debops.sysnews default variables
APT packages
- sysnews__base_packages
List of the default APT packages to install for System News support.
sysnews__base_packages: [ 'sysnews' ]
- sysnews__packages
List of additional APT packages to install for System News support.
sysnews__packages: []
News notification
- sysnews__notification
Enable or disable notification about unread News items after login.
sysnews__notification: True
- sysnews__notification_min_uid
Specify the minimum UID number for an UNIX account to see the notification.
This is done so that the news notification does not show up after switching
to the root
account via su or sudo.
sysnews__notification_min_uid: '900'
- sysnews__notification_max_uid
Specify the maximum UID number for an UNIX account to see the notification. This might be useful if you want to limit the System News to only for the system administrators in a multi-person team.
The value usually would be 999
for non-clustered hosts where normal users
start at 1000
, and 9999
for clustered hosts where users in the LDAP
database might start at 10000
. By default, all users will see the
notification.
sysnews__notification_max_uid: ''
- sysnews__notification_command
The shell command executed to display System News notification after login.
sysnews__notification_command: '/usr/bin/news -l -n'
Misc configuration
- sysnews__group
Name of the UNIX system group which grants write access to the
/var/lib/sysnews/
directory. This group is defined in the
sysnews Debian package and preferably shouldn't be changed.
sysnews__group: 'staff'
- sysnews__entry_contact
The string used as the contact information for the host administrators, inserted in one of the default System News entries if set.
sysnews__entry_contact: '{{ ansible_local.machine.contact | d("") }}'
System News static entries
These variables define configuration of the System News entries which will not expire automatically. See sysnews__entries for more details.
- sysnews__default_entries
List of default System News entries defined by the role.
sysnews__default_entries:
- name: 'Welcome to System News'
content: |
This host has support for the "System News" bulletin, which can be read
using the 'news' command.
Members of the '{{ sysnews__group }}' UNIX system group can create news entries in the form
of text files located in the '/var/lib/sysnews/' directory. The news items
will automatically expire after a month, unless they are specifically
marked for no expiration.
Read the news(1) manpage for more details.
state: 'present'
- name: 'This machine is managed using Ansible'
content: |
Ansible is a Configuration Management tool used to configure hosts in an
automated fashion.
Any changes in files which are managed using Ansible may be unexpectedly
lost if not accounted for by the system administrator. These files can be
recognized by a special annotation near the top of the file which informs
that this file is managed remotely.
{% if sysnews__entry_contact | d() %}
If you want to perform system modifications on this host, consider
contacting the system administrators first. They can be reached using
{{ sysnews__entry_contact }}
{% endif %}
state: 'present'
- sysnews__entries
List of System News entries which should be present on all hosts in the Ansible inventory.
sysnews__entries: []
- sysnews__group_entries
List of System News entries which should be present on hosts in a specific Ansible inventory group.
sysnews__group_entries: []
- sysnews__host_entries
List of System News entries which should be present on specific hosts in the Ansible inventory.
sysnews__host_entries: []
- sysnews__combined_entries
This list combines all of the other System News entry lists and passes them to the role tasks.
sysnews__combined_entries: '{{ sysnews__default_entries
+ sysnews__entries
+ sysnews__group_entries
+ sysnews__host_entries }}'