Ansible Tower is a web-based interface and automation platform that enhances the capabilities of Ansible, an open-source automation tool. Developed by Red Hat, Ansible Tower provides a graphical user interface (GUI), role-based access control, job scheduling, and other features to simplify the management and execution of Ansible playbooks.
Steps:
Step1: Launch an ec2 instance with CentOS-7
Step2: Install the pre-requisite for Ansible tower
Step3: Install and configure Ansible tower
Key features of Ansible Tower include:
- Dashboard: Provides an overview of recent job activity, inventory status, and system updates.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Allows administrators to define roles and permissions for different users or teams, controlling who can access and perform actions within Ansible Tower.
- Job Scheduling: Enables the scheduling of automation jobs at specified times or intervals.
- Inventory Management: Centralizes the management of hosts and groups, making it easier to organize and maintain inventory information.
- Logging and Auditing: Keeps detailed logs of job runs, providing insights into what actions were taken during automation processes. This is useful for troubleshooting and auditing purposes.
- Notifications: Sends notifications about job status or other events via various communication channels, such as email, Slack, or webhooks.
- API Access: Offers a RESTful API that allows integration with other tools and systems.
Using Ansible Tower, organizations can scale their automation efforts, collaborate more effectively, and manage complex infrastructure deployments with greater control and visibility.
Step1: Launch an ec2 instance with CentOS-7 (CentOS 7 (x86_64)
Machine configuration: t3. xlarge – 4cpu and 16gb ram
All services >> EC2 >> launch instance >> Name: ansible_master, AMI browse: Centos 7 – get from the marketplace as shown in the below snapshot >> launch instance
Step2: Install the pre-requisite for Ansible tower
- Ssh into the machine using “centos” as the username, and execute the below command :
sudo su
yum update -y
yum install epel-release -y # Install the EPEL Release repository:
yum install wget python3-pip -y
yum install ansible -y
Step3: Install and configure Ansible tower
Download the latest Ansible Tower package:
cd /tmp
curl -O https://releases.ansible.com/ansible-tower/setup/ansible-tower-setup-latest.tar.gz
Untar and unzip the package file:
tar xvfz /tmp/ansible-tower-setup-latest.tar.gz
Change directories into the Ansible Tower setup package as below:
cd /tmp/ansible-tower-setup-*/
– Open the inventory file and fill out the below variables admin_password, pg_password and rabbitmq_password:
$ vi inventory
[tower]
localhost ansible_connection=local
[database]
[all:vars]
admin_password='YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD_HERE'
pg_host=''
pg_port=''
pg_database='awx'
pg_username='awx'
pg_password='YOUR_DB_PASSWORD_HERE'
rabbitmq_username=tower
rabbitmq_password='YOUR_RABBITMQ_PASSWORD_HERE'
rabbitmq_cookie=cookiemonster
# Isolated Tower nodes automatically generate an RSA key for authentication;
# To disable this behavior, set this value to false
# isolated_key_generation=true
– Run Ansible tower installer
sudo ./setup.sh
Browse with <ip> of instance in Mozilla, we should be able to see the ansible tower dashboard asking for username and password
Give username: admin
Password:” password given while in inventory file”
To work on Ansible Tower, we should have proper subscription and credentials so we need to create a subscription by signing up
Click on Request subscription
After creation of the redhat account click on subscription allocations ref above snap for that
Add subscriptions
Create a New subscription with Name and Type as shown in the snapshot
Click on Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console
Click on Export >> Manifest file zip will be downloaded >> We can use this manifests zip file to login into Ansible tower with a subscription
Browse with <ip> of instance and login with the initial credentials used while installation and upload the manifests file here then the dashboard will be displayed as shown in below snapshot
To start the ansible tower services: sudo systemctl start ansible-tower
To start the ansible tower services: sudo systemctl stop ansible-tower
To check status: sudo systemctl status ansible-tower