Announce install-* tags

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Slavi Pantaleev
2022-11-25 16:15:19 +02:00
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# 2022-11-25
## 2x-5x performance improvements in playbook runtime
**TLDR**: the playbook is 2x faster for running `--tags=setup-all` (and various other tags). It also has new `--tags=install-*` tags (like `--tags=install-all`), which skip uninstallation tasks and bring an additional 2.5x speedup. In total, the playbook can maintain your server 5 times faster.
Our [etke.cc managed Matrix hosting service](https://etke.cc) runs maintenance against hundreds of servers, so the playbook being fast means a lot.
The [etke.cc Ansible playbook](https://gitlab.com/etke.cc/ansible) (which is an extension of this one) is growing to support more and more services (besides just Matrix), so the Matrix playbook being leaner prevents runtimes from becoming too slow and improves the customer experience.
Even when running `ansible-playbook` manually (as most of us here do), it's beneficial not to waste time and CPU resources.
Recently, a few large optimizations have been done to this playbook and its external roles (see [The playbook now uses external roles for some things](#the-playbook-now-uses-external-roles-for-some-things) and don't forget to run `make roles`):
1. Replacing Ansible `import_tasks` calls with `include_tasks`, which decreased runtime in half. Using `import_tasks` is slower and causes Ansible to go through and skip way too many tasks (tasks which could have been skipped altogether by not having Ansible include them in the first place). On an experimental VM, **deployment time was decreased from ~530 seconds to ~250 seconds**.
2. Introducing new `install-*` tags (`install-all` and `install-COMPONENT`, e.g. `install-synapse`, `install-bot-postmoogle`), which only run Ansible tasks pertaining to installation, while skipping uninstallation tasks. In most cases, people are maintaining the same setup or they're *adding* new components. Removing components is rare. Running thousands of uninstallation tasks each time is wasteful. On an experimental VM, **deployment time was decreased from ~250 seconds (`--tags=setup-all`) to ~100 seconds (`--tags=install-all`)**.
You can still use `--tags=setup-all`. In fact, that's the best way to ensure your server is reconciled with the `vars.yml` configuration.
If you know you haven't uninstalled any services since the last time you ran the playbook, you could run `--tags=install-all` instead and benefit from quicker runtimes.
It should be noted that a service may become "eligible for uninstallation" even if your `vars.yml` file remains the same. In rare cases, we toggle services from being auto-installed to being optional, like we did on the 17th of March 2022 when we made [ma1sd not get installed by default](https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#compatibility-break-ma1sd-identity-server-no-longer-installed-by-default). In such rare cases, you'd also need to run `--tags=setup-all`.
# 2022-11-22
# Automatic `matrix_architecture` determination