2.2. Building a definition file

Once you have Ansible Builder installed, we will need to create a definition file which Ansible Builder will use to create your automation execution environment image. The high level process to build an automation execution environment image is for Ansible Builder to read and validate your definition file, then create a Continerfile, and finally pass the Containerfile to Podman which then packages and creates your automation execution environment image. The definition file we will create for Ansible Builder is in yaml format and contains different sections which we will discuss in further detail.

The following is an example of a definition file:

version: 1

build_arg_defaults: 
  ANSIBLE_GALAXY_CLI_COLLECTION_OPTS: "-v"

ansible_config: 'ansible.cfg' 

dependencies: 
  galaxy: requirements.yml
  python: requirements.txt
  system: bindep.txt

additional_build_steps: 
  prepend: |
    RUN whoami
    RUN cat /etc/os-release
  append:
    - RUN echo This is a post-install command!
    - RUN ls -la /etc

version: 1

build_arg_defaults: 

  ANSIBLE_GALAXY_CLI_COLLECTION_OPTS: "-v"

ansible_config: 'ansible.cfg' 

dependencies: 

  galaxy: requirements.yml
  python: requirements.txt
  system: bindep.txt

additional_build_steps: 

  prepend: |
    RUN whoami
    RUN cat /etc/os-release
  append:
    - RUN echo This is a post-install command!
    - RUN ls -la /etc

For more information about these definition file parameters, please see this section.