Ansible Role alternatives

This role manages symbolic links using the update-alternatives tool. Useful when multiple programs are installed but provide similar functionality (for example, different editors or Python interpreters).

Hints:

• The priority is simply an integer weight that the system uses when you’re in auto mode to choose which of several installed alternatives should be the current default.

• When you install multiple candidates for the same generic name (e.g. python3), and you’ve left the alternative in auto mode, the one with the highest priority number will be selected.

• When priorities are equal, the system will pick the first one that was registered (but you should avoid duplicate priorities to prevent ambiguity).

Tags

Tag	What it does	Reload / Restart
alternatives	Manages alternative programs for common commands.	-

Mandatory Role Variables

Variable	Description	Default Value
alternatives__alternatives	List of alternatives to remove or to deploy. Subkeys: link: String. The path to the symbolic link that should point to the real executable. This option is always required on RHEL-based distributions. On Debian-based distributions this option is required when the alternative name is unknown to the system. name: Mandatory, string. The generic name of the link. path: Optional, string. The path to the real executable that the link should point to. priority: Optional, number. The priority of the alternative. If no priority is given for creation 50 is used as a fallback. state: Optional, string. One of: selected: Default. Install the alternative (if not already installed), and set it as the currently selected alternative for the group. present: Install the alternative (if not already installed), but do not set it as the currently selected alternative for the group. auto: Install the alternative (if not already installed), and set the group to auto mode. absent: Remove the alternative.	[]

Example:

alternatives__alternatives:
  - link: '/usr/bin/python3'
    name: 'python3'
    path: '/usr/bin/python3.9'
    priority: '100'  # install python3.9 with higher priority
    state: 'auto'
  - link: '/usr/bin/python3'
    name: 'python3'
    path: '/usr/bin/python3.12'
    priority: '10'
    state: 'auto'
# => results in python3.9

License

The Unlicense

Author Information

Linuxfabrik GmbH, Zurich