Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Procedure 3.2. Instructions

This lab provides you with a Git repository that contains a working playbook to deploy a simple web server. Create all resources from the automation controller web UI located at https://controller.lab.example.com. Log in as the admin user with redhat as the password.

1. Create a source control credential named reviewgitcred. The credential must belong to the Default organization. The GitLab user for the credential is student. Use the private key stored in the /home/student/.ssh/gitlab_rsa file on the workstation machine as the SCM private key.

   1. Navigate to https://controller.lab.example.com and log in as the admin user with redhat as the password.

   2. Navigate to Resources → Credentials and click Add. Create the credential with the following settings and then click Save.

      Field	Value
      Name	reviewgitcred
      Organization	Default
      Credential Type	Source Control
      Username	student
      SCM Private Key	Content of the /home/student/.ssh/gitlab_rsa file.

      Note

      If you choose to browse for the file, then right-click anywhere in the directory navigation area and select Show Hidden Files. Viewing hidden files lets you see the .ssh directory in the /home/student directory.

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2. Create a machine credential named reviewmachinecred. The credential must belong to the Default organization. Configure this credential for the devops user. Use the SSH private key stored in the /home/student/.ssh/lab_rsa file. Use sudo as the privilege escalation method and root as the privilege escalation username.

   1. Navigate to Resources → Credentials and click Add. Create the credential with the following settings and then click Save.

      Field	Value
      Name	reviewmachinecred
      Organization	Default
      Credential Type	Machine
      Username	devops
      SSH Private Key	Content of the /home/student/.ssh/lab_rsa file.
      Privilege Escalation Method	sudo
      Privilege Escalation Username	root

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3. Create an inventory named reviewinventory. The inventory must belong to the Default organization. Add the servera.lab.example.com host to this inventory.

   1. Navigate to Resources → Inventories and then click Add → Add Inventory. Create the inventory with the following settings and then click Save.

      Field	Value
      Name	reviewinventory
      Organization	Default

   2. Click the Hosts tab and then click Add. Add the servera.lab.example.com host, and then click Save.

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4. Create a project named reviewproject. The project must belong to the Default organization. This project must use the git@git.lab.example.com:student/controller-review.git Git repository and use the reviewgitcred source control credential to authenticate to the repository.

   1. Navigate to Resources → Projects and then click Add. Create the project with the following settings and then click Save.

      Field	Value
      Name	reviewproject
      Organization	Default
      Source Control Type	Git
      Source Control URL	git@git.lab.example.com:student/controller-review.git
      Source Control Credential	reviewgitcred

      After clicking Save, automation controller immediately attempts to synchronize the project. The project synchronization succeeds.

      Important

      If the project synchronization fails, then ensure that the project specifies the correct source control URL and credential and then attempt the project synchronization again.

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5. Create a job template named reviewtemplate. Configure the job template to use the reviewinventory inventory, the reviewproject project, the webserver.yml playbook, and the reviewmachinecred machine credential. Configure the job template to use the Automation Hub Default execution environment execution environment.

   Launch a job that uses the reviewtemplate job template. If you completed the exercise correctly, then navigating to http://servera.lab.example.com displays the following message:

   Successful playbook run from automation controller.

   1. Navigate to Resources → Templates and then click Add → Add job template. Create the new job template with the following settings and then click Save.

      Field	Value
      Name	reviewtemplate
      Inventory	reviewinventory
      Project	reviewproject
      Execution Environment	Automation Hub Default execution environment
      Playbook	webserver.yml
      Credentials	reviewmachinecred

   2. Click Launch to create a job from the job template. The resulting job runs the playbook.

      Important

      If the job fails, then ensure that the job template specifies the correct inventory and machine credential. Ensure that the machine credential uses the correct values and then launch a new job from the job template.

   3. Click the Details tab. Notice that the job displays Successful as its status.

   4. Verify the web content updated by the job. Either use a web browser to navigate to http://servera.lab.example.com or run the following curl command:.

      [student@workstation ~]$ curl http://servera.lab.example.com
      Successful playbook run from automation controller.

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