Add Installation guide for installing the collector using Ansible

[ishanjainn]

This PR adds instructions for installing OpenTelemetry Collector using grafana.grafana Ansible role. This role is prepackaged with the Ansible Binary so doesn't need any installation which means users can directly use this playbook to scale and manage their Collectors across multiple Instance.

[linux-foundation-easycla]

The committers listed above are authorized under a signed CLA.

• ✅ login: ishanjainn / name: Ishan Jain (2eab4d8, f2a4a46, 67c0ff3, 6aa14c0)

[svrnm]

@ishanjainn is there a particular reason why this playbook is owned by grafana and not by opentelemetry?

Although I see this as a great addition and something I would love to have in the docs, we can not accept it this way. I see 2 options right now:

1. This gets donated to the OpenTelemetry community (see https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#donations). Work with @open-telemetry/collector-approvers to verify that this is something we are willing to take in (I assume this would require otel community to sign up for ansible galaxy, etc.)
2. This stays within grafana, in that case, we can talk about having a blog post for it, and have it added to the registry as a resource.

Option 1 is of course the preferred solution (if viable with Collector SIG), but the one solution that requires more time & effort. Option 2 is the quick solution.

[ishanjainn]

Hey @svrnm Yeah I had a similar thought around this and my initial preference was also Option 1 but that might take a while to get implemented as we would have to create a fresh new namespace in ansible galaxy and the review would also take time.

Hence went for Option 2 with the goal being that this role for the collector would be quickly available for people + the grafana.grafana collection is already registered in ansible galaxy and the collection does not need to be separately installed by a user (it comes prebuilt when anyone install ansible) but the goal being to have this in docs though as thats where users would find this more!

and yup, Open to doing a blogpost about it and registry too for now!

[svrnm]

Hey @svrnm Yeah I had a similar thought around this and my initial preference was also Option 1 but that might take a while to get implemented as we would have to create a fresh new namespace in ansible galaxy and the review would also take time.

Agreed, but the earlier you start with it, the sooner we are there:-) So I can only advice to get in touch with the collector SIG to discuss this!

Hence went for Option 2 with the goal being that this role for the collector would be quickly available for people + the grafana.grafana collection is already registered in ansible galaxy and the collection does not need to be separately installed by a user (it comes prebuilt when anyone install ansible) but the goal being to have this in docs though as thats where users would find this more!

and yup, Open to doing a blogpost about it and registry too for now!

Those 2 options are not mutually exclusive, so we can start with that, and then grow from there. Adding to the registry is the quickest thing, since it's just a file you need to update. Happy to review the blog post, note that we have an influx of many posts right now due to KubeCon, so the earliest we can have that is probably post KubeCon

[ishanjainn]

Those 2 options are not mutually exclusive, so we can start with that, and then grow from there. Adding to the registry is the quickest thing, since it's just a file you need to update. Happy to review the blog post, note that we have an influx of many posts right now due to KubeCon, so the earliest we can have that is probably post KubeCon

Alright, Let me start with these two and in the meantime ill check in the with the team

Question:

1. The blog post, Where should I add the blogpost , Here ?

#4139 -> here is the PR for the registry

[svrnm]

1. The blog post, Where should I add the blogpost , [Here](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io/tree/main/content/en/blog/2024) ?

Yes, you can use npx hugo new content/en/blog/2024/<name>.md to get a file auto generated for you. Note that the blog post should be self-contained, so you need to add some words around why ansible, etc, maybe even give people a end-to-end tutorial how they can get started with it

#4139 -> here is the PR for the registry

reviewed

[mx-psi]

I am happy to help with a potential donation, so long as we have adequate staffing from the current owners to kickstart the maintainers/approvers group of this Ansible playbook :)

[ishanjainn]

Yes, you can use npx hugo new content/en/blog/2024/.md to get a file auto generated for you. Note that the blog post should be self-contained, so you need to add some words around why ansible, etc, maybe even give people a end-to-end tutorial how they can get started with it

Hey @svrnm Thanks for the info and tip. I have this PR for the blogpost -> #4140, What are your thoughts about this?

[ishanjainn]

Hey @mx-psi For the donation process, I am thinking of maintaining the role at both places (the grafana repo can carry the symlink basically). Should I just create the issue in the community repo or anything else needs to be done?

[mx-psi]

@ishanjainn If you can come to the Collector SIG tomorrow (see links here) and explain this I think that would be the best. You can also create an issue in the community repo before the meeting so we have a place to comment on :)

[svrnm]

Hey @mx-psi For the donation process, I am thinking of maintaining the role at both places (the grafana repo can carry the symlink basically). Should I just create the issue in the community repo or anything else needs to be done?

what @mx-psi said, attend the collector meeting and go ahead to create the community issue. Please take a close look at the requirements for a donation, if anything appears problematic to you, let us know.

A thing I can send upfront is the following: Ansible Galaxy requires GPL3-compatible licensing of your code, which Apache-2.0 is not, so if we are going to accept this code, it needs to be GPL3 as well (as it is right now) or it needs to be relicensed to a compatible license (BSD, etc, afaik)

[ishanjainn]

Cool @svrnm @mx-psi, I might not make it tomorrow, Will get into the next week's one but ill create the issue tommorow and all that stuff started. and yeah license wise we should be good as is (GPL-3.0)

[svrnm]

Cool @svrnm @mx-psi, I might not make it tomorrow, Will get into the next week's one but ill create the issue tommorow and all that stuff started. and yeah license wise we should be good as is (GPL-3.0)

We are good with Ansible Galaxy, but not with our current donation requirements:

All donated code requires a license compatible with the Apache Software License 2.0, and donated code will require a change of copyright to reflect the OpenTelemetry Authors.

But this is something we can discuss during the process. I just wanted to highlight this, so it does not come as a surprise that we need to figure that out.

[svrnm]

I close this PR as it is going to be replaced by the blog post. If this is incorrect please reopen it