Package requirements on host are not verified at start of playbook execution

[spuiuk]

When attempting to build packages in the samba-build branch on a fresh machine, the build failed because I did not have the
mock and rpm-build
packages installed. Should we check for these packages or install them before proceeding with the build?

[anoopcs9]

When attempting to build packages in the samba-build branch on a fresh machine, the build failed because I did not have the
mock and rpm-build
packages installed. Should we check for these packages or install them before proceeding with the build?

These are additional set of dependencies(see this line from centos-ci script) for building rpms. And I guess we do many other package installations for setting up our test environment using the script from centos-ci branch. I don't think we check for the presence of those packages while test environment is setup on a fresh machine.

So I would say we expect mock and rpm-build in addition to other requirements like vagrant, ansible, qemu-kvm, libvirt etc on the node prior to building rpms from samba-build branch. May be we can update README to reflect requirements in respective branches?

[spuiuk]

I think a check for the packages before we proceed is a good idea. I propose we discuss this in the next meeting.

[anoopcs9]

Updating issue title to reflect the idea in a more generic manner.

[anoopcs9]

I think a check for the packages before we proceed is a good idea. I propose we discuss this in the next meeting.

So what do you suggest? Check for each and every package that we usually install on host node(centos-ci test run script and samba build script) during start of playbook execution?

[spuiuk]

The aim is to make the ansible playbook as re-usable as possible. For example, we could re-use these playbooks in the container build environment. An install action to install all the dependencies required by the build playbook therefore would be a very good addition to the ansible playbook.