Several questions about installing, configuring and using Molecule with Docker or Vagrant, on Debian stable/testing in 2024

[daks]

Hello,

I previously used salt/saltstack to provision my servers and was quite happy with it but now want to migrate the code to Ansible.
My salt code was tested with Test-Kitchen and Inspec but this setup doesn't work currently on my computer and I feel that using Molecule is the Ansible-way. So I started to read doc, guides, watch videos... and try to use it, but I have several problems and can't find how to solve them (most docs seems outdated).

(maybe I should split this discussion into several, tell me if it's the case)

Installation method [SOLVED]

edit solved, I simply used a virtualenv and I don't know why I didn't thought about it

The official doc and several guides tells you to install molecule (and ansible) with pip/pip3 but in Debian since version 12 at least, this is not the recommended way because of the "externally-managed-environment" (coming from PEP 668)
My Python skills are a bit rusty and I didn't want to manage a virtualenv by myself, so I used pipx which seems to work but I'm not sure (it complains about packages which are not apps)

What is the preferred way to install Molecule/Ansible if we consider pip usage is no more recommended?

(I imagine I also could have used pipenv)

Driver/Provisioner

Coming from test-kitchen, the driver part was the one where you specified how to run the VM or container like vagrant, docker, ec2. You only had to specify it there.

With Molecule, I'm not sure if this is still the way to go or if it's obsolete (because of #3919) and instead I need to use the provisioner (Ansible) to itself manage the container or VM.

What is currently the way to use Docker, or Docker rootless, or Vagrant?
And what are the needed dependencies to make it work?

edit: the doc gives the example of installing molecule-plugins[docker] which is not functional on my case.

If the provisioner is the way to go, how do I provision my containers/VM, which roles should I use? Is there any up-to-date guide somewhere?

I mostly see examples with a command like molecule init role --driver-name docker but it doesn't work on my computer.

---

OK, I think that's all for now, not that much problems in reality :)
I just feel a bit lost because most guides/tutorials are several years ago, and even the official doc feels outdated. Or maybe I just don't understand it at all.

[daks]

Installation method

The official doc and several guides tells you to install molecule (and ansible) with pip/pip3 but in Debian since version 12 at least, this is not the recommended way because of the "externally-managed-environment" (coming from PEP 668) My Python skills are a bit rusty and I didn't want to manage a virtualenv by myself, so I used pipx which seems to work but I'm not sure (it complains about packages which are not apps)

What is the preferred way to install Molecule/Ansible if we consider pip usage is no more recommended?

(I imagine I also could have used pipenv)

I think I finally understood that doc tells us to use pip and I just need to create a virtualenv, activate it and then I can simply use pip... that's what I just did and of course it simply works

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate.fish
pip install ansible molecule molecule-plugins

Now I can use ansible or molecule after thinking about activating the virtualenv

source venv/bin/activate.fish
molecule --version
molecule 24.9.0 using python 3.12 
    ansible:2.17.5
    azure:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins
    containers:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins requiring collections: ansible.posix>=1.3.0 community.docker>=1.9.1 containers.podman>=1.8.1
    default:24.9.0 from molecule
    docker:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins requiring collections: community.docker>=3.4.11 ansible.posix>=1.4.0
    ec2:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins
    gce:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins requiring collections: google.cloud>=1.0.2 community.crypto>=1.8.0
    openstack:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins requiring collections: openstack.cloud>=2.1.0
    podman:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins requiring collections: containers.podman>=1.7.0 ansible.posix>=1.3.0
    vagrant:23.5.3 from molecule_plugins

[daks]

I finally found some repositories recently updated with examples and this is what works for Docker

driver:
  name: docker

and Vagrant

driver:
  name: vagrant
  provider:
    name: libvirt
    # type: libvirt   # is it needed?
    #options:
      #memory: 2048
      #cpus: 4

I've not searched for Docker rootless but I imagine it's possible to add an option to point to the right Docker socket.