kodi_ansible_role

Ansible role that installs and configures Kodi on:

• ArchLinux
• Debian and derivates
• LibreElec
• OSMC
• Ubuntu

Intended use is for desktop/HTPC systems with many Kodi addons as one of the features of this role is the ability to pull the latest addons (and their dependencies) from configured Kodi repositories.

Configuration using kodi_config makes this role very flexible (thanks to most configuration files being XML files with fixed structure).

Requirements

You may put repository addon assets (addon.xml, etc.) into {{ playbook_dir }}/files/addons/. This directory hierarchy will be copied to the target machine's Kodi addons directory ({{ kodi_data_dir }}/addons), and should mirror the addons directory's structure.

You may also put addon settings (settings.xml, etc.) into {{ playbook_dir }}/files/addon_settings. This directory hierarchy will be copied to the target machine's addon settings directory ({{ kodi_data_dir }}/userdata/addon_settings), and should mirror the addon settings directory's structure.

For instance, given this files hierarchy on your Ansible control machine:

.
├── files
│   ├── addon_data
│   │   └── plugin.video.bazquux
│   │       └── settings.xml
│   └── addons
│       ├── plugin.video.bazquux
│       │   ├── addon.xml
│       │   ├── default.py
│       │   └── service.py
│       ├── repository.foo.bar
│       │   └── addon.xml
│       └── script.module.corgegrault
│           ├── addon.xml
│           └── lib
│               └── corgegrault
│                   └── __init__.py
└── kodi-playbook.yml

The target machine will end up with this (partial) addons and addon settings structure:

~mykodiuser/.kodi
├── addons
│   ├── plugin.video.bazquux
│   │   ├── addon.xml
│   │   ├── default.py
│   │   └── service.py
│   ├── repository.foo.bar
│   │   └── addon.xml
│   └── script.module.corgegrault
│       ├── addon.xml
│       └── lib
│           └── corgegrault
│               └── __init__.py
└── userdata
    └── addon_data
            └── plugin.video.bazquux
                        └── settings.xml

See "Installing Addons" and "Configuring Addon Settings" for alternate methods of installing and configuring addons.

Role Variables

• kodi_user: the user account used for running the Kodi service on the target machine. Default: "kodi".
• kodi_groups: if kodi_user is created by this role, it will be added to these groups. Entries in the list may be (a) strings ("somegroup") or (b) dictionaries of the form {"name": "someuser", "gid": 11111, "system": False}, where name is the group name, gid is the GID, and system is a boolean specifying whether the group is a so-called "system" group; see ansible-doc group for more on the meaning of these parameters. Note that, in the dictionary form, gid and system may be omitted. Default: ["audio", "video", "input"].
• kodi_shell: if kodi_user is created by this role, it will use this value as its login shell. Default: "/bin/bash".
• kodi_user_create: whether to create the user account specified in kodi_user. Default: True (except on LibreELEC and OSMC, where it is set to False).
• kodi_data_dir: path to the directory storing Kodi data (addons, user data, etc.). Default: ~{{ kodi_user }}/.kodi (the .kodi subdirectory of the home directory of the kodi_user user).
• kodi_master_installation: the name of Ansible inventory host whose favourites.xml and RSS feeds will be made available for copying to other inventory hosts. Default: "master_install".
• kodi_master_kodi_user: the Kodi user on the kodi_master_installation host. Default: the value of kodi_user.
• kodi_master_data_dir: path to the directory storing Kodi data (addons, user data, etc.) on the kodi_master_installation host. Default: ~{{ kodi_master_kodi_user }}/.kodi (the .kodi subdirectory of the home directory of the kodi_user user).
• kodi_copy_favourites: copy favourites.xml from the kodi_master_installation host to the target host. Default: False.
• kodi_copy_feeds: copy RSS feeds from the kodi_master_installation host to the target host. Default: False.
• kodi_extra_packages: additional packages to install along with Kodi and its dependencies. Useful for installing Kodi addons with native extensions, like inputstream.adaptive. Default: [].
• kodi_repositories: a list of strings of the form <repository-name>=<repository-url>, where repository-name is an arbitrary identifier and repository-url is the URL to a Kodi repository addons.xml file. Default: [].
• kodi_enabled_repositories: a list of repository name strings. Each element should correspond to the repository-name part of the <repository-name>=<repository-url> entries in kodi_repositories. Addons in this repository will be available for installation via specifying their names in kodi_addons. Default: all repository names in kodi_repositories.
• kodi_addons: a list of addons to install (if necessary) and enable. Each entry can be an addon name (e.g. plugin.video.beepboop) or an <repository-addon-name>=<addon-url> pair, <repository-addon-name> is the name of a repository addon (repository.foo.bar) and <addon-url> is the URL of the ZIP archive defining the addon. In the latter case, the addon ZIP will be fetched and extracted to the named path under {{ kodi_data_dir }}/addons. Default: [].
• kodi_config: a list of dictionaries specifying configuration data for core Kodi and for addons (see vars/default.yml for an example definition). Default: []. Each entry must define the following attributes:
  • file: the path to the file (relative to {{ kodi_data_dir }}) that should contain this setting.
  • key: an XPath expression matching the target setting (a suitable XML node will be created if a matching node does not already exist).
  • value: the value of the setting.
  • type: the data type of the setting (for instance, "string" or "bool").
• kodi_setting_level: an integer representing the setting level (Basic, Standard, Advanced, Expert). Default: not defined.
• kodi_webserver_enabled: whether or not to enable the Kodi webserver. Default: not defined.
• kodi_webserver_port: listening port for the Kodi webserver. Default: not defined.
• kodi_webserver_user: user name for authenticating with the Kodi webserver. Default: not defined.
• kodi_webserver_password: password for authenticating with the Kodi webserver. Default: not defined.
• kodi_language: Default: not defined.
• kodi_locale_country: Default: not defined.
• kodi_locale_timezone_country: Default: not defined.
• kodi_subtitles_languages: Comma-separated list of subtitle languages. Default: not defined.
• kodi_weather_provider: Hostname of the weather data provider. Default: not defined.
• kodi_include_default_config: a boolean indicating whether or not to include the variable definitions from vars/default.yml.yml). Default: False.
• kodi_systemd_service: the name of the systemd service running Kodi. Default: not defined. This variable is deprecated; please use kodi_service instead.
• kodi_service: the name of the service running Kodi. Default: not defined, except on Alpine and LibreELEC where it is set to kodi and on OSMC where it is set to mediacenter. Note that setting this variable to {{ none }} or {{ omit }} will disable service management even on systems where it would be attempted by default.
• kodi_service_enabled: whether to attempt to manage Kodi via the service specified in kodi_service. By default, True by default on systems where kodi_service is defined and set to a value other than {{ omit }} or {{ none }}, and False otherwise.
• kodi_check_process_cmd: the command to use for checking whether Kodi is currently running (Kodi must be shut off before changing its configuration). See the platform-specific variables files for the values of this variable.
• kodi_check_process_executable: the executable to use for running kodi_check_process_cmd. See the platform-specific variables files for the values of this variable.
• kodi_query_version_cmd: the command to use for determining the version of Kodi in use. This command only runs if kodi_version is undefined. See the platform-specific variables files for the values of this variable.
• kodi_query_version_executable: the executable to use for running kodi_query_version_cmd. See the platform-specific variables files for the values of this variable.
• kodi_executable: the name or path of the executable used for starting Kodi. See the platform-specific variables files for the values of this variable; the lowest-precedence default is kodi.
• kodi_send_executable: the name or path of the kodi-send executable. This role uses kodi-send for attempting to stop the Kodi daemon, and for triggering a Kodi refresh after updating Kodi repositories and addons. Default: kodi-send.
• kodi_send_host: the host kodi-send should use for communicating with Kodi. Default: localhost.
• kodi_send_port: the port kodi-send should use for communicating with Kodi. Default: 9777.
• kodi_attempt_start: whether to attempt to start Kodi (via kodi_systemd_service, if defined, or via kodi_executable if not) when it is not already running. If this is False and this is a fresh Kodi installation (e.g. Kodi has never run on the target system), plugin installation may fail, as Kodi will not yet have performed required addon and repository initialization. Default: False.
• kodi_start_seconds: number of seconds to wait before attempting to stop the Kodi process started when kodi_attempt_start is enabled. Default: 10.
• kodi_attempt_stop: whether to attempt to stop the Kodi if it is running. If this is false, and Kodi is running, then this role will exit with an error. Only applies when kodi_systemd_service is not defined. Default: the value of kodi_attempt_start.
• kodi_stop_seconds: number of seconds to wait before attempting to stop an active Kodi process when kodi_attempt_stop is enabled. Default: 30.
• kodi_version: the version of Kodi in use. Default: determined by running kodi_query_version_cmd.

Role Facts

This role sets several facts on target machines that you may use in your own code:

• kodi_version: the version of Kodi, as obtained with kodi_query_version_cmd.
• kodi_codename: the Kodi codename as a lowercase string (for instance, "nexus"). This may be helpful in targeting Kodi-release-specific addon repositories (for instance, the core Kodi addon repository embeds the Kodi codename in the URL).

Installing Addons

In addition to vendoring addons as described in the requirements section, you can also specify addons in the kodi_addons variable. Plugins specified here will be installed from the repositories specified in kodi_repositories/kodi_enabled_repositories, or simply enabled if they are "core" plugins (e.g. plugin.video.youtube). An error will be raised if a plugin is neither available in the enabled repositories nor a "core" plugin.

Configuring Addon Settings

There are two options for configuring addon settings:

1. copy addon_id/settings.xml (from .kodi/userdata/addon_data) into files/addon_data, as described in the requirements section, or
2. define selected configuration options and values via kodi_config variable (note that the type field is mandatory)

Option #2 is preferred when you don't want to have your configuration overwritten everytime the playbook is executed.

Please note that Kodi 18 changed the way how settings are stored in guisettings.xml (xbmc/xbmc#12277). It is suggested you're using Kodi 18+ as the defaults are using this new settings format (version=2). Since last version of Kodi 17 was in 2017 it's probably a good idea to upgrade anyway.

Dependencies

None

Example Playbook

- name: Kodi configuration
  hosts: myhtpc
  become: yes
  roles:
    - { role: jose1711.kodi_ansible_role, kodi_language: en_US }

Contributing to jose1711.kodi-ansible-role

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for notes on contributing to this project.

License

MIT