Ansible Role for SQL-Ledger

This role allows you to install the current version of SQL-Ledger on Debian Trixie.

Older Versions

The code from this branch installs SQL-Ledger version 4. If your playbook was made for version 3, refer to the list below to update the variables.

To install an older version, switch to the branch version3. Changing variable sl_git_branch to full or dws will fail because of the different configuration file formats.

Prerequisites

The machine from which the playbook is run needs a recent Ansible version. In Debian and most other Linux distributions, Ansible is available through the official package repository.

The target machine needs SSH access, Python and sudo. Standard Debian comes with Python, sudo and SSH server are optional. For sudo, install Debian without root password. The SSH server has to be activated during «Software selection». Deselect all the rest.

After the basic installation, log in to the server with SSH to test the connection.

Role Variables

The following variables can be passed to this role:

Variables for Operating System

Variable Name	Default Value	Description
sl_lx_locales	['en_US']	list of the available UTF-8 locales
sl_lx_default_locale	en_US	default UTF-8 locale
sl_lx_timezone	UTC	time zone for server
sl_texlive_languages	['english']	list of the TeX Live languages

Variables for SQL-Ledger

Variable Name	Default Value	Description
sl_admin_pwd	undefined	password for admin.pl
sl_gpg_path	/var/www/gnupg	home directory for gpg
sl_git_branch	main	branch that will be checked out
sl_git_source	https://github.com/Tekki/sql-ledger.git	URL of the Git repository
sl_helpful_login	false	helpful error messages on login screen
sl_httpd_config	/etc/apache2	path to the webserver config
sl_httpd_path	/var/www/sql-ledger	local path of the installation
sl_httpd_url	sql-ledger	browser URL on the server
sl_httpd_whitelist	undefined	list of allowed IP addresses
sl_latex	true	install and use LaTeX
sl_latex_dvipdf	false	use dvipdf instead of pdflatex
sl_latex_pdftk	true	use pdftk to combine PDFs
sl_latex_xelatex	true	use XeLaTeX instead of pdflatex
sl_login_language		language of the login screen
sl_postgres_user	sql-ledger	user name to connect to PostgreSQL
sl_protect_admin	false	protect admin interface
sl_protect_password	undefined	.htaccess password for protected admin interface
sl_protect_username	undefined	.htaccess username for protected admin interface
sl_sendmail	'| /usr/sbin/sendmail -f <%from%> -t'	pipe to sendmail
sl_totp_admin	false	TOTP for admin activated

Always activate all locales you anticipate needing on the first run.

If other packages or Perl modules from CPAN have to be installed, add them to the variables debian_additional_packages or debian_perl_additional_cpan.

Please notice that this role doesn't install a mail transport agent or a printing system.

Example Playbook

Assuming that your server has the name 'sl_server', create a directory and file structure that looks like this:

./
├── group_vars/
│   └── sl_server/
│       ├── sl_server_vars.yml
│       └── vault_vars.yml
├── roles/
│   └── sql-ledger/
├── hosts
└── sl_server.yml

Start with adding the IP address or URL of the SQL-Ledger server to hosts:

[sl_server]
$IP_OR_URL

Next test the Ansible connection.

ansible sl_server -m ping

Create the playbook sl_server.yml:

- hosts: sl_server
  roles:
    - name: sql-ledger
      tags: [sl]

Clone the code of this repository to the roles directory:

git clone https://github.com/Tekki/ansible-sql-ledger roles/sql-ledger

To install a server with

• Central European Time (Zurich)
• languages German/Switzerland, French/Switzerland, Italian/Switzerland
• German (chd_utf) as system default and language of the login screen

set the parameters in sl_server_vars.yml to

sl_lx_locales:
  - de_CH
  - fr_CH
  - it_CH
sl_lx_default_locale: de_CH
SL_lx_timezone: Europe/Zurich
sl_texlive_languages:
  - german
  - french
  - italian
sl_login_language: chd_utf

Never type cleartext passwords into the config file. Always use the vault to protect them.

ansible_become: true
ansible_become_pass: "{{ vault_sudo_pwd }}"

sl_admin_pwd: "{{ vault_sl_admin_pwd }}"

If the sudo password is 'Abc9876' and the password for admin.pl should be set to '12345678' (both not a good idea), open vault_vars.yml

ansible-vault edit group_vars/sl_server/vault_vars.yml

and add the passwords:

vauls_sudo_pwd: Abc9876
vault_sl_admin_pwd: 12345678

If variable sl_admin_pwd is set, password changes made in the user interface will be overwritten with the next execution of Ansible.

Now start the installation with

ansible-playbook sl_server.yml

Tags

The available tags are, listed in the order they are executed:

• sl-basics installs the basic packages
• sl-database configures the access to the database
• sl-latex installs LaTeX, if sl_latex is true
• sl-program downloads SQL-Ledger from GitHub
• sl-config updates sql-ledger config
• sl-webserver configures the webserver, including password protection

Update

Run the playbook again to update the installation. If you only want to upgrade the code to a newer version, restrict execution to the sl-program task:

ansible-playbook sql-ledger.yml -t sl-program

Copyright and License

© 2016-2026 Tekki (Rolf Stöckli)

GPL3