Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- Section Examining the Ansible Configuration with Automation Content Navigator
- Guided Exercise: Examining the Ansible Configuration with Automation Content Navigator
- Configuring Automation Content Navigator
- Guided Exercise: Configuring Automation Content Navigator
- Lab: Working with Ansible Configuration Settings
- Summary
Abstract
| Goal |
Examine and adjust the configuration of Ansible and automation content navigator to simplify development and to troubleshoot issues. |
| Objectives |
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| Sections |
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| Lab |
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The ansible-navigator config command displays the current Ansible configuration used by the ansible-navigator run command in interactive mode.
You can also use ansible-navigator config to determine the source of current ansible-navigator configuration settings.
Knowing the source of ansible-navigator configuration settings can help you determine why a particular setting in your current Ansible configuration has a specific value.
For example, configuration settings can come from the following sources:
Specific environment variables.
A configuration file specified by the
ANSIBLE_CONFIGenvironment variable.Hard-coded default values.
You can use the ansible-navigator config command to examine your configuration, retrieve the current and default configuration settings, and access documentation for each configuration parameter.
The ansible-navigator config command is useful for troubleshooting configuration issues.
For example, this command can help you locate the issue when a configuration parameter does not work as expected or when Ansible does not take a parameter into account.
It also displays the actual value that Ansible uses for each parameter and from which source it retrieves that value, configuration file, or environment variable.
The following screen capture shows the output of the ansible-navigator config command:
Name Default Source Current 0│Action warnings True default True 1│Agnostic become prompt True default True ...output omitted... 44│Default ask pass True default False 45│Default ask vault pass True default False 46│Default become False /home/.../ansible.cfg True 47│Default become ask pass False /home/.../ansible.cfg False 48│Default become exe True default None ...output omitted... 61│Default forks False env 100 62│Default gathering True default implicit ...output omitted...
In the preceding example, each line describes an Ansible configuration parameter. The columns provide the following information:
- Name
The
Namecolumn displays the internal names that Ansible uses for parameters. These names are not the same as the names that you use in theansible.cfgconfiguration file. For example, theDefault becomeparameter corresponds to thebecomeparameter in theansible.cfgconfiguration file. You can display that name mapping by typing the number of the parameter you are interested in, prefixed by a colon if that number is greater than 9.- Default
The
Defaultcolumn indicates whether the parameter is using its default value (whenTrue) or is using a value that you explicitly set in anansible.cfgconfiguration file or through an environment variable (whenFalse). To help you identify changed parameters, theansible-navigatorcommand displays default parameter settings in green and those that have changed from the defaults in yellow.- Source
When a parameter is not using its default value, the
Sourcecolumn indicates how the parameter has been set. TheSourcecolumn gives the full path to the configuration file from which Ansible retrieved the parameter's value. If the column displays theenvkeyword, then an environment variable set that parameter's value.- Current
The
Currentcolumn displays the actual value of the parameter.
The filter function of the ansible-navigator command enables you to search for specific parameters.
Type :filter (or :f) followed by a regular expression to perform a search in the command output.
For example, to locate the Default forks parameter, you could use the :f forks filter command.
This function is not limited to searching for parameter names.
You can search for any pattern in the ansible-navigator output.
For example, you can use the :f ansible.cfg filter command to list all the parameters defined in an ansible.cfg configuration file.
Remember that regular expressions are case-sensitive.
To get the details of a parameter, type its number, prefixed by a colon if that number is greater than 9.
The following example displays the details of the Default forks parameter.
Default forks (current: 100) (default: 5) 0│--- 1│current_config_file: None 2│current_value: 1003│default: false 4│default_value: 5
5│description: Maximum number of forks Ansible will use to execute tasks on target hosts. 6│env: 7│- name: ANSIBLE_FORKS
8│ini: 9│- key: forks
10│ section: defaults 11│name: Default forks 12│option: DEFAULT_FORKS 13│source: env 14│type: integer 15│via: ANSIBLE_FORKS
| The actual parameter value is |
| The parameter's default value is |
| The name of the environment variable that you can use to set the parameter value is |
| You can also set the parameter's value in an |
By default, the ansible-navigator command uses an automation execution environment to perform its tasks.
If your Ansible project does not provide the ansible.cfg configuration file, then the ansible-navigator command uses the /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg file that the automation execution environment supplies.
The command does not use the /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg or the ~/.ansible.cfg configuration files from the local system when you use automation execution environments.
To process those local files, use the --execution-environment false (or --ee false) option to prevent the command from using automation execution environments.
Important
Because you use ansible-navigator to run your playbook with an automation execution environment instead of the local control node environment, you usually inspect the automation execution environment configuration.
In addition to its interactive mode, the ansible-navigator config command can list the configuration parameters on the standard output and then exit.
Add the --mode stdout (or -m stdout) option to the command to use that mode.
In non-interactive mode, the command works like the ansible-config command and requires a subcommand:
The
listsubcommand lists all the Ansible configuration parameters. The resulting output is a static list that describes each parameter. The command does not report the current parameter values.The
dumpsubcommand lists all the Ansible configuration parameters and their current values.The
viewsubcommand displays the contents of theansible.cfgconfiguration file that Ansible is using. This subcommand is helpful to confirm that Ansible is using the expected configuration file.
The following example lists the configuration parameters and their current values:
[user@host ansible-project]$ ansible-navigator config -m stdout dump
ACTION_WARNINGS(default) = True
AGNOSTIC_BECOME_PROMPT(default) = True
...output omitted...
DEFAULT_ASK_VAULT_PASS(default) = False
DEFAULT_BECOME(/home/user/ansible-project/ansible.cfg) = True
DEFAULT_BECOME_ASK_PASS(/home/user/ansible-project/ansible.cfg) = False
DEFAULT_BECOME_EXE(default) = None
...output omitted...
DEFAULT_FORCE_HANDLERS(default) = False
DEFAULT_FORKS(env: ANSIBLE_FORKS) = 100
DEFAULT_GATHERING(default) = implicit
...output omitted...
