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. Verify that the lab start compreview-workflow command created the MOTD Update and Network Performance Improvements job templates, as well as the Dev and Prod inventories.

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

2. Navigate to Resources → Templates, then verify that MOTD Update and Network Performance Improvements are in the list of job templates.

3. Navigate to Resources → Inventories, then verify that Dev and Prod are in the list of inventories.

Add a survey to the MOTD Update job template using the following information. When done, enable the survey.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates in automation controller.

2. Click the MOTD Update link.

3. Click the Survey tab.

4. Click Add to add a survey.

5. Add a question to the survey using the information from the table. When finished, click Save.

6. Click Survey Disabled and verify that the label changes to Survey Enabled.

Create a notification template using the following information. When finished, click Save. Then, send a test notification to validate that it is working.

1. Navigate to Administration → Notifications.

2. Click Add to create a notification template.

3. Use the information from the table to create the notification template. When finished, click Save.

4. Click Test to test the notification process. Then, click the Back to Notifications tab. After some seconds, the Status column displays the Successful message.

Create a workflow job template named Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod in the Default organization. Then, create the first node in the workflow job template using the following information.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click Add → Add workflow template.

3. Fill in the details using the following information, and then click Save.

   Field	Value
   Name	Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod
   Organization	Default

4. Click Start to add the first workflow job template node using the workflow visualizer.

5. In the Node Type list, choose Job Template and select the Network Performance Improvements job template.

6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter Performance Improve (D) in the Node Alias field. Click Next when done.

7. Select the Dev inventory. Click Next when done.

8. Click Save to save the node. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

If the Performance Improve (D) node fails, then the workflow job template must launch a job template that updates the MOTD in the development environment hosts. Use the information in the table to create the node. Leave the default answer for the survey, indicating that the system has not been customized to improve the network performance. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

1. Without leaving the workflow visualizer, hover over the Performance Improve (D) node and click Add a new node.

2. Select On Failure and click Next.

3. In the Node Type list, choose Job Template and select the MOTD Update job template.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter On failure MOTD (D) in the Node Alias field. Click Next when done.

5. Select the Dev inventory and click Next.

6. Leave the default answer for the survey untouched and click Next.

7. Click Save to save the node. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

   Figure 12.16: Workflow job template after adding the 'On failure' node.

If the Performance Improve (D) node succeeds, then the workflow must launch two nodes. Use the information in the following table to create the first of the two nodes. Make sure that you add this node subsequent to the Performance Improve (D) node. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

1. Without leaving the workflow visualizer, hover over the Performance Improve (D) node and click Add a new node.

2. This time, select On Success and click Next.

3. In the Node Type list, choose Job Template and select the MOTD Update job template.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter On success MOTD (D) in the Node Alias field. Click Next when done.

5. Select the Dev inventory and click Next.

6. On the survey page, select the System has been customized to improve network performance. answer, and then click Next.

7. Click Save to save the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

Use the information in the following table to add a new node to the workflow. Make sure that you add it subsequent to the Performance Improve (D) node. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

1. Without leaving the workflow visualizer, hover over the Performance Improve (D) node and click Add a new node.

2. Select On Success and click Next.

3. Choose Approval in the Node Type list.

4. Enter Approval in the Name field.

5. Enter Pushing to Prod requires approval in the description of the node.

6. Modify the Timeout field to 60 minutes.

7. Click Save to save the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

   Figure 12.17: Workflow job template after adding the 'On success' nodes

If the Approval node succeeds, the workflow job template must launch a job template that improves the network performance in your production environment. Create the node using the following information. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

1. Without leaving the workflow visualizer, hover over the Approval node and click Add a new node.

2. Select On Success and click Next.

3. In the Node Type list, choose Job Template and elect the Network Performance Improvements job template.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter Performance Improve (P) in the Node Alias field. Click Next.

5. Select the Prod inventory. Click Next.

6. Click Save to save the workflow job template node. Save information about the node, but do not save the workflow job template yet.

If the Performance Improve (P) node succeeds, the workflow job template must launch a job template that updates the MOTD in the production environment hosts. This is the final node in the workflow job template. Use the following information to create the node. Then, save the node and save the workflow job template.

1. Without leaving the workflow visualizer, hover over the Performance Improve (P) node and click Add a new node.

2. Select On Success and click Next.

3. In the Node Type list, choose Job Template and select the MOTD Update job template.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter On success MOTD (P) in the Node Alias field. Click Next when done.

5. Select the Prod inventory and click Next.

6. On the survey page, select System has been customized to improve network performance. ,and then click Next.

7. Click Save to save the node, and then click Save to save the workflow job template.

   Figure 12.18: The complete workflow job template

Configure the Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod workflow job template to use the Email AAP Admins notification template. Activate the Success and Failure notifications. Leave the Approval and Start options untouched.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click the Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod link.

3. Click the Notifications tab.

4. Set the Success and Failure switches to on for the Email AAP Admins notification. Leave the Approval and Start options untouched.

Test your work by launching the Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod workflow job template and approving it when the approval node runs.

1. Navigate to Resources → Templates.

2. Click the Launch Template icon for the Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod workflow job template.

3. Observe that the workflow stops at the approval node. Click the notification icon that appears at the top of the page when the workflow stops at the approval node.

4. Select the checkbox for the Approval in the workflow job template.

5. Click Approve to approve the execution of the remaining workflow job template nodes.

6. Navigate to Views → Jobs and wait for the Status column to display Successful in the job for the Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod workflow job template.

Verify that the Email AAP Admins notification template sent email to the aap-admins@lab.example.com email alias to report the success of the completed job. The student user can access these emails on the utility server.

1. Open a terminal and connect to the utility server.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh student@utility

2. Use the tail command to see the email that was sent by automation controller to report the success of the completed job. Your message looks similar to the following:

   [student@utility ~]$ tail /var/mail/student
       "name": "Improving Network Performance from Dev to Prod",
       "url": "https://controller.lab.example.com/#/jobs/workflow/9",
       "created_by": "admin",
       "started": "2022-07-28T23:34:10.961830+00:00",
       "finished": "2022-07-28T23:34:50.959933+00:00",
       "status": "successful",
       "traceback": "",
       "body": "Workflow job summary:\n\n- node #7 spawns no job.\n- node #9 spawns job #10, \"Network Performance Improvements\", which finished with status successful.\n- node #8 spawns job #11, \"MOTD Update\", which finished with status successful.\n- node #12 spawns job #12, \"Approval\", which finished with status successful.\n- node #11 spawns job #13, \"Network Performance Improvements\", which finished with status successful.\n- node #10 spawns job #14, \"MOTD Update\", which finished with status successful."
   }
   
   [student@utility ~]$

3. Exit the terminal session on the utility system.

   [student@workstation ~]$ exit

Confirm that after running your workflow job template, the MOTD and the net.core.netdev_max_backlog and net.core.netdev_budget kernel tunables are modified on the managed hosts in the Dev and Prod inventories.

Now, the net.core.netdev_max_backlog kernel parameter should have a value of 10000 and the net.core.netdev_budget kernel parameter should now have a value of 600.

1. From a terminal window, connect to servera.lab.example.com. Confirm that the message of the day is System has been customized to improve network performance.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh student@servera.lab.example.com
   ...output omitted..
   System has been customized to improve network performance.
   ...output omitted...
   [student@servera ~]$

2. Use the sudo command to change to the root user, using student as the password. Then, verify the values for the net.core.netdev_max_backlog and net.core.netdev_budget kernel tunables.

   [student@servera ~]$ sudo -i
   [sudo] password for student: student
   [root@servera ~]# sysctl net.core.netdev_max_backlog net.core.netdev_budget
   net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 10000
   net.core.netdev_budget = 600
   [root@servera ~]#

3. Log out of the servera machine.

   [root@servera ~]# exit
   logout
   [student@servera ~]$ exit
   logout
   Connection to servera.lab.example.com closed.
   [student@workstation ~]$

4. Connect to serverf.lab.example.com and observe the message of the day, if any.

   [student@workstation ~]$ ssh student@serverf.lab.example.com
   ...output omitted..
   System has been customized to improve network performance.
   ...output omitted...
   [student@serverf ~]$

5. Use the sudo command to change to the root user, using student as the password. Then, verify the value for the net.core.netdev_max_backlog and net.core.netdev_budget kernel tunables.

   [student@serverf ~]$ sudo -i
   [sudo] password for student: student
   [root@serverf ~]# sysctl net.core.netdev_max_backlog net.core.netdev_budget
   net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 10000
   net.core.netdev_budget = 600
   [root@serverf ~]#

6. Log out of the serverf machine.

   [root@serverf ~]# exit
   logout
   [student@serverf ~]$ exit
   logout
   Connection to serverf.lab.example.com closed.
   [student@workstation ~]$