Configure an external PostgreSQL database for Ansible automation portal

By default, Ansible automation portal uses an embedded PostgreSQL database. For production deployments, you can configure Ansible automation portal to use an external PostgreSQL database managed by your organization's database team.

Before you begin

  • You have administrator access to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • You have access to an external PostgreSQL database server (version 13 or later).
  • You have database administrator privileges to create databases and users.
  • Ansible automation portal is installed or you are preparing to install it.

Procedure

  1. Create a database and user on your external PostgreSQL server.

    Connect to your PostgreSQL server as a database administrator and run the following commands:

    CREATE DATABASE rhdh_production;
CREATE USER rhdh_user WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'your_secure_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE rhdh_production TO rhdh_user;
ALTER DATABASE rhdh_production OWNER TO rhdh_user;

    Replace your_secure_password with a strong password.

  2. Verify that you can connect to the database from your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

    Test the connection using a temporary pod:

    oc run -it --rm postgres-test --image=postgres:13 --restart=Never -- \
  psql -h <database-host> -U rhdh_user -d rhdh_production

    Replace <database-host> with your PostgreSQL server hostname or IP address.

    If the connection succeeds, you can proceed. If it fails, verify network connectivity and firewall rules.

  3. Create a secret in OpenShift Container Platform with your database credentials. 
    oc create secret generic rhdh-postgresql-secrets \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_USER=rhdh_user \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your_secure_password \
  --from-literal=postgres-password=your_secure_password \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_HOST=<database-host> \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_PORT=5432 \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_DB=rhdh_production \
  -n <namespace>

    Replace <namespace> with the namespace where Ansible automation portal is installed.

    Note

    The postgres-password key is required by the Helm chart's internal wiring. Its value must match POSTGRES_PASSWORD. Alternatively, you can set postgresql.auth.secretKeys.adminPasswordKey in your Helm values to match your preferred key name.
  4. Update your Ansible automation portal Helm chart values to use the external database.

    Add or modify the following configuration in your values.yaml file:

    upstream:
  postgresql:
    enabled: false  # Disable embedded PostgreSQL

  backstage:
    appConfig:
      backend:
        database:
          client: pg
          connection:
            host: ${POSTGRES_HOST}
            port: ${POSTGRES_PORT}
            user: ${POSTGRES_USER}
            password: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
            database: ${POSTGRES_DB}
            ssl:
              rejectUnauthorized: false  # Set to true if using verified SSL certificates

    extraEnvVarsSecrets:
      - rhdh-postgresql-secrets
  5. Apply the configuration by upgrading your Ansible automation portal Helm release. 
    helm upgrade <release-name> <chart-name> \
  -f values.yaml \
  -n <namespace>

    Replace <release-name> with your Helm release name and <chart-name> with the Ansible automation portal chart name.

  6. Wait for Ansible automation portal pods to restart and initialize the database schema.

    Monitor the pod status:

    oc get pods -n <namespace> -w

Results

  1. Verify that the Ansible automation portal pods are running: 
    oc get pods -n <namespace>

    All Ansible automation portal pods should show a status of Running.

  2. Check the Ansible automation portal logs to confirm the database connection: 
    oc logs -n <namespace> <backstage-pod-name> | grep -i "database\|postgres"

    You should see log entries indicating a successful database connection without errors.

  3. Connect to your external PostgreSQL database and verify that Ansible automation portal created the required schema: 
    \c rhdh_production
\dt

    You should see multiple tables created by Ansible automation portal.

  4. Access the Ansible automation portal web interface and verify that your data persists across pod restarts.