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Software Requirements

This guide assumes you have already installed everything needed to complete the RaspiBolt Guide. It also assumes you are proficient enough to install command lines tools correctly. Please refer to the respective installation docs if you have further questions.

Also, we will not be installing everything we need up front, but layer by layer, to keep things sane. This is only the software we need for Layer 1. Do check out other layers if you are worried your machine will not be able to handle something (it shouldn't be a problem, as it's all pretty light weight).

  1. Raspberry Pi Imager Get Raspberry Pi Imager >1.7.1. This can also image most anything, so it's well worth having.

  2. Python 3+: Python is a programming language used by and needed for Ansible. If you are on a mac, python is non-intuitive to get installed and working correctly, so be advised (Apple has Python 2 installed on the PATH, so you need to edit your PATH, use which python or which python3, to make sure its working correctly). If you run python3 -V("tell me what version this is") you should see Python 3.10.8 or greater Install

  3. ssh: Needed by Ansible to get access to remote hosts. Should be good to go on all machines except Windows run ssh -V in terminal to confirm it is installed

  4. Ansible: Ansible is a remote host automation tool that allows one to set up Infrastructure as Code (IoC) idempotently. This means that no matter how many times you run the code, it always gives the same result. Install

  5. Kubernetes Client: Kubernetes Python Client. This is needed to allow Ansible to communicate with Kubernetes. Install

  6. sshpass: Also, for Ansible, you will need to install sshpass which is a simple password tool for ssh used by Ansible. This is not as secure, but convenient for vanilla provisioning. More secure pathways are added later. Install

  7. openssl: openssl is a cryptographic tool kit for the command line. We will need it to create passwords. It should already be installed on most systems but be sure it is up-to-date and correctly on your PATH.

    • Mac:
    brew install openssl

    You will then need to add the correct version to your PATH in your rc file. What is the rc file? "rc" stands for "run command". It is a list of commands that are run every time we open up a new terminal. What is PATH? Path is a list of directories to search for executables by name. When a program isn't 'on your path' that means you can not run it without the absolute path /usr/local/opt/openssl@3/bin/openssl vs openssl

    You can find out which command will add openssl to your PATH (and thus which rc file is important) by using the command:

    echo $0

    Then choose accordingly:

    zsh
    echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl@3/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc
    bash
    echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl@3/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc
    • Linux:
    sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt install openssl

    For ALL installs, it will be important that this new install of openssl lives on your PATH. To confirm this, when you check the version you should see something like this (and in particular with macOS, you should not see LibreSSL):

    % openssl version
    OpenSSL 3.0.7 1 Nov 2022 (Library: OpenSSL 3.0.7 1 Nov 2022)
  8. nmap: nmap is a "Network MAPper" (commonly used by pen testers to find vulnerabilities in networks) and it is needed by one of our Ansible playbooks to find hosts.

    • Mac:
    brew install nmap
    • Linux:
    apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && install nmap
  9. jq: JQ is a JSON string parser. It's a pretty handy utility.

    • Mac:
    brew install jq
    • Linux:
    apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && install jq
  10. guildedpleb/hab-plays You will need to clone the HAB Node repo to get all the Ansible commands we are going to run.

  git clone https://github.com/gildedpleb/hab-plays.git
tip

You'll notice many of the installation links above are DuckDuckGo searches. The entire full stack developer ecosystem moves fast, it is in many senses wiser to link to top search results for systems and setups because linking to a direct source might be impossible to test (we don't use Windows machines, for instance), where a search result has built in obsolescence and up-to-date information. What is more, this is honestly how many professional and deeply experienced developers solve everyday problems and spend a good chunk of their time.

If you have better links, edit this page!