Feature request: allow additional roles for a node

[ibotty]

ATM I have a home-grown script that adds for a node my-db-worker1 (in your parlance) the following patches to its config.

• all/*
• worker/*
• db/*
• cloud-server/*
• node/my-db-worker1/*

Similarly for the node my-control-1:

• all/*
• control-plane/*
• dedicated-rootserver/*
• node/my-control-1

Of course the db "role" is only useful for workers, but the cloud-server and dedicated-rootserver "roles" can apply to any type of node.

How would you manage that with topf?

[clementnuss]

with the current approach the solution would be to put role-based rules in all, and to template those with fields from the node optional data fields. i.e. something like

--- # topf.yaml
...
nodes:
  - host: node1
    ip: 172.20.10.2
    role: control-plane
    data:
      role: "titi"
--- # all/db-role.yaml.tpl
{{- if eq .Node.Data.role "titi" }}
machine:
    nodeLabels:
        titi: toto
{{- end }}

perhaps we could consider (if there's enough traction) to add a new userRole field under the node config, which would then be used to fetch patches according the folder structure you described.

one more thing, we are walking/searching all files including in subfolders, so you could totally distribute your userRole specific patches inside subfolders of all/, like all/db/... etc., or control-plane/dedicated-rootserver/...

[withnale]

Would it be better to have a roles/ directory for this.

It's starting to look a little like puppet hiera.

[clementnuss]

yes that's indeed making me think of puppet, where this was called class if I recall correctly?

if enough users request an additional node field to specify a class (or a list of classes) so that it's afterward possible to do as was suggested we will consider. for the time being I'd prefer if topf could stay minimal. also with the new #94 issue this might be better solved by delegating that job to the user.

finally, I'm choosing to use another terminology than role, as that one is being used to distinguish control-plane/worker nodes, and reusing it would just confuse everybody. class, puppet-inspired, might do as for the terminology.