How to automate your Mac OS X setup with Ansible

Last month I updated my development machine to the shiny new El Capitan. Unfortunately as a zsh and tmux user I ran into a very annoying bug and so I was forced to re-install my MBP with Yosemite. Because I belong to the power users which tend to customise their installations a lot and because I like automation I decided I was going to automate this cumbersome job for once and for all. Of course, with my favourite configuration management tool: Ansible.

It appears I’m not the only one and found Jeff Geerling’s excellent mac-dev-playbook repository. The README.md contains a lot of useful information and the repository is an excellent starting point. I’ve also used it as starting point for my own repository. In this post I’ll explain the most important details of my setup.

Installation of Applications and packages

I like Homebrew to install packages on my Mac so that’s also what I use in my Ansible setup. There is a ready to use Ansible role available – also created by Jeff Geerling – which I recommend. To use it:

$ ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.homebrew

1	$ ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.homebrew

To configure the role to suit your needs you have to edit vars/main.yml. My current version as an example:

---
homebrew_install_path: /usr/local/homebrew
homebrew_installed_packages:
  - ansible
  - docker
  - git
  - ssh-copy-id
  - openssl
  - wget
  - brew-cask
  - dockutil
  - zsh
  - tmux
  - mercurial
  - phpmd
  - php-code-sniffer
  - php-cs-fixer
  - phpunit
  - php70
  - php70-intl
  - php70-xdebug
  - php70-imagick
  - php70-mcrypt

homebrew_taps:
  - caskroom/cask
  - caskroom/versions
  - homebrew/php

homebrew_cask_appdir: /Applications
homebrew_cask_apps:
  - google-chrome
  - dropbox
  - firefox
  - limechat
  - vagrant
  - virtualbox
  - phpstorm
  - slack
  - istat-menus
  - atom
  - android-file-transfer
  - limechat
  - spotify
  - dockertoolbox

---

homebrew_install_path: /usr/local/homebrew

homebrew_installed_packages:

- ansible

- docker

- git

- ssh-copy-id

- openssl

- wget

- brew-cask

- dockutil

- zsh

- tmux

- mercurial

- phpmd

- php-code-sniffer

- php-cs-fixer

- phpunit

- php70

- php70-intl

- php70-xdebug

- php70-imagick

- php70-mcrypt

homebrew_taps:

- caskroom/cask

- caskroom/versions

- homebrew/php

homebrew_cask_appdir: /Applications

homebrew_cask_apps:

- google-chrome

- dropbox

- firefox

- limechat

- vagrant

- virtualbox

- phpstorm

- slack

- istat-menus

- atom

- android-file-transfer

- limechat

- spotify

- dockertoolbox

The Dock

There is a neat utility available called dockutil which allows you to take full control over your dock. You can install it via Homebrew, so just register it under homebrew_installed_packages.

I use the following tasks and vars to fix my dock:

---
- name: Remove all crap from Dock
  shell: dockutil --remove '{{ item }}'
  ignore_errors: true
  with_items: dockitems_to_remove

- name: Check if items in dock exist
  shell: dockutil --find '{{ item.name }}' || dockutil --add '{{ item.path }}'
  with_items: dockitems_to_persist

- name: Fix order
  shell: dockutil --move '{{ item.name }}' --position {{ item.pos }}
  with_items: dockitems_to_persist

---

- name: Remove all crap from Dock

shell: dockutil --remove '{{ item }}'

ignore_errors: true

with_items: dockitems_to_remove

- name: Check if items in dock exist

shell: dockutil --find '{{ item.name }}' || dockutil --add '{{ item.path }}'

with_items: dockitems_to_persist

- name: Fix order

shell: dockutil --move '{{ item.name }}' --position {{ item.pos }}

with_items: dockitems_to_persist

Vars:

dockitems_to_remove:
  - Launchpad
  - Mail
  - Safari
  - Contacts
  - Notes
  - Reminders
  - Maps
  - Photos
  - Messages
  - FaceTime
  - iTunes
  - iBooks
  - App Store
  - System Preferences
  - Calendar

dockitems_to_persist:
  - name: Google Chrome
    path: "/Applications/Google Chrome.app"
    pos: 1
  - name: Firefox
    path: "/Applications/Firefox.app"
    pos: 2
  - name: PhpStorm
    path: /Applications/PhpStorm.app
    pos: 3
  - name: Slack
    path: /Applications/Slack.app
    pos: 4
  - name: VirtualBox
    path: /Applications/VirtualBox.app
    pos: 5
  - name: Terminal
    path: /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
    pos: 6
  - name: Spotify
    path: /Applications/Spotify.app
    pos: 7

dockitems_to_remove:

- Launchpad

- Mail

- Safari

- Contacts

- Notes

- Reminders

- Maps

- Photos

- Messages

- FaceTime

- iTunes

- iBooks

- App Store

- System Preferences

- Calendar

dockitems_to_persist:

- name: Google Chrome

path: "/Applications/Google Chrome.app"

pos: 1

- name: Firefox

path: "/Applications/Firefox.app"

pos: 2

- name: PhpStorm

path: /Applications/PhpStorm.app

pos: 3

- name: Slack

path: /Applications/Slack.app

pos: 4

- name: VirtualBox

path: /Applications/VirtualBox.app

pos: 5

- name: Terminal

path: /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

pos: 6

- name: Spotify

path: /Applications/Spotify.app

pos: 7

Terminal

I spend a significant amount of the day in the terminal, so I’ve tweaked the default Terminal settings a lot. The cool thing is these settings can be exported via Shell > Export settings. The Ansible task to import such a file:

- name: Get current Terminal profile.
  shell: defaults read com.apple.Terminal 'Default Window Settings'
  register: terminal_theme
  changed_when: false

- name: Ensure custom Terminal profile is added.
  shell: open files/Solarized-Dark.terminal
  changed_when: false
  when: "'Solarized-Dark' not in terminal_theme.stdout"

- name: Ensure custom Terminal profile is set as default.
  shell: "{{ item }}"
  with_items:
    - defaults write com.apple.Terminal 'Default Window Settings' -string 'Solarized-Dark'
    - defaults write com.apple.Terminal 'Startup Window Settings' -string 'Solarized-Dark'
  changed_when: false
  when: "'Solarized Dark ansi' not in terminal_theme.stdout"

- name: Get current Terminal profile.

shell: defaults read com.apple.Terminal 'Default Window Settings'

changed_when: false

- name: Ensure custom Terminal profile is added.

shell: open files/Solarized-Dark.terminal

changed_when: false

when: "'Solarized-Dark' not in terminal_theme.stdout"

- name: Ensure custom Terminal profile is set as default.

shell: "{{ item }}"

with_items:

- defaults write com.apple.Terminal 'Default Window Settings' -string 'Solarized-Dark'

- defaults write com.apple.Terminal 'Startup Window Settings' -string 'Solarized-Dark'

changed_when: false

when: "'Solarized Dark ansi' not in terminal_theme.stdout"

Mac OS X tweaks

A lot of people don’t know you can configure a lot of settings via the command line interface to the user defaults. You can read and write these settings. For some inspiration take a look at my defaults.

Posted on January 4, 2016 by ricbra 7

Debugging Selenium with X11 Forwarding on Scrutinizer CI

Last week we ran into some issues on Scrutinizer CI with our Behat Selenium test suite. These things tend to be quite hard to debug: as Selenium is running headless in X virtual framebuffer (Xvfb) there is nothing to see for the developer. It’s possible to take screenshots, but this requires code changes (probably).

X11 Forwarding

One of the cool things you can do with Selenium (or more particular Firefox or Chrome) is X11 forwarding. If you’re running a X.Org Window system it is possible to forward the display from one box to another. When you’re on a Linux desktop environment you’re golden, but if you’re on a Mac like me you have to install XQuartz to get it working. Follow the instructions on the site and don’t forget to logout and login after installation otherwise your $DISPLAY enviroment variable is empty. By the way: if you’re a Windows user I honestly suggest to get a Mac or install Ubuntu to get it working :).

If you want more information on this topic there is plenty of information to be found on the interwebz.

SSH Remote debugging session

To get this X11 forwarding working on Scrutinizer CI first request a new SSH debugging session. This can be done on the inspection page. When the inspection fails you can retry but in the same dropdown also choose for “SSH Remote debugging”. The first time you do this it will ask for your public keys from Github, you should accept the request. It may take some time but after a few seconds or minutes you’ll receive a SSH login to connect to. Add an -X switch after ssh, so the command looks like this:

$ ssh -X user@11.22.33.44 -p 3312

1	$ ssh -X user@11.22.33.44 -p 3312

Now login on the remote machine and verify your $DISPLAY server is set (should be something like localhost:10.0). Open ~/.profile in your favourite editor and remove the line:

export SCREEN=":99"

1	export SCREEN=":99"

Do not log out, but create new SSH session with the command above. If all is fine you should be able to start firefox and see the browser appearing. Kill this firefox instance, and start Selenium in this session (java -jar /location/of/selenium.jar) and in the first session start your Behat tests.

Posted on April 15, 2015April 30, 2015 by ricbra

Install Selenium headless on Debian Wheezy (optionally with Ansible)

When you start testing with Behat and Mink Selenium2 driver you also need a browser running. Because we develop on a virtualised server installing FireFox was a bit more tricky then I expected. Of course a search yielded some interesting results, but also a lot of crap. So here is a little writeup on how I managed to get it running to save you some time. An example playbook can be found at the bottom of this post. But beware: this is Debian only!

On Debian there is a package called iceweasel. This is a rebranded version of FireFox. Because of that there is no firefox package available in the default repositories.

We are using Ansible for configuration management (for both our production and develop environment) so I prefer a package above compiling shit because that’s much easier to automate. There are a couple of options to install FireFox trough package manager:

add Linux Mint repository
add ubuntuzilla repository

Using the Linux Mint repository I experienced some problems. The Ubuntuzilla repository worked like a charm. If you want to install manually just follow the instructions in their Wiki. After adding the repository you can install the firefox package:

$ sudo apt-get install firefox-mozilla-build

1	$ sudo apt-get install firefox-mozilla-build

To run Firefox headless you also need some display server and to emulate that we are going to use xvfb. Selenium requires Java, thus we install:

$ sudo apt-get install xvfb openjdk-7-jre-headless

1	$ sudo apt-get install xvfb openjdk-7-jre-headless

Download Selenium somewhere:

$ mkdir /opt/selenium
$ wget -O /opt/selenium/selenium.jar http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/2.43/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar

1 2	$ mkdir /opt/selenium $ wget -O /opt/selenium/selenium.jar http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/2.43/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar

You should be able to start Selenium now:

$ xvfb-run java -jar /opt/selenium/selenium.jar

1	$ xvfb-run java -jar /opt/selenium/selenium.jar

Starting by hand is a bit lame, so we use this startup script:

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          selenium
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $network
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: selenium
# Description:       selenium with xvfb
### END INIT INFO

XVFB=/usr/bin/xvfb-run
XVFBARGS="java -jar /opt/selenium/selenium.jar"
PIDFILE=/var/run/xvfb.pid
case "$1" in
  start)
    echo -n "Starting virtual X frame buffer: Xvfb"
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --make-pidfile --background --exec $XVFB -- $XVFBARGS
    echo "."
    ;;
  stop)
    echo -n "Stopping virtual X frame buffer: Xvfb"
    # does not work with start-stop-daemon because of child processes
    read pid <$PIDFILE
    pkill -TERM -P $pid
    echo "."
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    $0 start
    ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/selenium {start|stop|restart}"
        exit 1
esac

exit 0

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides: selenium

# Required-Start: $local_fs $network

# Required-Stop: $local_fs

# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5

# Default-Stop: 0 1 6

# Short-Description: selenium

# Description: selenium with xvfb

### END INIT INFO

XVFB=/usr/bin/xvfb-run

XVFBARGS="java -jar /opt/selenium/selenium.jar"

PIDFILE=/var/run/xvfb.pid

case "$1" in

start)

echo -n "Starting virtual X frame buffer: Xvfb"

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --make-pidfile --background --exec $XVFB -- $XVFBARGS

echo "."

;;

stop)

echo -n "Stopping virtual X frame buffer: Xvfb"

# does not work with start-stop-daemon because of child processes

read pid <$PIDFILE

pkill -TERM -P $pid

echo "."

;;

restart)

$0 stop

$0 start

;;

echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/selenium {start|stop|restart}"

exit 1

esac

exit 0

Copy this to /etc/init.d/selenium and after that you can:

$ sudo service selenium start

1	$ sudo service selenium start

And when we create an Ansible playbook for all this we get:

---
- name: Instal Selenium
  tasks:
  - apt_repository: repo="deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main" state=present
  - apt_key: id="C1289A29" keyserver=keyserver.ubuntu.com state=present
  - apt: name=iceweasel state=absent
  - apt: name={{ item }} state=present update_cache=yes
    with_items:
    - firefox-mozilla-build
    - openjdk-7-jre-headless
    - xvfb
  - file: name=/opt/selenium state=directory mode=0755
  - get_url: url="http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/2.43/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar" dest=/opt/selenium/selenium.jar
  - copy: src=selenium dest=/etc/init.d/selenium mode=0755

---

- name: Instal Selenium

tasks:

- apt_repository: repo="deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main" state=present

- apt_key: id="C1289A29" keyserver=keyserver.ubuntu.com state=present

- apt: name=iceweasel state=absent

- apt: name={{ item }} state=present update_cache=yes

with_items:

- firefox-mozilla-build

- openjdk-7-jre-headless

- xvfb

- file: name=/opt/selenium state=directory mode=0755

- get_url: url="http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/2.43/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar" dest=/opt/selenium/selenium.jar

- copy: src=selenium dest=/etc/init.d/selenium mode=0755

Posted on November 5, 2014April 28, 2015 by ricbra 5

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Tag: Ansible

How to automate your Mac OS X setup with Ansible

Installation of Applications and packages

The Dock

Terminal

Mac OS X tweaks

Debugging Selenium with X11 Forwarding on Scrutinizer CI

X11 Forwarding

SSH Remote debugging session

Install Selenium headless on Debian Wheezy (optionally with Ansible)