Foreman Birthday Party

# Foreman + OpenBolt
## a ♥ story in three acts

???

* why 3 acts you might ask? A great question! let me answer it in 25 minutes!

---

## $ whoami
<img src="bastelfreak2.jpg" alt="drawing" style="float: right;width: 400px;"/>

* Tim 'bastelfreak' Meusel

* Puppet Contributor since 2012

* Merging stuff on [Vox Pupuli](https://voxpupuli.org/) since 2015

* Vox Pupuli PMC member

* Principal IT Automation Consultant at [betadots](https://betadots.de/)

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* who has seen this picture before because I reviewed/merged your pull request?

---

<a style="position: fixed; bottom: 12px; left: 20px; font-size: 36px;" href="https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat">www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat</a>

???

* 14 years ago there was a talk about stuff that's awesome
* It was a talk about Ruby!
* Do you know what's also written in Ruby?
---

???

* Foreman is written in Ruby!
* do you know what's also written in Ruby?

---

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* The Vox Pupuli and OpenVox ecosystem!
* who never heard about OpenVox?
* Perforce stopped doing opensource. OpenVoxProject was born. We continue 4 tools. openvox-agent. openvoxdb. openvoxserver. openbolt

---
.left-column[
### OpenBolt
]

* CLI only

* A task is a executable binary/script + json file

* Also supports Podman/Docker/Jails/lxd targets
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* Who heard about openbolt before?
* Who knows what an openbolt task is?

---

.right-column[
```json
{
  "puppet_task_version": 1,
  "supports_noop": false,
  "description": "Switch feat branch to production",
  "parameters": {
    "control_repo_branch": {
      "description": "Control-repo branch",
      "type": "String[1]"
    }
  }
}
```

```sh
#!/bin/bash

set -euo pipefail

pushd /tmp/control-repo || exit
git branch --move production old_prod
git branch --move "$PT_control_repo_branch" production
```
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

* CLI only

* A task is a executable binary/script + json file

* Also supports Podman/Docker/Jails/lxd targets

* Input and output of each task is JSON

* makes parsing, scripting and concatenating easy
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* this makes it easy to reuse existing scripts or the small go or rust binaries in your home dir. throw a short json file next to it, done.

---

.left-column[
### OpenBolt
### How it started
]
.right-column[
.img[![ask perforce to create a foreman plugin](pe-request.png)]
[github.com/puppetlabs/puppet-enterprise_issues/issues/28](https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet-enterprise_issues/issues/28)

]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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* Perforce has a commercial web-UI, similar feature set to Foreman
* It has a feature for remote execution of Tasks & Plans
* There are plenty of Tasks & Plans already available
* It scales and it has a broker
* I know it is proprietary and people would have to pay for it

---

.left-column[
### OpenBolt
### How it started
]
.right-column[
.img87[![RFC adding openbolt to foreman](foreman-rfc.png)]
[community.theforeman.org/t/rfc-integrating-bolt-into-remote-execution](https://community.theforeman.org/t/rfc-integrating-bolt-into-remote-execution/39901)
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* perforce wasn't interested, so we started a discussion for an open source implementation
---

.left-column[
### OpenBolt
### How it started
### Act 1
]
.right-column[
.img[![Foreman Birthday party](foreman-birthday-party-2025.png)]
* Recording: [youtu.be/NRtstDVtpyk?t=21810](https://youtu.be/NRtstDVtpyk?t=21810)
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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* Foreman Birthday Party 2025
* Let's assume you bought the commercial Puppet enterprise, can you migrate to Foreman?
* I provided patches to a few foreman modules and you can provision Foreman in an existing PE environment
* migration is easy and works. Except one missing feature: remote execution

---

.left-column[
### OpenBolt
### How it started
### Act 1
### Act 2
]
.right-column[
.img[![Config Management Camp 2025](cfgmgmtcamp2026.png)]
* Slideset: [bastelfreak.de/cfgmgmtcamp2026/openbolt.html](https://bastelfreak.de/cfgmgmtcamp2026/openbolt.html#1)
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* who attended the talk?

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* smart-proxy and openbolt are on the same system

---

.right-column[
* [Choria Orchestration System](https://choria.io/docs/concepts/architecture/)
.img70[![choria.drawio.svg](choria.drawio.svg)]

]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* successor of mcollective, or mcollective 2.0. same developers. scales to tens of thousands of systems

---

.right-column[
* [Choria Orchestration System](https://choria.io/docs/concepts/architecture/)
.img70[![openbolt-choria.drawio.svg](openbolt-choria.drawio.svg)]

]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* our plan was to integrate choria into openbolt

---

# Act 3
<br/>

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.right-column[
* [github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt) - OpenBolt Plugin for Foreman
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

.right-column[
* [github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt) - OpenBolt Plugin for Foreman

* [github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt) - OpenBolt Smartproxy Plugin
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

.right-column[
* [github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt) - OpenBolt Plugin for Foreman

* [github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt) - OpenBolt Smartproxy Plugin

* [github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049](https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049) - foreman-installer Integration
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

.right-column[
* [github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt) - OpenBolt Plugin for Foreman

* [github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt) - OpenBolt Smartproxy Plugin

* [github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049](https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049) - foreman-installer Integration

* [github.com/OpenVoxProject/openbolt/pull/206](https://github.com/OpenVoxProject/openbolt/pull/206) - Integrate Choria Transport into OpenBolt
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

.right-column[
* [github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/foreman_openbolt) - OpenBolt Plugin for Foreman

* [github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt](https://github.com/overlookinfra/smart_proxy_openbolt) - OpenBolt Smartproxy Plugin

* [github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049](https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer/pull/1049) - foreman-installer Integration

* [github.com/OpenVoxProject/openbolt/pull/206](https://github.com/OpenVoxProject/openbolt/pull/206) - Integrate Choria Transport into OpenBolt

* All changes are merged & released & packaged for Foreman 3.17.1+
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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* The "Launch Task" option allows you to select any smartproxy with the openbolt feature (which is available when the OpenBolt Smartproxy plugin is installed). Afterwards you can select N targets to run the task and select an available task from the selected Smartproxy. On the right side you can configure OpenBolt connection settings.

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* After selecting a task, the task metadata is fetched and shown. Additional input elements will appear, if the task support it.
---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* The metadata can contains a description and datatypes for tasks. Those information can be shown as well.

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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* While the task is running, the UI polls the status from the smart proxy.

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[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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* After the task finished, it will display a success for failure page.

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* We also display the used OpenBolt command line, in case you want to manually run it or debug it.
* right now we wrap the CLI, we will soon switch to an openbolt library
* This enables perforce users to stick to the older bolt version for now, because openbolt is a drop-in replacement
* the openbolt lib would be openbolt only

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

* OpenBolt returns JSON for executed tasks. That's visible in the UI. For failed tasks but also for passed tasks.

---

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

* OpenBolt is a great addition to the Foreman ecosystem

* Makes it easy to reuse existing Tasks (and soon Plans)

]
[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

* OpenBolt is a great addition to the Foreman ecosystem

* Makes it easy to reuse existing Tasks (and soon Plans)

* Choria provides almost infinite scaling and opposite firewalling

]
[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

???

---

* OpenBolt is a great addition to the Foreman ecosystem

* Makes it easy to reuse existing Tasks (and soon Plans)

* Choria provides almost infinite scaling and opposite firewalling

* Please join our [IRC/Slack](https://voxpupuli.org/connect/) to provide feedback

* For feedback: `bastelfreak` on IRC/ Slack or [tim@bastelfreak.de](mailto:tim@bastelfreak.de)

* This talk and previous ones: [github.com/bastelfreak/talks](https://github.com/bastelfreak/talks)

### Thanks for your attention!

]
[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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---

.left-column[
### OpenBolt
### How it started
### Act 1
### Act 2
### Act 3
### Conclusion
### Act 4
]

.right-column[
```puppet
# @summary one plan to rule them all!
# @param version which Foreman version do we want?
# @param node our foreman host
plan foreman::install (
  String[1] $version = '3.19.1',
  TargetSpec $node,
) {
  $os = run_task('facts', $node).first['os']['family']
  if $os == 'RedHat' {
    run_task('yum::update', $node)
  }
  out::message("setting up foreman on ${node}")
  run_task('foreman::add_repo', $node)
  $package = {'action' => 'install', 'name' => 'foreman-service'}
  run_task('package', $node, $params)
  $service = {'action' => 'start', 'name' => 'foreman'}
  $result = run_task('service', $node, $service}
  if $result.ok {
    out::message("worked on ${result.ok_set}")
  }
}
```
]

[![company-logo](logo-1181x1181.png)](https://www.betadots.de)

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