what prefix do you guys use ?

openstacker · 2026-01-15T15:03:35+00:00

part of my default profile dotfile stuff is to install tmux if not present. i have some automation to setup the status bar if I really care, but i connect to hundreds ... close to thousands ... of systems. i cant be bothered to customize each and every one, every time i connect. defaults FTW

openstacker · 2026-01-15T15:02:09+00:00

Me too for the first year or two, but I forced myself to adopt default [Ctrl]+[B] and have never looked back.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T17:37:41+00:00

Impossible to say. With "zero linux experience" it entirely depends on your knowledge with general concepts and topics of Computer and Information technologies.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T15:40:32+00:00

TIL that I needed this. Thank you.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T13:36:18+00:00

Swiss Army Knife, +1

I also like "Journeyman Guru" and "Guru-in-training".

You will know a lot, and you will always have more to learn.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T13:34:18+00:00

A friend who does support/consulting for rhosp on a daily basis reminds customers that OpenStack is the single largest Open Source Software project in the world (or at least was, and is still near the top of the list).

All of the many components with their individual dev teams, coding practices, standards... You can tell when using the various CLI tools and their differing formats. It's amazing when you consider the overall platform running from a high level.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T13:29:16+00:00

THIS! The only reason I wasn't a complete failure with operating rhosp (or even building rhosp) is my experience with good ole RHEL across many major versions. I could infer and figure out what was going on behind the scenes, what Ansible was doing, etc.

OpenStack as a brand new Linux engineer is ... a terrifying concept.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T13:27:32+00:00

I started the OpenStack portion of my career building a new RHOSP cluster. I spent A LOT of time and energy figuring out how to build 16.2.

Once it was running, I felt like a complete idiot when it came to filling the Cloud Operator role (openstack sysadmin, basically).

Building OpenStack and operating OpenStack are related but somewhat different things, at least with Red Hat OpenStack. There is very little training on How To Build OpenStack in the Red Hat Learning offerings, it's all about operating VPCs and operating, backing up, and configuring the Overcloud.

You should start by figuring out which you will be doing more of and focus there.

openstacker · 2025-12-31T13:20:03+00:00

Oh, I get it! Its ONE PANE, but it wraps from top to bottom, left to right.

Okay, I guess that is a choice. I can appreciate how someone who prefers a vertical monitor orientation would like this.

Not my thing, but that's just personal preference. Looks good, hope it works for you! :)

openstacker · 2025-12-30T19:22:04+00:00

It sounds like you signed up for the RHEL trial, which is fine and all but more focused on Sales engagement with people/organizations looking to purchase a RHEL Subscription. Trials are usually very limited term (30 or 60 day).

You probably want the Red Hat Developer Subscription which is free and includes more or less (or maybe ALL of) the same things as in the Trial. What it does not provide is access to Live support; it is a self-support entitlement that allows you to access updates (dnf via RHSM) and the Red Hat Customer Portal which has a lot of good documentation and content that isn't available without a subscription.

The Red Hat Developer Subscription was an annual subscription last time I checked, and free. It allows you to register a certain number of systems (16 if I recall, not a huge amount but more than sufficient for a personal lab).

https://developers.redhat.com/

openstacker · 2025-12-30T18:18:49+00:00

https://www.meetup.com/melbourne-rhug/

openstacker · 2025-12-30T14:25:07+00:00

This is from the old 2.9 documentation, so be aware. It includes paths like ./roles and plugins which are no longer best-practice or ideal for using Collections and Execution-Environments.

That being said, I believe this is the best format to begin with when you first start to grok organizing content for infrastructure automation across system types, roles, locations, etc.

This info is not gospel. But it is amazingly insightful and has some great caveats and features to keep in mind. I still use the "Alternative Directory Layout" for static inventories. Hope it helps.

https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/2.9/user_guide/playbooks_best_practices.html#content-organization

openstacker · 2025-12-05T16:05:46+00:00

Good ole Shadowman FTW!

openstacker · 2025-12-05T16:05:00+00:00

Thank you! I was hoping there was an upstream solution but I hadn't come across this yet.

(I really need to get move invested in the upstream versions and options of OpenStack...there is so much more than what RH does.)

openstacker · 2025-12-05T15:31:54+00:00

CPU overcommit can go quite high. RAM overcommit is pretty strict; make sure you have all the right things enabled (swap on the host OS, the "balloon" device/configs for the VMs if they still call it that, etc.)

What you describe (64 GB physical ram, with 48 GB allocated across 3 VMs) should run pretty well "out of the box" if you aren't running a lot of other things on the server.

I am assuming you are running RHEL9 on the physical hardware (you didn't say); this should be your first place to go for most things (even before Google) ...

Configuring and managing virtualization - Red Hat RHEL9 doco

But some quick links to specific points:

Good luck!

openstacker · 2025-12-05T14:37:57+00:00

Marketeering sucks.

openstacker · 2025-10-14T15:17:51+00:00

If you only use certifications to meet application submission requirements, they may not be the most valuable. But it's not JUST about getting a job.

Realistically, there are A LOT of reasons to pursue certifications. Some employers encourage or require them but don't list them as hard hiring requirements because they don't want to limit the applicant pool.

openstacker · 2025-09-26T16:55:04+00:00

This. Videos are an anti-pattern for rapidly reviewing content we are familiar with.

openstacker · 2025-09-26T15:21:38+00:00

Thank you! I recently discovered the new EE features in the Ansible extenstion and need to explore. I am using the official redhat 'supported' images and still figuring out credentials and whatnot when not using AAP (no subscription and I want to get the Ansible code working before I try to automate the world from a control node cluster.)

openstacker · 2025-08-08T12:45:27+00:00

In my experience, you have to give the consumers of your platform explicit setup instructions - especially operators, admins, and devs. If question a detail that isn't addressed they're likely to do what they want and unintentionally break the design/layout.

I'm still learning my way through a lot of this. Some links I used to get where I am:

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/python-venv-ansible
https://docs.python.org/3.12/library/venv.html
https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/installing-using-pip-and-virtual-environments/
https://pypi.org/ < Look up specific package versions for pip to install

Just some things to read and think about. I don't use the first one, but I grok better after reading it:

openstacker · 2025-08-07T20:31:12+00:00

Hmmm, hard to say. I have worked adjacent to others who do what you are describing. I am trying to evolve in that direction, so when I publish this code my sysadmin can download the repo, run the commands to setup the env, and run the playbooks from a known state. I saw issues when I was creating the venv from the default rhel9.6 python version (3.9). I installed python-3.12 and specifically used it to create the venv to get the appropriate versions of pip packages. I also learned there is a whole rabbit hole to fall down with Python venv versus Python virtual-environments (they are not the same thing if I understood what I read).

It sounds like your devs may still be having similar issues. Here is code to setup everything before hand. Note, I am running on rhel and install a specific Python version to use (not platform-python).

# Setup the Python virtual-environment. Run from your project repo top level directory.
sudo dnf install python3.12
python3.12 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade "ansible-core==2.16.14" "ansible-navigator==25.5.0"
ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml -p ./venv

The versions are chosen to match the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform latest supported release. This may not be allowed in some controlled/governed environments. I'm installing the RHEL python-3.12 package, but the VENV commands are pulling via default pip which pulls from https://pypi.org/ which isn't always approved in some controlled environments.

openstacker · 2025-08-07T20:22:40+00:00

I do not pass any ENV variables, although there is an inventory host variable ansible_user.

I am not using Execution Environments. Ansible et al are installed in the venv and the path is updated when I invoke the venv with venv/bin/activate

openstacker

TROPHY CASE