pystall 0.2.1

A system to automate configuration and setup of fresh Operating systems.

A system to automate installation and configuration of resources.

Quick-start

Installation

From PyPi

You can install the project from PyPi using pip install pystall or pip3 install pystall

From Source

clone this source repo using either the github button or git clone https://github.com/Descent098/pystall

Then in the root directory (the one with setup.py) run pip install . or sudo pip3 install . This will install the package and it's dependencies.

Basic Usage

Custom defined resources

This script shows downloading the python 3 installer (a .exe) the go installer (a .msi) and a logo image (a .png).

from pystall.core import EXEResource, MSIResource, StaticResource, build

python = EXEResource("python-installer", "https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.1/python-3.8.1.exe")

go = MSIResource("Golang", "https://dl.google.com/go/go1.13.5.windows-amd64.msi")

logo = StaticResource("Wallpaper", ".png", "https://canadiancoding.ca/static/img/post-banners/python-post-banner.9bf19b390832.png")

build(python, go, logo)

Built-in resource library

There is also the option to use the built-in library of resources that have been setup.

from pystall.core import build
from pystall.library import python, go, micro

build(python, go, micro)

Logging

If you want logs while the script runs you can use the show_logs() function in the core library

from pystall.core import build, show_logs
from pystall.library import python, go, chrome, micro

show_logs()

build(python, go, chrome, micro)

Additional Docs

For a full list of available library resources, how to extend the framework for specific functionality, and a development guide if you would like to contribute, check the wiki: https://github.com/Descent098/pystall/wiki

Roadmap

1. Class that's inherited to setup dependencies
2. Main python module that can be installed with pip through pypi
   1. Can be used in a python script.
   2. Can be used as a CLI.
   3. Use pyinstaller to run as a direct binary.
3. A way of supporting many filetypes (images, video files, installers etc.)
   1. Grab the files
   2. Put them in a particular path if necessary
   3. Run installers if necessary (make sure there is a flag not to run the binary, and that arguments can be passed)
4. MacOS Support (needs to be validated)
5. A CLI interface
   1. Pass files with a JSON schema for installing dependencies.
6. Configuration of installations
   1. Handling PATH variables
   2. Handle running installers as admin.
7. Asynchronously download files. (technically already possible with popen but a better solution can be found)

For more detailed roadmap check out the project planning board on github: https://github.com/Descent098/pystall/projects/1

Assumptions

• You are running Windows, Linux (currently debian-based, with arch support in future), or Mac OS (on the way)
• Your machine is x86 64-bit based (no I won't be adding 32-bit support, but arm support is coming)
• You have an internet connection (if downloading resources and not using local copies of installers)

What is Pystall?

Pystall is:

• A system to write single scripts to setup environments across platforms
• A relatively boilerplate-free method of writing system configurations
• A way to create easy to distribute binaries to handle complicated installations.
• Meant for end-users looking for a simple syntax to create scripts

Pystall is not:

• A server management utility
• An infrastructure management utility
• An orchestration replacement (ansible, jenkins, puppet, chef etc.)
• Meant for consistent (in terms of frequency) updating to existing packages (though i'm not opposed to this in the future necessarily)
• An ABSOLUTELY automated system, due to the amount of tradeoffs of extensibility I have opted to leave installers to be configured as they run (i.e. running the python installer exe still requires you to do the configuration).

Unknowns

Anything you don't know implementation details of yet.

1. Not sure how to implement .dmg installation.
2. Don't know how to support unconventional installations. (Maybe out of scope)
3. don't necessarily know how to support varying linux installations. Particularly how to check what linux is installed.

Changelog

V 0.2.0 TBD

The focus for this release was debian linux support, and implementing the current feature sets in debian linux as much as possible.

Features:

• Added Support for local files and not just download links
• .deb support
• .tar.gz support (just extracting no binary installation stuff)
• Installation of custom PPA based packages
• Installation of apt packages
• Porting all available resource library resources

Development QOL:

• Added nox for automation
  • Distribution building
  • Distribution releasing
  • Running tests
• Began implementing functionality and runtime compatibility tests with pytest

V 0.1.0 January 5th 2020

Features:

• Created base resource class that can be extended to support multiple file types
• Ability to install binaries from URL or local path (currently limited to .exe and .msi)
• Ability to download static assets from the web (image files, video files etc)
• Ability to download and extract zip archives
• Initial library of predefined resources (15 in total)