DO374 - ch02s06

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Guided Exercise: Selecting an Execution Environment

Ensure that the execution environments you need are installed on your development workstation and use them to run playbooks.

Outcomes

Identify the automation execution environment that includes a specific Ansible Content Collection.
Run a playbook using that automation execution environment.

As the student user on the workstation machine, use the lab command to prepare your system for this exercise.

This command creates an Ansible project in the /home/student/manage-selecting/ directory.

[student@workstation ~]$ lab start manage-selecting

Procedure 2.3. Instructions

Identify the Ansible Content Collection that is required to run the prebuilt playbook.
1. From a terminal, change to the /home/student/manage-selecting/ directory and review the acl_info.yml playbook.
```
[student@workstation ~]$ cd ~/manage-selecting
[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ cat acl_info.yml
---
- name: Retrieving ACLs using the ansible.posix collection
  hosts: web_servers
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:
    - name: Obtain the ACLs for /webserver_data directory
      ansible.posix.acl:
        path: /webserver_data/
      register: acl_info

    - name: Print the ACLs obtained for /webserver_data directory
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        var: acl_info['acl']
```
2. Identify the modules that the acl_info.yml playbook uses:
  - ansible.posix.acl
  - ansible.builtin.debug
  To successfully run the playbook, you need the ansible.posix.acl module, which is part of the ansible.posix Ansible Content Collection.
  Note
  The ansible.builtin.debug module is part of the ansible.builtin collection that is included in the ansible-core RPM package.

Find the automation execution environment that includes the ansible.posix Ansible Content Collection.

Use the podman login command to log in to the classroom private automation hub at hub.lab.example.com.
This step simulates logging in to registry.redhat.io, but uses the private automation hub in the classroom environment. That private automation hub includes the three automation execution environments provided by Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.
```
[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ podman login hub.lab.example.com
Username: student
Password: redhat123
Login Succeeded!
```

Use the ansible-navigator images command to pull the minimal automation execution environment and analyze it.

[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ ansible-navigator images \
> --eei hub.lab.example.com/ee-minimal-rhel8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Execution environment image and pull policy overview
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Execution environment image name:     hub.lab.example.com/ee-minimal-rhel8:latest
Execution environment image tag:      latest
Execution environment pull arguments: None
Execution environment pull policy:    tag
Execution environment pull needed:    True
...output omitted...

After a few seconds, automation content navigator displays output that lists the ee-minimal-rhel8 automation execution environment.

  Image                Tag        Execution environment     ...
0|ee-minimal-rhel8     latest     True                      ...

Type 0 to inspect this automation execution environment, and then type 2 to select the Ansible version and collections option.

  Image: ee-minimal-rhel8:latest (primary)   Description
0│Image information                          Information collected from image...
1│General information                        OS and python version information
2│Ansible version and collections            Information about ansible and an...
3│Python packages                            Information about python and pyt...
4│Operating system packages                  Information about operating syst...
5│Everything                                 All image information

The resulting output indicates that the minimal automation execution environment does not contain any additional Ansible Content Collections.
```
Image: ee-minimal-rhel8:latest (primary) (Information about ansible and ...
0│---
1│ansible:
2│ collections:
3│   details: {}
4|   errors:
5|   - |-
6|     ERROR! - None of the provided paths were usable. Please specify a valid ...
7| version:
8|   details: ansible [core 2.13.4]
```
Type :q and then press Enter to exit the ansible-navigator command. The ee-minimal-rhel8 automation execution environment is not useful for running this playbook.

Use the ansible-navigator command to pull down and inspect the supported automation execution environment.

[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ ansible-navigator images \
> --eei hub.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Execution environment image and pull policy overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Execution environment image name:     hub.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8:...
Execution environment image tag:      latest
Execution environment pull arguments: None
Execution environment pull policy:    tag
Execution environment pull needed:    True
...output omitted...

Automation content navigator shows both automation execution environments. Type 1 to inspect the supported one and then type the number for the Ansible version and collections entry.

  NAME                   Tag        Execution environment     ...
0|ee-minimal-rhel8       latest     True                      ...
1|ee-supported-rhel8     latest     True                      ...

The resulting output indicates that the supported automation execution environment contains the ansible.posix Ansible Content Collection.

Image: ee-supported-rhel8:latest (primary) (Information about ansible and ...
 0│---
 1│ansible:
 2│ collections:
 3│   details:
 4|     amazon.aws: 3.2.0
 5│	    ansible.controller: 4.2.1
 6│	    ansible.netcommon: 3.1.1
 7│	    ansible.network: 1.2.0
 8│	    ansible.posix: 1.3.0
 9│	    ansible.security: 1.0.0
...output omitted...

Type :q and then press Enter to exit the ansible-navigator command. The ee-supported-rhel8 automation execution environment contains the ansible.posix Ansible Content Collection that you need. You can run this playbook using this automation execution environment.

Use automation content navigator to run the acl_info.yml playbook.

Demonstrate that the minimal automation execution environment does not work with the acl_info.yml playbook because it does not include the ansible.posix collection. Use the ansible-navigator command to run the acl_info.yml playbook using the minimal automation execution environment.

As expected, the playbook cannot resolve the ansible.posix.acl module, causing it to fail.

[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ ansible-navigator run acl_info.yml \
> -m stdout --eei ee-minimal-rhel8 --pp missing
ERROR! couldn't resolve module/action 'ansible.posix.acl'. This often indicates a misspelling, missing collection, or incorrect module path.

The error appears to be in '/home/student/manage-selecting/acl_info.yml': line 7, column 7, but may be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

The offending line appears to be:

  tasks:
    - name: Obtain the ACLs for /webserver_data directory
      ^ here

Use the ansible-navigator command to run the acl_info.yml playbook using the ee-supported-rhel8:latest automation execution environment. This automation execution environment contains the ansible.posix collection and the command succeeds.

[student@workstation manage-selecting]$ ansible-navigator run acl_info.yml \
> -m stdout --eei ee-supported-rhel8 --pp missing

PLAY [Retrieving ACLs using the ansible.posix collection] **********************

TASK [Obtain the ACLs for /webserver_data directory] ***************************
ok: [serverc.lab.example.com]
ok: [serverb.lab.example.com]

TASK [Print the ACLs obtained for /webserver_data directory] *******************
ok: [serverc.lab.example.com] => {
    "acl_info['acl']": [
        "user::rwx",
        "group::r-x",
        "other::r-x",
        "default:user::rwx",
        "default:group::r-x",
        "default:mask::rwx",
        "default:other::r-x"
    ]
}
ok: [serverb.lab.example.com] => {
    "acl_info['acl']": [
        "user::rwx",
        "group::r-x",
        "other::r-x",
        "default:user::rwx",
        "default:group::r-x",
        "default:mask::rwx",
        "default:other::r-x"
    ]
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
serverb.lab.example.com    : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0  ...
serverc.lab.example.com    : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0  ...

Finish

On the workstation machine, change to the student user home directory and use the lab command to complete this exercise. This step is important to ensure that resources from previous exercises do not impact upcoming exercises.

[student@workstation ~]$ lab finish manage-selecting

This concludes the section.

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Deanna

12 wrz 2023

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Revision: do374-2.2-82dc0d7

Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Guided Exercise: Selecting an Execution Environment

Note