Ansible Logging

I have been working to deploy openstack-ansible in an AIO configuration. The simple guide for this task can be found here:

http://docs.openstack.org/developer/openstack-ansible/developer-docs/quickstart-aio.html

AIO is comparable to the single-node RDO installation I’ve written about previously. If things go well, this deployment is a breeze. You will end up with a node that has the combined roles of Controller and Compute.

If things *don’t* go well, you will find that ansible logging is disabled by default. There are a number of logs that get generated during the install, but they have names that are difficult to understand. I frankly didn’t know where to start looking when my install failed. The online descriptions of how to enable logging tell you how to do it, but they *don’t* say where the configuration file is located.

Here’s what I did. I found the file

/opt/openstack-ansible/playbooks/ansible.cfg

Near the very top, in the [defaults] section, I added the following line:

log_path = /opt/openstack-ansible/ansible.log

Re-run the playbook and this ansible.log file will contain fine-grained information that doesn’t appear in stdout/stderr.

Use Mini Displayport, not USB, to drive monitors

I recently received a new MacBook Pro laptop for work. I wanted to set it up with dual external monitors in the office. I went to the local electronics store to buy Mini Displayport adapters for VGA. They were out of stock. Not wanting to wait, I settled for USB adapters, instead. *Mistake*! The displays, driven via USB, could not keep up with mouse movement or playing videos. The visuals were choppy, skipping along instead of giving me smooth response. I bought a Mini Display adapter as an experiment.

Testing side by side, I connected one display to USB and one to Mini Displayport. I moved the same video back and forth between the monitors. A huge difference! The Mini Displayport performance was smooth; USB performance was choppy.

I just placed my order for two new Mini Displayport adapters for VGA!