.txt
  • Navigate to the playbooks directory to execute the available Molecule scenarios. Example:
    cd ../playbooks
molecule test -s init_collection
  • When you are ready to exit the virtual environment, simply execute the deactivate command to exit.

Writing Molecule Tests

Below are a few links I’d recommend to review to get started with Ansible Molecule:

Ansible Molecule Overview: https://www.toptechskills.com/ansible-tutorials-courses/rapidly-build-test-ansible-roles-molecule-docker/

Video Tutorial on Molecule playbook testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYghlf-6Opc