ansible/roles/base

Role: base

Description

Installs core system packages and utilities required by all other roles. This is the foundation role that should be applied to all managed hosts.

Requirements

• Ansible 2.9+
• Debian/Ubuntu systems
• Root or sudo access

Installed Packages

Base Utilities

• curl, wget - Download tools
• unzip - Archive extraction
• xclip - Clipboard utility
• tree - Directory visualization

Network & Admin Tools

• net-tools - Network configuration
• ufw - Uncomplicated Firewall
• mailutils - Email utilities

Modern CLI Tools

• jq - JSON processor
• yq - YAML processor (from apt or GitHub binary)
• ripgrep - Fast text search
• fd-find - Fast file finder

Configuration Tasks

• Sets system timezone (default: UTC)
• Configures system locale (default: en_US.UTF-8)
• Creates Ansible temporary directory with proper permissions
• Creates fd symlink for Ubuntu compatibility

Variables

Variable	Default	Description
timezone	UTC	System timezone
locale	en_US.UTF-8	System locale

Dependencies

None - this is the foundation role.

Example Playbook

- hosts: all
  roles:
    - role: base
      timezone: America/Toronto
      locale: en_US.UTF-8

Tags

• base: All base tasks
• security: Security-related tasks

Notes

• This role should be applied before all other roles
• yq is installed from apt if available, otherwise from GitHub binary
• fd-find is symlinked to fd for compatibility across distributions
• UFW firewall is installed but not enabled (handled by SSH role)