Step by Step installation of Ansible Tower opensource version AWX

Hello Guys, In this post, I would like to experiment with the installation of AWX on a new variety of Linux that is Alpine Linux.

Prerequisites

• Here I will go with the Alpine Linux which is the default Operating System on Play with  Docker 
• alternatively, You must have at least 3 boxes on either vagrant  or Any cloud instances (AWS) 1 Ansible engine remaining 2 for remote nodes
• AWX is GUI/web tool which is currently broken down to AWX-operator and AWX Task

The AWX up to 18 version installations used docker based environments, where it uses the following Docker images from the Docker hub

1. Postgress SQL
2. Rabbit MQ
3. MemCache

Steps to install AWX

1. Update the repo on the Alpine Linux

apk update

2. Installing with apk package manager 'add' subcommand will do the installation.

apk add ansible

This will be installing Ansible on Alpine Linux.

Ansible installation on Play with Docker (PWD) instance

 

3. Validate the ansible installation using the version option.

ansible --version

This will be confirming that installing Ansible on the Alpine Linux is confirmed. 

4. Get the git hub hosted latest version or specific version of AWX, 

  git clone -b 17.1.0 https://github.com/ansible/awx.git
  

This will be installing Ansible on the Alpine Linux.

git clone awx 17.1.0 

Step 5: Generate secret_key using openssl command.

openssl rand -base64 30 

Step 6: The configure for the awx are as follows:

admin_password=p@ssw0rd123
secret_key=5r9L1GqfR/GjJh5+JyBBQLd5bv/7B8/BsNF3z0N6
pg_database=postgres
pg_password=p@ssw0rd123
awx_alternate_dns_servers="8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4"
postgres_data_dir="/var/lib/awx/pgdocker"
docker_compose_dir="/var/lib/awx/awxcompose"
project_data_dir="/var/lib/awx/projects"

Step 7: Now you can run the ansible-playbook execution with the 

ansible-playbook -i ~/awx/installer/inventory ~/awx/installer/install.yml -v

Execution might take several minutes, at the end you can see the following  

Installing AWX using Ansible playbook Kompleted!!!

Step 8: Login to the Ansible AWX console with the following

AWX username: admin

Ansible AWX password: {someSTR0NGpassword}

AWX Login page

The AWX Dashboard shows the Hosts, inventory, Jobs look like this:

Step 9: Select Templates in the left pane, then you can see the Demo Job template - Launch the template using rocket icon opposite to it.

AWX Job Template

Step 10: AWX Job executed then, it output window shows msg as   - Hello World!

That is all for now in this post you can check other Ansible related posts links from right side of this blog!

HAPPY AWX automation!!

Reference

https://github.com/ansible/awx/releases

Ansible the lineinfile, blockinfile and replace modules

 Hello !!

This post is for exploring the "lineinfile" vs 'blockinfile' and "replace" modules. The replace and the lineinfile use the path parameter to mark: The file to modify. lineinfile module is used to ensure[s] a particular line is in a file, or [to] replace an existing line using a back-referenced (backref) regular expression (regex).

Use the replace module if you want to change multiple, similar lines

The "dest" parameter is used for modules creating new files like template or copy modules. Just replace dest with path and both provided examples should work as expected.

Adding lines in the file

Adding a line in a file, if a file does not exist then it will create it.

---
# Filename: adding_line.yml
 - name: testing LineInFile module
   hosts: localhost
   tasks:
   - name: Add a line to a file if the file does not exist
     lineinfile:
       path: /tmp/hosts
       line: 192.168.1.99 ansiblectl.devopshunter.com ctl
       create: yes

The execution of the above playbook gives us the, update of the file /tmp/hosts file created with the line value. check the content of the file.

 
Screenshot 1

Adding a line in file create if not 

Insert before 

A line can be inserted before the pattern matched 

---
 - name: testing inline
   hosts: localhost
   gather_facts: no
   tasks:
   - name: insert before
     lineinfile:
       dest: /tmp/hosts
       line: 192.168.0.19 bhagathsing.devops.com bhagathsing
       insertbefore: (192.168.0.18*)
  

Execution will gives as follows:

Ansible the lineinfile module using insertbefore parameter

Insert After

Insert after the pattern line

---
 - name: testing inline
   hosts: localhost
   gather_facts: no
   tasks:
   - name: insert after
     lineinfile:
       dest: /tmp/hosts
       line: 192.168.0.18 freedome.devops.com freedome
       insertafter: (192.*)
  

lineinfile module with 'insertafter' parameter

 Removal lines in a file of httpd.conf

---
 - name: testing inline
   hosts: localhost
   gather_facts: no
   tasks:
   - name: remove commented lines
     lineinfile:
      dest: /tmp/sample
      regex: "(^#)"
      state: absent
      backup: yes
   - name: remove tabbed commented lines
     lineinfile:
      dest: /tmp/sample
      regex: "(#)"
      state: absent
   - name: remove blank lines
     lineinfile:
      dest: /tmp/sample
      regex: "(^\n)"
      state: absent   

The execution of removal of lines from the httpd.conf file.

The lineinfile module uses to remove comment lines of httpd.conf file

Replace module

This module will be helps you to find and replace the text in remote/target server files.

 /tmp/mytest.txt 

Step 2: Create a playbook with the File name: test-replace.yml and the content as follows
---
# Ansile replace module example
 - name: Ansile replace module
   gather_facts: no
   hosts: localhost
   become: yes
   tasks:
     - name: mytest.txt replace
       replace:
         path: /tmp/mytest.txt
         regexp: "ofmw"
         replace: "Oracle Fusion Middleware"


		 
Assume that you have inventory file having 'webserver' group with node1, node2


Step 3: Execution output is as follows:
ansible-playbook test-replace.yml                                                                                                                             

Execution Screen shots: 

'blockinfile' module

If you have multiple lines that need to be inserted into a file in remote box with Ansible blockinfile module. It works similar ot lineinfile module but here multiple lines can be processed.

--- 
# Filename: file-blocking.yaml
# targets [optional] if you pass extra vars ok, otherwise localhost
- name: Creating File with blockinfile
  gather_facts: no
  hosts: "{{ targets | default('localhost') }}"

  tasks:
  - name: Create new file
    file:
      path: /tmp/ansible-slogun.txt
      state: touch
    
  - name: Block of text adds to file
    blockinfile:
      path: /tmp/ansible-slogun.txt
      block: Ansible has a large collection of inbuilt modules to manage various cloud resources. The book begins with the concepts needed to safeguard your credentials and explain how you interact with cloud providers to manage resources. Each chapter begins with an introduction and prerequisites to use the right modules to manage a given cloud provider. Learn about Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and other providers.

The playbook can be using no extra vars that means localhost will be target host, the executed as follows :

ansible-playbook file-blocking.yaml

References:

1. Official Documentation link
2. The joy of the blockinfile

How to run Ansible command when you don't have VM?

 Hello Guys!!

It's less than 5mins to read article

There are different situations where you need to work but you have security restrictions, you cannot even run the vagrant boxes on your laptop. In such situations, If you are able to login to Docker Hub then you can play your playbooks for testing different modules which don't need to connect remotely to your managed nodes. That means you want to execute the module on the Ansible Controller node itself.

Ansible container running on PWD (Play with Docker)

Pre-requisites

1. You must have a Docker Hub user account 
2. You must have basic knowledge on Docker images, containers usage
3. Good internet speed :)

Steps to run Play with Docker 

Step 1: Log in to your Docker Hub and launch the "Play with Docker" also known as PWD in short.

Step 2: Create the Docker installed Nodes using "ADD NEW INSTANCE".

Step 3: Search for the Ansible images either you can check at the command line with or search on the Docker Hub web page

docker search ansible

Step 4:  Here I've chosen the image as 'ansible/awx', You have your own choices for your Ansible container. Pull the Docker image for Ansible

docker pull ansible/awx

Ansible image pull on Docker Host

Step 5: After ansible/awx image pull successful you are good to go for create the ansible container. Use the following command to run the 'myawx' container.

docker run -itd --name myawx ansible/awx

Step 6: Enter into the container name 'myawx' and start playing your playbooks!!

docker exec -it -u 0 myawx /bin/bash

Docker run ansible container and ssh to it

Step 7: Now finally,  check the version in the Ansible container

ansible --version
Ansible version checking

Hope you enjoyed this post, please share to your friends it is so simple to understand and execute, you need only internet connection on your laptop!!

You might be interested to see more, This blog is having couple of ansible experiments please visit, given in the right side Content section.