Magic Mirror Ansible Role

Welcome to the Magic Mirror Ansible Role, designed to streamline the maintenance of your MagicMirror installations. This role simplifies the process of managing your Magic Mirror setup, making it easier and more efficient.

Features

What this role does:

• Install the Magic Mirror application if it is not found.
• Installs Node.js and npm, ensuring they are available for custom module installations.
• Reads the mm_modules variable from your Magic Mirror's host_vars file.
• Clones any module repositories needed.
• Installs the modules listed in the mm_modules variable.
• Copies files specified in mm_copy to the Magic Mirror root directory.
• Generates the config.js file.

What this role does not do:

• Install the Magic Mirror application itself. It is designed to maintain an existing Magic Mirror installation.
• Clean up unused modules or files.

Repository Contents

This repository includes:

• The magic_mirror role.
• An example host_vars file.
• An example playbook.

Setup

Here's how to set up and use this Ansible role for maintaining your Magic Mirror installations:

1. Clone this repository into your Ansible roles directory.

2. Create a group called magicmirror containing your Magic Mirror hosts.

3. Configure the following variables in each host's host_vars file:

   • mm_root: Magic Mirror root directory path.
   • mm_modules: List of modules to install.
   • mm_copy (optional): List of files to copy to the Magic Mirror root directory.

   You can refer to the examples in the examples/host_vars directory.

4. Copy examples/magic_mirror.yml to your playbooks directory.

Deployment

ansible-playbook -i hosts magic_mirror.yml -l HOST

To update your Magic Mirror installations, run the magic_mirror.yml playbook. This playbook will apply the necessary maintenance tasks to your Magic Mirrors based on the configured variables.

Configuration changes

To push changes to config.js and images: ansible-playbook -i hosts --tags configuration magic_mirror.yml -l HOST

The tasks that update config.js, the images, and restarting the mirror process are all tagged with configuration. This way you can push module config tweaks and new images without rebuilding the whole machine.

Background

The inspiration for this role came from the need to automate and simplify the process of maintaining Magic Mirrors. Here's a brief overview of my workflow for deploying a Magic Mirror:

1. I start with the latest MagicMirrorOS image and use Raspberry Pi Imager for installation to handle networking and SSH keys.

2. Once the device is booted, I SSH into it to confirm key functionality and manually run sudo apt-get update to address any warnings or issues.

3. I add a modules variable to my host_vars/new_device_name file with the desired module information.

4. Finally, I run ansible-playbook -i hosts magic_mirror.yml -l new_device_name to apply the updates and configurations.

Your Contribution

This role is designed to meet my specific needs, but I'm open to expanding its functionality to serve a broader audience. If you require additional features or have suggestions, please open an issue, and we can discuss potential improvements. Likewise, I welcome pull requests for fixes or enhancements that maintain the role's simplicity and efficiency. Thank you for considering the Magic Mirror Ansible Role for your Magic Mirror maintenance needs!