Integrate a new system

Raspberry Pi

When integrating a new Pi, a few steps need to be performed before it can be integrated with the rest of the Ansible config.

First of all, an SD card should be formatted with Debian Raspberry Pi as the operating system. Before booting for the first time, change the following in /boot/firmware/sysconf.txt (you can do this by simply having the SD card mounted on your computer):

Set hostname to the desired name
Set root_authorized_key to the contents of the current computer's public SSH key

Now the SD card can be inserted into the Raspberry Pi. Connect the Pi to the LAN using a wired connection and let it boot. After a little while, it should show up on the local network with a DNS-assigned IP. You can discover what IP it received in many ways; I usually just check the router's configuration panel. Finally, decide what static IP the Pi should be assigned to from here on out.

Now you can run the initial configuration of the Pi with the following command:

ansible-playbook -i [original ip], -e ansible_ssh_user=root -e static_ip=[static ip] first_run.yml

The first_run.yml playbook installs Python 3 and sets up the base user and SSH configuration so all other Ansible roles can work properly. Note that this playbook will hang forever on the final step, "restart networking". This is due to the Pi changing IPs without Ansible knowing. Once you reach this step, you can simply Ctrl-C the playbook execution.

Now your Pi should be ready to be used with the rest of the configuration.