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Chapter 2. Managing your Ansible automation controller subscription

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Before you can use automation controller, you must have a valid subscription, which authorizes its use.

2.1. Obtaining an authorized Ansible automation controller subscription

If you already have a subscription to a Red Hat product, you can acquire an automation controller subscription through that subscription. If you do not have a subscription to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite, you can request a trial subscription.

Procedure

  • If you have a Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription, use your Red Hat customer credentials when you launch the automation controller to access your subscription information. See Importing a subscription.

  • If you have a non-Ansible Red Hat or Satellite subscription, access automation controller with one of these methods:

Additional resources

To understand what is supported with your subscription, see Automation controller licensing, updates and support. * If you have issues with your subscription, contact your Sales Account Manager or Red Hat Customer Service at: https://access.redhat.com/support/contact/customerService/.

2.2. Importing a subscription

After you have obtained an authorized Ansible Automation Platform subscription, you must import it into the automation controller system before you can use automation controller. .Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Launch automation controller for the first time. The Subscription Management screen displays.

    Subscription Management

  2. Retrieve and import your subscription by completing either of the following steps:

    1. If you have obtained a subscription manifest, upload it by navigating to the location where the file is saved. The subscription manifest is the complete .zip file, and not only its component parts.

      Note

      If the Browse option in the Subscription manifest option is disabled, clear the username and password fields to enable it.

      The subscription metadata is then retrieved from the RHSM/Satellite API, or from the manifest provided. If many subscription counts were applied in a single installation, automation controller combines the counts but uses the earliest expiration date as the expiry (at which point you must refresh your subscription).

    2. If you are using your Red Hat customer credentials, enter your username and password on the license page. Use your Satellite username or password if your automation controller cluster nodes are registered to Satellite with Subscription Manager. After you enter your credentials, click Get Subscriptions.

      Automation controller retrieves your configured subscription service. Then, it prompts you to select the subscription that you want to run and applies that metadata to automation controller. You can log in over time and retrieve new subscriptions if you have renewed.

  3. Click Next to proceed to the Tracking and Insights page.

    Tracking and insights collect data to help Red Hat improve the product and deliver a better user experience. For more information about data collection, see Usability Analytics and Data Collection of the Automation controller Administration Guide.

    This option is checked by default, but you can opt out of any of the following:

    • User analytics. Collects data from the controller UI.

    • Insights Analytics. Provides a high level analysis of your automation with automation controller. It helps you to identify trends and anomalous use of the controller. For opt-in of Automation Analytics to be effective, your instance of automation controller must be running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For more information, see the Automation Analytics section.

      Note

      You can change your analytics data collection preferences at any time.

  4. After you have specified your tracking and Insights preferences, click Next to proceed to the End User Agreement.

  5. Review and check the I agree to the End User License Agreement checkbox and click Submit.

    After your subscription is accepted, automation controller displays the subscription details and opens the Dashboard. To return to the Subscription settings screen from the Dashboard, select Settings Subscription settings from the Subscription option in the navigation panel.

  6. Optional: To return to the Subscription settings screen from the Dashboard, select Settings Subscription settings option in the navigation panel.

    Subscription Details

Troubleshooting your subscription

When your subscription expires (you can check this in the Subscription details of the Subscription settings window), you must renew it in automation controller. You can do this by either importing a new subscription, or setting up a new subscription.

If you meet the "Error fetching licenses" message, check that you have the proper permissions required for the Satellite user. The automation controller administrator requires this to apply a subscription.

The Satellite username and password is used to query the Satellite API for existing subscriptions. From the Satellite API, the automation controller receives metadata about those subscriptions, then filters through to find valid subscriptions that you can apply. These are then displayed as valid subscription options in the UI.

The following Satellite roles grant proper access:

  • Custom with view_subscriptions and view_organizations filter
  • Viewer
  • Administrator
  • Organization Administrator
  • Manager

Use the Custom role for your automation controller integration, as it is the most restrictive. For more information, see the Satellite documentation on managing users and roles.

Note

The System Administrator role is not equal to the Administrator user checkbox, and does not offer enough permissions to access the subscriptions API page.

2.3. Troubleshooting: Keep your subscription in compliance

Your subscription has two possible statuses:

  • Compliant: Indicates that your subscription is appropriate for the number of hosts that you have automated within your subscription count.
  • Out of compliance: Indicates that you have exceeded the number of hosts in your subscription.

For more information, see Troubleshooting: Keeping your subscription in compliance in the Automation controller User Guide.

2.4. Host metric utilities

Automation controller provides a way to generate a CSV output of the host metric data and host metric summary through the Command Line Interface (CLI). You can also soft delete hosts in bulk through the API.

For more information, see the Host metrics utilities section of the Automation controller User Guide.

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