Ansible AUR helper

Ansible module to use some Arch User Repository (AUR) helpers as well as makepkg.

The following helpers are supported and automatically selected, if present, in the order listed below:

• yay
• aurman
• pacaur
• trizen
• pikaur

makepkg will be used if no helper was found or if it is explicitly specified:

• makepkg

Options

parameter	required	default	choices	comments
name	no			Name or list of names of the package(s) to install or upgrade.
upgrade	no	no	yes, no	Whether or not to upgrade whole system.
use	no	auto	auto, yay, aurman, pacaur, trizen, pikaur, makepkg	The helper to use, 'auto' uses the first known helper found and makepkg as a fallback.
skip_installed	no	no	yes, no	Skip operations if the package is present.
skip_pgp_check	no	no	yes, no	Skip verification of PGP signatures. This is useful when installing packages on a host without GnuPG (properly) configured. Only valid with makepkg.
aur_only	no	no	yes, no	Limit operation to the AUR. Compatible with yay, aurman, pacaur and trizen.

Note

• Either name or upgrade is required, both cannot be used together.
• skip_installed cannot be used with upgrade.
• In the use=auto mode, makepkg is used as a fallback if no known helper is found.

Installing

AUR package

The ansible-aur-git package is available in the AUR. Note the module is installed in /usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules which is one of the default module library paths.

Manual installation

Just clone the ansible-aur repository into your user custom-module directory:

git clone https://github.com/kewlfft/ansible-aur.git ~/.ansible/plugins/modules/aur

Ansible Galaxy

ansible-aur is available in Galaxy which is a hub for sharing Ansible content. To download it, use:

ansible-galaxy install kewlfft.aur

Note that if this module is installed from Ansible Galaxy, you will need to list it explicitly in your playbook:

# playbook.yml
- hosts: localhost
  roles:
  - kewlfft.aur
  tasks:
  - aur: name=package_name

or in your role:

# meta/main.yml
dependencies:
- kewlfft.aur

# tasks/main.yml
- aur: name=package_name

Usage

Notes

• The scope of this module is installation and update from the AUR; for package removal or system upgrade from the official repositories, it is recommended to use the official pacman module.
• The --needed parameter of the helper is systematically used, it means if a package is up to date, it is not built and reinstalled.

Examples

Use it in a task, as in the following examples:

# Install trizen using makepkg, skip if trizen is already installed
- aur: name=trizen use=makepkg skip_installed=true
  become: yes
  become_user: aur_builder

# Install package_name using the first known helper found
- aur: name=package_name
  ...

# Install package_name_1 and package_name_2 using trizen
- aur:
    use: trizen
    name:
      - package_name_1
      - package_name_2
  ...

# Upgrade - using pacaur
- aur: upgrade=yes use=pacaur
  ...

Create the "aur_builder" user

While Ansible expects to SSH as root, AUR helpers do not allow executing operations as root, they all fail with "you cannot perform this operation as root". It is therefore recommended to create a user, let's call it aur_builder, that has no need for password with pacman in sudoers. This can be done in Ansible with the following actions:

- user:
    name: aur_builder
    group: wheel
- lineinfile:
    path: /etc/sudoers.d/11-install-aur_builder
    line: 'aur_builder ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/pacman'
    create: yes
    validate: 'visudo -cf %s'