Chapter 4. Getting started as an automation operator

Procedure

1. In a terminal, navigate to the roles directory inside a collection.

2. Create a role called my_role inside the collection:

   $ ansible-galaxy role init my_role

   The collection now includes a role named my_role inside the roles directory, as you can see in this example:

   ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/<my_namespace>/<my_collection_name>
       ...
       └── roles/
           └── my_role/
               ├── .travis.yml
               ├── README.md
               ├── defaults/
               │   └── main.yml
               ├── files/
               ├── handlers/
               │   └── main.yml
               ├── meta/
               │   └── main.yml
               ├── tasks/
               │   └── main.yml
               ├── templates/
               ├── tests/
               │   ├── inventory
               │   └── test.yml
               └── vars/
                   └── main.yml

3. A custom role skeleton directory can be supplied by using the --role-skeleton argument. This allows organizations to create standardized templates for new roles to suit their needs.

   $ ansible-galaxy role init my_role --role-skeleton ~/role_skeleton

   This creates a role named my_role by copying the contents of ~/role_skeleton into my_role. The contents of role_skeleton can be any files or folders that are valid inside a role directory.

Procedure

1. Log in to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
2. From the navigation panel, select Automation Content Collections. The Collections page displays all collections across all repositories. You can search for a specific collection.
3. Select the collection that you want to export. The collection details page opens.
4. From the Install tab, select Download tarball. The .tar file is downloaded to your default browser downloads folder. You can now import it to the location of your choosing.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Content Namespaces.
2. Within the My namespaces tab, locate and click into the namespace to which you want to upload a collection.
3. Select the Collections tab, and then click Upload collection.
4. In the New collection modal, click Select file. Locate the file on your system.
5. Click Upload.

Procedure

1. Log in to registry.redhat.io.

   $ podman login registry.redhat.io

2. Pull the base images from the registry:

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Infrastructure Execution Environments.
2. Click Create execution environment to add an execution environment.

3. Enter the appropriate details into the following fields:

   • Name (required): Enter a name for the execution environment.
   • Image (required): Enter the image name. The image name requires its full location (repository), the registry, image name, and version tag in the example format of quay.io/ansible/awx-ee:latestrepo/project/image-name:tag.

   • Optional: Pull: Choose the type of pull when running jobs:

     • Always pull container before running: Pulls the latest image file for the container.
     • Only pull the image if not present before running: Only pulls the latest image if none is specified.

     • Never pull container before running: Never pull the latest version of the container image.

       Note

       If you do not set a type for pull, the value defaults to Only pull the image if not present before running.

   • Optional: Description:
   • Optional: Organization: Assign the organization to specifically use this execution environment. To make the execution environment available for use across multiple organizations, leave this field blank.
   • Registry Credential: If the image has a protected container registry, give the credential to access it.

4. Click Create execution environment.

   Your newly added execution environment is ready to be used in a job template.

5. To add an execution environment to a job template, specify it in the Execution Environment field of the job template.

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Projects.
2. Click a project to view its details.
3. For each project listed, you can sync the latest revision, edit the project, or copy the project’s attributes using the icons next to each project.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Templates.
2. Select a template to view its details. A default job template is created during your initial setup to help you get started, but you can also create your own.
3. From the Templates page, click the launch icon to run your job template.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Infrastructure Inventories. The Inventories window displays a list of inventories that are currently available, along with the following information:

   • Name: The inventory name.

   • Status: The statuses are:

     • Success: The inventory sync completed successfully.
     • Disabled: No inventory source added to the inventory.
     • Error: The inventory source completed with error.
   • Type: Identifies whether the inventory is a standard inventory, a smart inventory, or a constructed inventory.
   • Organization: The organization to which the inventory belongs.
2. Select an inventory name to display the Details page for the inventory, including the inventory’s groups and hosts.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Jobs.

   The default view is collapsed (Compact) with the job name, status, job type, start, and finish times. You can click the arrow icon to expand and see more information. You can sort this list by various criteria, and perform a search to filter the jobs of interest.

2. From this screen, you can complete the following tasks:

   • View a job’s details and standard output.
   • Relaunch jobs.
   • Remove selected jobs.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Automation Execution Jobs.

2. Select a job. This takes you to the Output view for that job, where you can filter job output by these criteria:

   • The Search output option allows you to search by keyword.
   • The Event option enables you to filter by the events of interest, such as errors, host failures, host retries, and items skipped. You can include as many events in the filter as necessary.