Installation¶
This document assumes the developer has a basic understanding of Python packaging, and how to install and manage Python on the system executing Molecule.
Requirements¶
A recent version of ansible-core that is still under support.
Depending on the driver chosen, you may need to install additional OS packages.
Pip¶
pip is the only supported installation method.
Recommendation
The recommended approach to install molecule is using the
ansible-dev-tools package.
Ansible Development Tools
aims to streamline the setup and usage of several tools needed in order to
create Ansible content. It combines critical Ansible
development packages into a unified Python package.
Keep in mind that on selinux supporting systems, if you install into a virtual environment, you may face issue 34340 even if selinux is not enabled or is configured to be permissive.
It is your responsibility to ensure that soft dependencies of Ansible are available on your controller or host machines.
Warning
It is highly recommended that you install molecule in a virtual environment. This will provide a modern copy of setuptools which is mandatory in order for molecule to be installed successfully and function correctly. If you cannot use a virtual environment then you can attempt a package upgrade with the following:
Requirements¶
Depending on the driver chosen, you may need to install additional Python packages. See the driver's documentation in that case.
Install¶
Install Molecule:
Molecule does not include ansible-lint (nor does the lint extra), but is easily installed separately:
Molecule uses the \"delegated\" driver by default. Other drivers can be installed separately from PyPI, most of them being included in molecule-plugins package. If you would like to use podman as the molecule driver, the installation command would look like this:
Warning
If you upgrade molecule from previous versions, make sure to remove
previously installed drivers like for instance molecule-podman or
molecule-vagrant since those are now available in the molecule-plugins
package.
Installing molecule package also installed its main script molecule,
usually in PATH. Users should know that molecule can also be called as
a python module, using python3 -m molecule .... This alternative method
has some benefits:
- allows to explicitly control which Python interpreter is used by molecule
- allows molecule installation at the user level without even needing to
have the script in
PATH.
Container¶
Molecule is built into a container image for Ansible Development Tools
(ADT)
Any questions or bugs related to the use of Molecule from within a container should be addressed by the ADT project.
Source¶
Due to the rapid pace of development on this tool, you might want to install and update a bleeding-edge version of Molecule from Git. Follow the instructions below to do the initial install and subsequent updates.
The package distribution that you'll get installed will be autogenerated and will contain commit hash information, making it easier to refer to.