This post is older than a year. Consider some information might not be accurate anymore.
Used: python v3.71 python v2.7.15 openshift-lib v0.8.4 openshift v3.11.0+cbab8ee-94 ansible v2.7.5
I was trying to run an Ansible playbook for an OpenShift deployment on my MacBook Pro. The Ansible run crashed, and the fatal error message was:
"This module requires the OpenShift Python client. Try `pip install openshift`"
Diagnosis
This message was surprising since I knew I had it installed
pip list | grep openshift
openshift 0.8.4
So what is wrong?
I am using Python 3.
python --version
Python 3.7.1
Ansible comes with its own python environment.
ansible --version
ansible 2.7.5
config file = /Users/vinh/.ansible.cfg
configured module search path = ['/Users/vinh/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ansible
executable location = /usr/local/bin/ansible
python version = 3.7.2 (default, Feb 12 2019, 08:15:36) [Clang 10.0.0 (clang-1000.11.45.5)]
After digging and searching, I found this GitHub issue for Kubernetes. OpenShift uses Kubernetes (k8s). Python 3 and the openshift library don’t work well. To make it work, I have to use Python 2. Maintenance and updates for Python 2.7 will stop past 2020.
Solution
Multiple Python environments are always challenging. Luckily there is a solution that worked for me before in a data science project. I use miniconda to accomplish that. Miniconda is a smaller version of anaconda. Anaconda is a free and open-source distribution of the Python and R programming languages for scientific computing (data science, machine learning applications, large-scale data processing, predictive analytics, etc.), that aims to simplify package management and deployment. The package management system conda quickly installs, runs and updates packages and their dependencies.
I create a new environment for Ansible and OpenShift.
conda create -n openshift python=2
Activate the environment, install the openshift library and exit that environment.
source activate openshift
# check python version
python --version
Python 2.7.15 :: Anaconda, Inc.
# install
pip install openshift
source deactivate
In the ansible-playbook, we can now add these lines to tell ansible to use the respective environment and check for the openshift dependency.
- hosts: localhost
vars:
ansible_python_interpreter: '/miniconda3/envs/openshift/bin/python'
tasks:
- python_requirements_facts:
dependencies:
- openshift
After these changes, I could clean up my global python environment.
pip uninstall openshift
Summary
A virtual environment is an isolated working copy of Python which allows you to work on a specific project without worry of affecting other projects. From Ansible, OpenShift, Kubernetes and Python to miniconda, deployment has really become challenging and complicated.
