Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Automation controller provides a centralized location for organizations to run their Ansible Playbooks.

Several resources must exist before you can create a job template to test a playbook in automation controller.

Typically, these resources include:

Although automation controller provides tremendous functionality, this course focuses on creating the basic resources needed to launch a job template. Detailed information about individual resources, including options and assigning permissions to those resources, is outside the scope of this course.

Automation controller accesses many resources that might require separate credentials. The following list briefly describes some credential types and their intended purpose. Descriptions of additional credential types and their intended purpose can be found in the reference links.

Listing Credentials

Navigate to Resources → Credentials to list credentials. Automation controller displays the name and credential type for each credential.

Click the name of any credential to display credential details.

Figure 3.3: List of existing credentials

Automation controller uses project resources to provide access to Ansible Playbooks. If a project uses source control, such as Git or Subversion, then automation controller synchronizes content from a remote repository.

Navigate to Resources → Projects to list existing projects. Click the > icon to the left of any project name to expand project information. Synchronize projects that use source control from the Projects page.

Use the Revision column to assess if your project is current. For a Git repository, the revision string matches a commit hash.

Figure 3.4: List of existing projects

To create a new project, navigate to Resources → Projects and click Add.

Projects can specify a default execution environment to use for job templates. If not specified, then the project defaults to the defined default execution environment for automation controller. Job templates can choose a different execution environment.

Choose a source control credential type, such as Git, specify additional settings, and then click Save.

Automation controller automatically attempts to synchronize new projects. A project synchronization can fail for many reasons, including:

Similar to a local inventory file or directory, you can create inventory resources within automation controller. Inventories can contain groups of hosts as well as ungrouped hosts. You can configure variables that apply to the entire inventory (similar to the all group), to a specific group (similar to using the groups_vars directory), and to a specific host (similar to using the host_vars directory). When creating a job template, you must specify an inventory resource to use. This is similar to specifying the --inventory (-i) option to the ansible-navigator command.

Automation controller can contain many inventories, both static and dynamic. Inventories that contain dynamic content display the status of the most recent inventory synchronization attempt. Static inventories display Disabled in the Status column.

Figure 3.5: List of existing inventories

To create an inventory, navigate to Resources → Inventories and click Add → Add inventory. Specify a name for the inventory and click Save.

After creating the inventory, populate the inventory with groups and hosts. You can manually add the groups and hosts or you can automatically populate them by using an existing inventory file in the project repository.

Manually Adding Groups and Hosts

To manually add a group, navigate to the Groups tab and then click Add. Enter a name for the group and then click Save.

To manually add an ungrouped host, navigate to the Hosts tab for the inventory and click Add. Enter a name for the host (frequently the fully qualified domain name for the host) and then click Save. You can add an ungrouped host to a group at any time.

To manually add a host to a group, navigate to the Groups tab for the inventory, click the group name, and then click the Hosts tab for the group. You can either associate an existing host within the inventory or add a new host to the group. When adding a new host, enter a name for the host (frequently the fully qualified domain name for the host) and then click Save.

The breadcrumb navigation displays the inventory name and the group name. In the following example, the serverb.lab.example.com host is being added to the apac group in the Web Servers (Prod) inventory.

Figure 3.6: Adding a new host to a group

Populating Groups and Hosts by Using a Project Inventory File

If a project already contains an inventory file, then you can use the file to automatically populate groups and hosts within automation controller.

Within an existing group, navigate to the Sources tab and then click Add. Enter a name for the source and then select Sourced from a Project from the Source menu. Choose an existing project, select an inventory file that exists within the project, and then click Save.

Figure 3.7: Adding a new inventory source from a project

Within an existing group, navigate to the Sources tab and then click the Start sync process icon for the source. A successful inventory synchronization creates the hosts and groups defined in the selected inventory file.

A job template is the equivalent of a specific way of running a playbook. Among other things, a job template includes an inventory and might specify variables to override, or tags to either use or skip.

The Templates page lists existing templates. Expand template information by clicking the > icon to the left of any template name. Initiate a new job run by clicking the Launch Template icon.

Figure 3.8: List of existing job templates

To create a new job template, navigate to Resources → Templates and then click Add → Add job template. At a minimum, enter a name, select a project, and select a playbook. You can either choose an existing inventory or prompt for an inventory when the job template is launched. Job templates should specify necessary credentials, such as the machine credential that automation controller needs to connect to the managed hosts.

Job templates include several additional optional fields. Many of these options have corresponding command-line options that can be used when running a playbook with the ansible-navigator command. You can specify these options as part of the job template, or be prompted for customizations when the job template is launched.

When you launch a job template, automation controller uses an execution environment to run the playbook using all the supplied information. If you configured the job template to prompt for information, such as an inventory, credentials, or variables, then automation controller prompts you for this information. Similarly, if the credentials used by your job template prompt for passwords or passphrases, then automation controller prompts you for this information. Job templates that prompt for any information must be run interactively.

Navigate to Views → Jobs to review job output. In addition to the output of playbook runs, the Jobs page displays inventory synchronization jobs and source control update jobs. Each job contains a number to show the order in which automation controller ran the job.

Expand job information by clicking the > icon to the left of any job name. Expanded details include who launched the job, which inventory was used, and which execution environment was used. Click a job name to see the full job output.

Figure 3.9: List of jobs