Managing Enterprise Automation with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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

Create a machine credential using the information in the following table.

1. Navigate to Resources → Credentials and click Add to add a new credential.

2. Enter Virtual Machines in the Name field and Credential for managing virtual machines in the Description field.

3. Select the Default organization.

4. In the Credential Type list, choose Machine.

5. Enter devops in the Username field and redhat in the Password field.

6. In the Privilege Escalation Method list, choose sudo.

7. Enter root in the Privilege Escalation Username field.

8. Click Save to save the machine credential.

Create a source control credential using the information in the following table.

1. Navigate to Resources → Credentials and click Add to add a new credential.

2. Enter Git Credential in the Name field.

3. Select the Default organization.

4. In the Credential Type list, choose Source Control.

5. Enter git in the Username field and click Browse in the SCM Private Key field.

6. By default, the File Upload directory navigation window opens in the Desktop directory. Click student to move to the home directory for the student user.

   Figure 12.10: Browsing for the SCM Private Key

7. Right-click anywhere in the directory navigation window and select Show Hidden Files.

8. Change to the .ssh hidden directory, then select the gitlab_rsa file, and click Open.

9. Click Save to save the source control credential.

Create a new project using the information in the following table. After you save the project, verify that automation controller reports the success of the project synchronization.

1. Navigate to Resources → Projects and then click Add to create a new project.

2. Enter Log Centralization in the Name field and Log Centralization Project in the Description field.

3. Select the Default organization if it is not selected by default.

4. In the Source Control Type list, choose Git.

5. Enter git@git.lab.example.com:git/compreview-templates.git in the Source Control URL field.

6. Select the Git Credential source control credential.

7. Click Save to save the project.

8. Automation controller automatically attempts to synchronize the new project. On the Details page for the Log Centralization project, verify that the Last Job Status field displays the Successful message.

   Important

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

Create an inventory called Lab Git Sourced in the Default organization.

Then, add a source for this inventory using the information in the following table. After you save the Git Inventory Lab source, start the synchronization process. Verify that the synchronization process succeeds.

1. Navigate to Resources → Inventories.

2. Click Add → Add inventory.

3. Enter Lab Git Sourced in the Name field and select the Default organization. When done, click Save.

4. Click in the Sources tab, and then click Add to add a source for the inventory.

5. Enter Git Inventory Lab in the Name field.

6. In the Source list, choose Sourced from a Project.

7. Select the Log Centralization project. You might see the following message below the Project field:

   That value was not found. Please enter or select a valid value.

   The message disappears as soon as you select a different field.

8. Select inventory as the Inventory file.

9. Select the Update on launch option and click Save when done.

10. Click Sync and wait until the value of the Last Job Status field displays the Successful message.

Review the Groups tab and the Hosts tab for each group in the Lab Git Sourced inventory. The hosts are grouped as shown in the following table. Notice that the variables for the hosts in the log_clients group are also imported.

1. Navigate to Resources → Inventories.

2. Click the Lab Git Sourced link.

3. Review the Groups tab and the Hosts tab and notice the groups and hosts that were added to the inventory. You can use the preceding table for reference.

4. Click the Details tab for the dev_clients group and notice the variables are also imported.

   Figure 12.11: Imported variables for the hosts in the dev_clients group

5. Click the Details tab for the prod_clients group and notice the variables are also imported.

   Figure 12.12: Imported variables for the hosts in the prod_clients group

Create a job template using the information in the following table. This job template configures a centralized log server on each of the hosts in the log_servers group for the Lab Git Sourced inventory.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click Add → Add job template.

3. Enter Log Servers Deploy in the Name field.

4. Select Run as the Job Type if it is not selected by default.

5. Select the Lab Git Sourced inventory and the Log Centralization project.

6. In the Playbook list, choose rsyslog_server_deploy.yml.

7. Select the Virtual Machines credential.

8. Click Save to save the job template.

Create a job template using the information in the following table. This job template configures each of the hosts in the log_clients group for the Lab Git Sourced inventory as a client for its respective log server.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click Add → Add job template.

3. Enter Log Clients Deploy in the Name field.

4. Select Run as the Job Type if it is not selected by default.

5. Select the Lab Git Sourced inventory and the Log Centralization project.

6. In the Playbook list, choose rsyslog_client_deploy.yml.

7. Select the Virtual Machines credential.

8. Click Save to save the job template.

Launch the Log Servers Deploy job template. Observe the live output of the running job. Verify that the job succeeds.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click the Launch Template icon for the Log Servers Deploy job template.

3. Observe the live output of the running job.

   Figure 12.13: Successful output for the "Log Servers Deploy" job

4. Click the Details tab and verify that the Status field displays the Successful message.

Launch the Log Clients Deploy job template. Observe the live output of the running job. Verify that the job succeeds.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click the Launch Template icon for the Log Clients Deploy job template.

3. Observe the live output of the running job.

   Figure 12.14: Successful output for the "Log Clients Deploy" job template related job

4. Click the Details tab and verify that the Status field displays the Successful message.

Use the logger "This is a test" command to create a log entry in each of the dev_clients hosts. Verify that servera.lab.example.com, which is the only host in the dev_servers group, receives the log entries.

1. Open a terminal on the workstation machine and use the logger command to create a log entry in the serverb.lab.example.com and serverc.lab.example.com hosts.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh serverb.lab.example.com "logger 'This is a test'"
   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh serverc.lab.example.com "logger 'This is a test'"
   [student@workstation ~]$

2. Verify that the logging server receives the messages. Use the devops user in the servera.lab.example.com host for consulting the message in the /var/log/messages file. This user can run sudo commands without entering a password.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh devops@servera.lab.example.com \
   > "sudo grep 'This is a test' /var/log/messages"
   Aug 10 13:06:01 serverb student[1266]: This is a test
   Aug 10 13:06:07 serverc student[1263]: This is a test
   [student@workstation ~]$

Use the logger "This is a test" command to create a log entry in the prod_clients hosts. Verify that serverd.lab.example.com, which is the only host in the prod_servers group, receive the log entry.

1. Open a terminal on workstation and use the logger command to create a log entry in the servere.lab.example.com and serverf.lab.example.com hosts.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh servere.lab.example.com "logger 'This is a test'"
   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh serverf.lab.example.com "logger 'This is a test'"
   [student@workstation ~]$

2. Verify that the logging server receives the messages. Use the devops user in the serverd.lab.example.com host for consulting the message in the /var/log/messages file. This user can run sudo commands without entering a password.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh devops@serverd.lab.example.com \
   > "sudo grep 'This is a test' /var/log/messages"
   Aug 10 13:07:37 servere student[1310]: This is a test
   Aug 10 13:07:41 serverf student[1308]: This is a test
   [student@workstation ~]$