Testing roles/playbooks for containers?

[organicveggie]

I run a decent number (30+) and variety of services in my homelab and I can never remember how I set them up, so I manage things using Ansible roles and playbooks as a form of documentation. A lot of services run in Docker containers, so I find myself with a lot of roles that setup the necessary Docker resources to run a service: things like creating volumes, networks, and containers.

The problem I have is testing these roles. I mostly use Molecule for testing during role development, but I also use it when preparing to update major components. Of course, Molecule needs a virtual/container environment, but you can't run Docker inside Docker. So I have been using Vagrant + VirtualBox on my MacBook Pro laptop, but the entire process is a bit painful and not well documented.

Is anyone else using Molecule to test roles that manage Docker containers? If so, which provider are you using?

Or does everyone use something other than Ansible for managing their containerized services?

[erichoog]

Check out ansible-dev-tools container it may help you:
https://ansible.readthedocs.io/projects/dev-tools/container/

This can run a podman container in a podman container so might solve your issue. It also has Molecule loaded in the container for you as well. Although I realize you mentioned you use docker but it might be a good starting place if you weren't aware of this project.