Developing Advanced Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Procedure 4.1. Instructions

1. Use automation content navigator to browse the current configuration and determine which settings use their default values.

   1. Use the ansible-navigator config command.

      [student@workstation ~]$ ansible-navigator config \
      > --eei hub.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8 --pp missing

      You can explore the current configuration settings for automation content navigator.

          Name                                    Default    Source     Current
        0│Action warnings                         True       default    True
        1│Agnostic become prompt                  True       default    True
        2│Allow world readable tmpfiles           True       default    False
        3│Ansible connection path	                True       default    None
      ...output omitted...

   2. Search for the Default host list option. Type :f host and then press Enter.

        Name                              Default    Source     Current
      0│Default host list                 True       default    ['/etc/ansible/hosts']
      1│Display skipped hosts             True       default    True
      ...output omitted...

      Notice that line 0 in your terminal output is green and the value in the Default column is True, indicating that it is a default setting.

   3. Press 0 to view more details for the Default host list option.

      Default host list (current/default: ['/etc/ansible/hosts'])
       0│---
       1│current_config_file: None
       2│current_value:
       3│- /etc/ansible/hosts
       4│default: true
       5│default_value: /etc/ansible/hosts
       6│description: Comma separated list of Ansible inventory sources
       7│env:
       8│- name: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY
       9│expand_relative_paths: true
      10│ini:
      11│- key: inventory
      12│  section: defaults
      13│name: Default host list
      14│option: DEFAULT_HOST_LIST
      15│source: default
      16│type: pathlist
      17│via: default
      18│yaml:
      19│  key: defaults.inventory

      Exit from ansible-navigator by pressing ESC twice, or type :q and then press Enter.

2. Customize your current Ansible configuration and use automation content navigator to identify some changes that you made to the default settings. Ansible configuration settings specified within an ansible.cfg file in your current directory take precedence over the default Ansible configuration settings.

   1. Change to the /home/student/config-ansible directory and review the ansible.cfg configuration file.

      [student@workstation ~]$ cd ~/config-ansible
      [student@workstation config-ansible]$ cat ansible.cfg
      [defaults]
      inventory=inventory
      remote_user=devops

   2. Use the ansible-navigator config command.

      [student@workstation config-ansible]$ ansible-navigator config \
      > --eei hub.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8 --pp missing

   3. Search for the Default host list option again. Type :f host and then press Enter.

        Name                  Default Source                Current
      0│Default host list     False   /home/student/config-a['/home/student/config-
      1│Display skipped hosts True    default               True
      ...output omitted...

      Notice that line 0 in your terminal output is yellow and the value in the Default column is False, indicating that it is not a default setting. This time the Default host list option has the following displayed values:

      Field	Value
      Default	False
      Source	/home/student/config-ansible/ansible.cfg
      Current	['/home/student/config-ansible/inventory']

   4. Press 0 to view more details for the Default host list option in the custom configuration.

      Default host list (current: ['/home/student/config-ansible/inventory']) ...
       0│---
       1│current_config_file: /home/student/config-ansible/ansible.cfg
       2│current_value:
       3│- /home/student/config-ansible/inventory
       4│default: false
       5│default_value: /etc/ansible/hosts
       6│description: Comma separated list of Ansible inventory sources
       7│env:
       8│- name: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY
       9│expand_relative_paths: true
      10│ini:
      11│- key: inventory
      12│  section: defaults
      13│name: Default host list
      14│option: DEFAULT_HOST_LIST
      15│source: /home/student/config-ansible/ansible.cfg
      16│type: pathlist
      17│via: /home/student/config-ansible/ansible.cfg
      18│yaml:
      19│  key: defaults.inventory

      Exit from the ansible-navigator command by typing :q and then pressing Enter.

3. Use automation content navigator to search for a specific configuration setting, determine if the setting is customized, and discover the source of any customizations.

   1. Use the ansible-navigator config command.

      [student@workstation config-ansible]$ ansible-navigator config \
      > --eei hub.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8 --pp missing

   2. Search for the Default ask pass setting. Type :f ask and then press Enter.

        Name                                      Default    Source     Current
      0│Default ask pass                          True       default    False
      1│Default ask vault pass                    True       default    False
      ...output omitted...

      Notice that line 0 in your terminal output is green and the value in the Default column is True. This means that the displayed values are the default settings for the Default ask pass option.

      Type :q and then press Enter to exit from the ansible-navigator command.

   3. In the ansible.cfg file, add the ask_pass=false line to the [defaults] section. The resulting ansible.cfg file has the following content.

      [defaults]
      inventory=inventory
      remote_user=devops
      ask_pass=false

   4. Use the ansible-navigator config command again and search for the Default ask pass setting. Type :f ask and then press Enter.

        Name                         Default Source                         Current
      0│Default ask pass             False   /home/student/config-ansible/a False
      1│Default ask vault pass       True    default                        False
      ...output omitted...

      Notice that line 0 in your terminal output is yellow and the value in the Default column is False. The displayed values correspond to the custom configuration for the Default ask pass option.

      Exit the ansible-navigator command by pressing ESC.

   5. Change the value of the ask_pass setting in the ansible.cfg file to true. The resulting ansible.cfg file should read as follows:

      [defaults]
      inventory=inventory
      remote_user=devops
      ask_pass=true

   6. Use the ansible-navigator config command again and search for the Default ask pass setting. Type :f ask and then press Enter.

        Name                         Default Source                         Current
      0│Default ask pass             False   /home/student/config-ansible/a True
      1│Default ask vault pass       True    default                        False
      ...output omitted...

      The Default ask pass setting has a value of True if it is not overridden. Although this value matches the value configured in your ansible.cfg file, line 0 in your terminal output remains yellow and the value in the Default column is False. The ansible.cfg file in your current directory overrides the Default ask pass setting, even if the file uses the same value as the default value for the setting. The displayed values correspond to the custom configuration for the Default ask pass option:

      Field	Value
      Default	False
      Source	/home/student/config-ansible/ansible.cfg
      Current	True

      Exit the ansible-navigator command by pressing ESC.