Chapter 6. Simplified event routing

Procedure

1. Log in to the Ansible Automation Platform Dashboard.
2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Decisions Infrastructure Credentials.
3. Click Create credential.

4. Insert the following:

   Name

   Insert the name.

   Description

   This field is optional.

   Organization

   Click the list to select an organization or select Default.

   Credential type

   Click the list to select your Credential type.

   Note

   When you select the credential type, the Type Details section is displayed with fields that are applicable for the credential type you selected.

   Type Details

   Add the requested information for the credential type you selected. For example, if you selected the GitHub Event Stream credential type, you are required to add an HMAC Secret (symmetrical shared secret) between Event-Driven Ansible controller and the remote server.

5. Click Create credential.

Procedure

1. Log in to Ansible Automation Platform.
2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Decisions Event Streams.
3. Click Create event stream.

4. Insert the following:

   Name

   Insert the name.

   Organization

   Click the list to select an organization or select Default.

   Event stream type

   Select the event stream type you prefer.

   Note

   This list displays at least 10 default event stream types that can be used to authenticate the connection coming from your remote server.

   Credentials

   Select a credential from the list, preferably the one you created for your event stream.

   Headers

   Enter HTTP header keys, separated by commas, that you want to include in the event payload. To include all headers, leave the field empty.

   Forward events to rulebook activation

   Use this option to enable or disable the capability of forwarding events to rulebook activations.

   Note

   The event stream’s event forwarding can be disabled for testing purposes while diagnosing connections and evaluating the incoming data. Disabling the Forward events to rulebook activation option allows you to test the event stream connection with the remote system, analyze the header and payload, and if necessary, diagnose credential issues. This ensures that events are not be forwarded to rulebook activations causing rules and conditions to be triggered inadvertently while you are in test mode. Some enterprises might have policies to change secrets and passwords at regular cadence. You can enable/disable this option anytime after the event stream is created.

5. Click Create event stream.

1. Log in to your GitHub repository.
2. Click Your profile name Your repositories.

1. Navigate to Settings (tool bar).
2. In the General navigation pane, select Webhooks.
3. Click Add webhook.
4. In the Payload URL field, paste the URL you saved when you created your event stream.
5. Select application/json in the Content type list.
6. Enter your Secret.
7. Click Add webhook.

1. Log in to Ansible Automation Platform.
2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Decisions Event Streams.
3. Select the event stream that you created to validate connectivity and ensure that the event stream sends data to the rulebook activation.

4. Verify that the events were received.You can see in the Events received field that the event was received. You can also see the header for the event stream that contains details about the event.

   

   If you scroll down in the UI, you can also see the body of the payload with more information about the webhook.

   

   The Header and Body sections for the event stream are displayed on the Details page. They differ based on the vendor who is sending the event. The header and body can be used to check the attributes in the event payload, which will help you in writing conditions in your rulebook. For example:

5. Toggle the Forward events to rulebook activation option to enable you to push your events to a rulebook activation. This moves the event stream to production mode and makes it easy to attach to rulebook activations.

   When this option is toggled off, your ability to forward events to a rulebook activation is disabled and the This event stream is disabled message is displayed.

1. An event stream can only be used once in a rulebook source swap. If you have multiple sources in the rulebook, you can only replace each source once.
2. The source mapping happens only in the current rulebook activation. You must repeat this process for any other activations using the same rulebook.
3. The source mapping is valid only if the rulebook doesn’t get modified. If the rulebook gets modified during the source mapping process, the source mapping would fail and it would have to be repeated.
4. If the rulebook is modified after the source mapping has been created and a Restart happens, the rulebook activation fails.

Procedure

1. Log in to Ansible Automation Platform.
2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Decisions Rulebook Activations.
3. Click Create rulebook activation.

4. Insert the following:

   Name

   Insert the name.

   Description

   This field is optional.

   Organization

   Enter your organization name or select Default from the list.

   Project

   Projects are a logical collection of rulebooks. This field is optional.

   Note

   Although this field is optional, selecting a project helps refine your list of rulebooks choices.

   Rulebook

   Rulebooks are shown according to the project selected. Select a rulebook.

   Note

   After you have selected a rulebook, the Event streams field is enabled. You can click the gear icon to display the Event streams mapping form.

   Event streams

   All the event streams available and set up to forward events to rulebook actiavtions are displayed. If you have not created any event streams, this field remains disabled.

   Click the gear icon to display the Event streams mapping UI.

   

   Complete the following fields:

   Rulebook source

   A rulebook can contain multiple sources across multiple rulesets. You can map the same rulebook in multiple activations to multiple event streams. While managing event streams, unnamed sources are assigned temporary names (__SOURCE {n}) for identification purposes.

   Select __SOURCE_1 from the list.

   Event stream

   Select your event stream name from the list.

   Click Save.

   Event streams can replace matching sources in a rulebook, and are server-side webhooks that enable you to connect various event sources to your rulebook activations. Source types that can be replaced with the event stream’s source of type ansible.eda.pg_listener include ansible.eda.webhook and other compatible webhook source plugins. Replacing selected sources affects this activation only, and modifies the rulebook’s source type, source name, and arguments. Filters, rules, conditions, and actions are all unaffected.

   You can select which source you want to replace with a single event stream. If there are multiple sources in your rulebook, you can choose to replace each one of them with event streams, but you are not required to replace each one. The following image displays which sources can be replaced.

   

   The items in pink demonstrate the sources that can be replaced: source type, source name, and arguments. The remaining items (filters, rules, and actions) are not replaced.

   Credential

   Select 0 or more credentials for this rulebook activation. This field is optional.

   Note

   The credentials that display in this field are customized based on your rulebook activation and only include the following credential types: Vault, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, or any custom credential types that you have created. For more information on credentials, see Credentials.

   Decision environment

   A decision environment is a container image used to run Ansible rulebooks.

   Note

   In Event-Driven Ansible controller, you cannot customize the pull policy of the decision environment. By default, it follows the behavior of the always policy. Every time an activation is started, the system tries to pull the most recent version of the image.

   Restart policy

   This is the policy that determines how an activation should restart after the container process running the source plugin ends.

   • Policies:

     1. Always: This restarts the rulebook activation immediately, regardless of whether it ends successfully or not, and occurs no more than 5 times.
     2. Never: This never restarts a rulebook activation when the container process ends.
     3. On failure: This restarts the rulebook activation after 60 seconds by default, only when the container process fails, and occurs no more than 5 times.

   Log level

   This field defines the severity and type of content in your logged events.

   • Levels:

     1. Error: Logs that contain error messages that are displayed in the History tab of an activation.
     2. Info: Logs that contain useful information about rulebook activations, such as a success or failure, triggered action names and their related action events, and errors.
     3. Debug: Logs that contain information that is only useful during the debug phase and might be of little value during production. This log level includes both error and log level data.

   Service name

   This defines a service name for Kubernetes to configure inbound connections if the activation exposes a port. This field is optional.

   Rulebook activation enabled?

   This automatically enables the rulebook activation to run.

   Variables

   The variables for the rulebook are in a JSON or YAML format. The content would be equivalent to the file passed through the --vars flag of ansible-rulebook command.

   Options

   Check the Skip audit events option if you do not want to see your events in the Rule Audit.

5. Click Create rulebook activation.

   After you create your rulebook activation, the Details page is displayed.

   You can navigate to the Event streams page to confirm your events have been received.

Procedure

1. Go back to the GitHub Webhook / Manage webhook page.
2. Click the Recent Deliveries tab.
3. Click the ellipsis.
4. Click Redeliver. A Redeliver payload? window is displayed with a delivery message.
5. Click Yes, redeliver this payload.
6. Return to the Ansible Automation Platform to check your rule audit.

Procedure

1. Log in to Ansible Automation Platform.

2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Decisions Rule Audit.

   If your rulebook activation received the event data from the event stream type you selected, the Rule Audit page displays the results similar to this image.