Vendoring Ansible

Using python's pip, it is possible to install a python package and all it's dependencies into a specific directory. Taking advantage of this capability, we can vendor Ansible and it's dependencies. The only caveat is that the PYTHONPATH has to point to the vendored folder.

Using Docker to create a vendored package

The Dockerfile can be used to create an image that contains all the dependencies that are necessary to install Ansible using pip.

You can build a Docker image like this:

docker build -t apprenda/vendor-ansible .

Once the image is built, modify ansible-version.txt with your desired Ansible version and run the following to obtain a vendored Ansible package:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/vendor-ansible -w /vendor-ansible apprenda/vendor-ansible make

A file named ansible.tar.gz will be created in the local directory, containing all the vendored Ansible files.

Use vendored ansible

In order to use Ansible, the PYTHONPATH must include the lib and lib64 directories. Make sure to use absolute paths.

PYTHONPATH=$(pwd)/out/lib/python2.7/site-packages/:$(pwd)/out/lib64/python2.7/site-packages bin/ansible