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Spec: Ansible Inventory & Bootstrap

Spec ID: 2-inventory-bootstrap
Stage: 1 of 8
Status: ✅ Approved
Author: Treize (Lead)
GitHub Issue: #2

Overview

Establish the Ansible inventory structure and verify basic connectivity to the Raspberry Pi 5. This is the foundation for all subsequent Ansible automation.

Problem

Before any Ansible automation can run, we need:

  1. A working ansible.cfg with sensible defaults
  2. An inventory that describes our Pi 5 target
  3. Verified SSH connectivity from the control machine to the Pi
  4. A structure that can scale to multiple hosts later (even though we start with one)

Solution

Create the standard Ansible inventory layout with production/development separation, group and host variables, and a simple ping playbook to verify connectivity.

Files to Create

ansible.cfg                           # Ansible configuration
inventories/
  production/
    hosts.yml                         # Host inventory (pi_runners group)
    group_vars/
      all.yml                         # Variables for all hosts
      pi_runners.yml                  # Variables for pi_runners group
    host_vars/
      pi5-runner.yml                  # Host-specific variables
playbooks/
  ping.yml                            # Connectivity test playbook

Key Configuration

ansible.cfg:

  • Inventory path: inventories/production
  • Roles path: roles
  • Host key checking: strict by default after first SSH trust is established from WSL
  • Retry files disabled (no clutter)

hosts.yml:

all:
  children:
    pi_runners:
      hosts:
        pi5-runner:
          ansible_host: "{{ pi5_ip }}"
          ansible_user: "{{ pi5_ssh_user }}"

group_vars/pi_runners.yml:

runner_user: actions-runner
runner_home: /opt/actions-runner
cache_base: /opt/runner-cache

Acceptance Criteria

  • ansible.cfg exists with documented configuration
  • Inventory follows standard Ansible layout (inventories/{env}/hosts.yml)
  • group_vars/ and host_vars/ directories established
  • ansible-playbook playbooks/ping.yml -i inventories/production succeeds
  • Sensitive value placeholders documented (IP, token locations)
  • Second run produces identical results (idempotent by nature)

Out of Scope

  • Creating the actions-runner user (Stage 2)
  • Installing any packages on the Pi (Stage 2+)
  • Docker, runner, or hooks setup (Stages 3–6)
  • Development inventory population (future)

Dependencies

  • Requires:

    • Fresh Raspberry Pi 5 with:
      • Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit, Bookworm) installed
      • SSH enabled
      • Network connectivity
      • Known IP address or hostname
    • SSH key access configured for the control node

  • Enables:

    • Stage 2: Common base role (SSH hardening, user creation)
    • All subsequent stages (they all use this inventory)

Agent Assignment

Role Agent
Implement Heero
Review Treize
Validate Noin

Verification

# From Ubuntu WSL
cd /mnt/c/ws/PerformanceNode

# Test connectivity
ANSIBLE_CONFIG=$PWD/ansible.cfg ansible-playbook -i inventories/production playbooks/ping.yml

Notes

Bootstrap SSH Access

This stage assumes SSH is already configured on the Pi. For the current target:

  • Inventory alias: pi5-runner
  • Pi hostname: PiTester
  • SSH host: 192.168.27.222
  • SSH user: fortinbra

WSL Path Note

If the repository is stored on the Windows filesystem and accessed from WSL via /mnt/c/..., run Ansible with ANSIBLE_CONFIG=$PWD/ansible.cfg so Ansible uses the repo-local configuration explicitly.

Secrets Strategy

The runner registration token will be needed in Stage 4. This stage only establishes the pattern:

  • Sensitive values marked with comments: # Set via --extra-vars or vault
  • Actual vault setup deferred until needed