feat: allow defining arbitrary python interpreter for newer distros

[ellisgeek]

Ubuntu 24.04 and other distros are implementing the Externally Managed Environments spec to prevent the system interpreter from becoming contaminated. This means that most projects should use a virtual environment or restrict themselves to the python packages that are available from the distributions package manager.

This MR implements specifying an arbitrary path to a python interpreter to use when running this plugin as well as expanding the error messages that are printed when a module is missing.

Closes #105

[Joris29]

@gschueler ??

[MrDaGree]

Is there any update to this being merged?

[Joris29]

I guess we just have to wait unfortunately last activity was 3 months ago but the last committer is active in https://github.com/rundeck/rundeck

[ellisgeek]

we may have to maintain an internal build of this plugin in the meantime.

[Joris29]

@gschueler Could you help us out with this PR?

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR aims to support newer Linux distributions (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04 with PEP 668 “Externally Managed Environments”) by allowing users to point the plugin at an arbitrary Python interpreter (e.g., a venv Python) and by improving missing-dependency error messages to better guide users depending on whether they’re running against a system-managed interpreter.

Changes:

• Changes the plugin configuration to accept a free-form interpreter value (instead of a fixed select list).
• Detects “externally managed” system interpreters and adjusts missing-module error messages accordingly across the WinRM scripts.
• Expands .gitignore to include common Python/Gradle/Java ignores.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 9 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
plugin.yaml	Switches interpreter config type to allow arbitrary interpreter values (currently only for one provider).
contents/winrm-exec.py	Adds externally-managed interpreter detection and improved dependency error messages.
contents/winrm-filecopier.py	Adds externally-managed interpreter detection and improved dependency error messages.
contents/winrm-check.py	Adds externally-managed interpreter detection and improved dependency error messages.
.gitignore	Replaces/expands ignore rules to include Python artifacts and additional Gradle/Java patterns.

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