diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 4635368f72..f037f708be 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -158,6 +158,11 @@ If upgrading older playbooks which were built prior to Ansible 2.10 and this col For documentation on how to use individual modules and other content included in this collection, please see the links in the 'Included content' section earlier in this README. +## Ansible Turbo mode + +The ``kubernetes.core`` collection supports Ansible Turbo mode via ``cloud.common`` collection. Please read more about Ansible Turbo mode - [here](https://github.com/ansible-collections/kubernetes.core/blob/main/docs/ansible_turbo_mode.rst). + + ## Testing and Development If you want to develop new content for this collection or improve what's already here, the easiest way to work on the collection is to clone it into one of the configured [`COLLECTIONS_PATHS`](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/config.html#collections-paths), and work on it there. diff --git a/docs/ansible_turbo_mode.rst b/docs/ansible_turbo_mode.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..f85fb03b90 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/ansible_turbo_mode.rst @@ -0,0 +1,138 @@ +.. _ansible_turbo_mode: + + +****************** +Ansible Turbo mode +****************** + +Following document provides overview of Ansible Turbo mode in ``kubernetes.core`` collection. + +.. contents:: + :local: + :depth: 1 + + +Synopsis +-------- +- A brief introduction about Ansible Turbo mode in ``kuberentes.core`` collection. +- Ansible Turbo mode is an optional performance optimization. It can be enabled by simply installing the cloud.common collection. + +Requirements +------------ + +The following requirement is needed on the host that executes this module. + +- The ``cloud.common`` collection (https://github.com/ansible-collections/cloud.common) + + +Installation +------------ + +You can install ``cloud.common`` collection using following command:: + + # ansible-galaxy collection install cloud.common + + +Current situation without Ansible Turbo mode +============================================ + +The traditional execution flow of an Ansible module includes the following steps: + +- Upload of a ZIP archive with the module and its dependencies +- Execution of the module +- Ansible collects the results once the script is finished + +These steps happen for each task of a playbook, and on every host. + +Most of the time, the execution of a module is fast enough for +the user. However, sometime the module requires significant amount of time, +just to initialize itself. This is a common situation with the API based modules. + +A classic initialization involves the following steps: + +- Load a Python library to access the remote resource (via SDK) +- Open a client + - Load a bunch of Python modules. + - Request a new TCP connection. + - Create a session. + - Authenticate the client. + +All these steps are time consuming and the same operations will be running again and again. + +For instance, here: + +- ``import openstack``: takes 0.569s +- ``client = openstack.connect()``: takes 0.065s +- ``client.authorize()``: takes 1.360s, + +These numbers are from test running against VexxHost public cloud. + +In this case, it's a 2s-ish overhead per task. If the playbook +comes with 10 tasks, the execution time cannot go below 20s. + +How Ansible Turbo Module improve the situation +============================================== + +``AnsibleTurboModule`` is actually a class that inherites from +the standard ``AnsibleModule`` class that your modules probably +already use. +The big difference is that when a module starts, it also spawns +a little Python daemon. If a daemon already exists, it will just +reuse it. +All the module logic is run inside this Python daemon. This means: + +- Python modules are actually loaded one time +- Ansible module can reuse an existing authenticated session. + +The background service +====================== + +The daemon kills itself after 15s, and communication are done +through an Unix socket. +It runs in one single process and uses ``asyncio`` internally. +Consequently you can use the ``sync`` keyword in your Ansible module. +This will be handy if you interact with a lot of remote systems +at the same time. + +Security impact +=============== + +``ansible_module.turbo`` open an Unix socket to interact with the background service. +We use this service to open the connection toward the different target systems. + +This is similar to what SSH does with the sockets. + +Keep in mind that: + +- All the modules can access the same cache. Soon an isolation will be done at the collection level (https://github.com/ansible-collections/cloud.common/pull/17) +- A task can load a different version of a library and impact the next tasks. +- If the same user runs two ``ansible-playbook`` at the same time, they will have access to the same cache. + +When a module stores a session in a cache, it's a good idea to use a hash of the authentication information to identify the session. + +Error management +================ + +``ansible_module.turbo`` uses exceptions to communicate a result back to the module. + +- ``EmbeddedModuleFailure`` is raised when ``json_fail()`` is called. +- ``EmbeddedModuleSuccess`` is raised in case of success and returns the result to the origin module process. + +These exceptions are defined in ``ansible_collections.cloud.common.plugins.module_utils.turbo.exceptions``. +You can raise ``EmbeddedModuleFailure`` exception yourself, for instance from a module in ``module_utils``. + +.. note:: Be careful with the ``except Exception:`` blocks. + Not only they are bad practice, but also may interface with this + mechanism. + + +Troubleshooting +=============== + +You may want to manually start the server. This can be done with the following command: + +.. code-block:: shell + + PYTHONPATH=$HOME/.ansible/collections python -m ansible_collections.cloud.common.plugins.module_utils.turbo.server --socket-path $HOME/.ansible/tmp/turbo_mode.kubernetes.core.socket + +You can use the ``--help`` argument to get a list of the optional parameters.