rsyslog/MIGRATION_SUMMARY.md

Migration Summary: Pushgateway → gitops-status-server

This document summarizes the changes made to migrate the rsyslog repository from Pushgateway metrics to JSON status updates for gitops-status-server.

What Changed

1. New Files Created

update-gitops-status.sh

• Main script that orchestrates the status update flow
• Runs Ansible drift-check playbook
• Parses output to extract changed file names
• Builds structured JSON payload
• Sends JSON to gitops-status-server via HTTP POST
• Handles both SYNCED and OUT_OF_SYNC states

GITOPS_STATUS_INTEGRATION.md

• Documentation explaining the integration with gitops-status-server
• API endpoint specification
• JSON payload format examples
• Architecture diagram
• Error handling details

2. Modified Files

.woodpecker.yml

Changes:

• Updated header comments to reflect new JSON status flow
• Renamed step: update-sync-metric → update-gitops-status
• Removed Pushgateway environment variable (PUSHGATEWAY_URL)
• Added new environment variables:
  • GITOPS_STATUS_SERVER_URL
  • REPO_NAME
  • SERVER_NAME
• Added jq package installation for JSON formatting
• Added bash package to cron step (required by update-gitops-status.sh)
• Updated both update-gitops-status and gitops_sync_check steps to call new script
• Removed Pushgateway metric push logic
• Added JSON status update logic

Step: update-gitops-status (formerly update-sync-metric)

• Runs after successful deployment
• Calls update-gitops-status.sh
• Always succeeds (status sent regardless of drift)

Step: gitops_sync_check

• Runs on cron schedule (every 2 minutes)
• Calls update-gitops-status.sh to send JSON
• Then checks drift status to determine pipeline success/failure
• Pipeline fails if drift detected (for visibility in Woodpecker UI)
• JSON status always sent before checking drift

README.md

Changes:

• Updated pipeline flow diagrams
• Replaced "Prometheus" with "gitops-status-server" in diagrams
• Removed "sync metric" section
• Added "GitOps status JSON format" section with examples
• Updated pipeline step descriptions to mention JSON status
• Added update-gitops-status.sh to repository structure
• Added optional environment variables table
• Updated flow descriptions to explain file-level drift details

3. Unchanged Files

The following files remain unchanged and continue to work as before:

• ansible/playbooks/drift-check.yml - Still works as-is
• ansible/playbooks/apply.yml - Deploy logic unchanged
• ansible/playbooks/validate.yml - Validation logic unchanged
• ansible/inventory/hosts.yml - Inventory unchanged
• ansible/inventory/group_vars/all.yml - Variables unchanged
• ansible.cfg - Ansible config unchanged
• apply.sh - Local apply script unchanged
• drift-check.sh - Local drift check script unchanged
• files/rsyslog.conf - Config files unchanged
• files/rsyslog.d/30-lab.conf - Config files unchanged

Behavior Changes

Before (Pushgateway)

drift-check → calculate status (0 or 1) → push to Pushgateway → Prometheus scrapes

Output:

gitops_sync_status{repo="rsyslog",server="rsyslog-lab"} 1

After (gitops-status-server)

drift-check → extract changed files → build JSON → POST to gitops-status-server → Grafana queries

Output:

{
  "repo": "rsyslog",
  "server": "rsyslog-lab",
  "sync_status": "OUT_OF_SYNC",
  "drift_count": 2,
  "files": [
    { "name": "rsyslog.conf" },
    { "name": "rsyslog.d/30-lab.conf" }
  ],
  "last_check": "2026-04-21T10:32:15Z"
}

Benefits

1. Richer data: File-level drift information instead of just a binary status
2. Better visualization: Grafana can display which specific files have drifted
3. Detailed tracking: Know exactly what changed, not just that something changed
4. Timestamp tracking: Last check time included in JSON
5. Drift count: Quick numeric indicator of severity
6. Extensible: JSON format can be easily extended with additional fields

Migration Checklist

• Create update-gitops-status.sh script
• Update .woodpecker.yml pipeline
• Update README.md documentation
• Create GITOPS_STATUS_INTEGRATION.md integration docs
• Remove Pushgateway environment variables
• Add gitops-status-server environment variables
• Update pipeline step names
• Add required packages (jq, bash)
• Test JSON generation logic
• Update flow diagrams

Testing Recommendations

1. Test the script locally:

   export GITOPS_STATUS_SERVER_URL="http://localhost:80"
   export REPO_NAME="rsyslog"
   export SERVER_NAME="rsyslog-lab"
   ./update-gitops-status.sh
   

2. Test in Woodpecker:

   • Trigger a push to master → check update-gitops-status step
   • Wait for cron run → check gitops_sync_check step
   • Manually edit a file on server → wait for next cron → verify OUT_OF_SYNC status

3. Verify gitops-status-server:

   • Check that JSON is received at POST endpoint
   • Verify /status.json serves the latest data
   • Confirm Grafana dashboard displays drift details

Rollback Plan

If needed, the old Pushgateway approach can be restored by:

1. Reverting .woodpecker.yml to previous version
2. Removing update-gitops-status.sh
3. Restoring Pushgateway environment variables

All Ansible playbooks remain unchanged, so they will work with either approach.

Notes

• The rsyslog repo now focuses only on status generation and sending
• gitops-status-server is responsible for serving data to Grafana
• No changes to observability-stack app are needed on the rsyslog side
• This migration is specific to rsyslog repo; other repos can follow same pattern