Ansible Automation Platform Installation

Overview

In order to use AWX, aka the upstream product of Ansible Automation Platform, formerly Ansible Tower, we need to have a working cluster. This article provides instructions in how to install and use AWX.

Installation

The installation process for AWX is pretty simple. You’ll install the awx-operator per the instructions (see link below).

Persistent Volumes

The one issue I had was the persistent volume claim (PVC) failed to find appropriate storage.

$ kubectl describe pvc postgres-13-awx-demo-postgres-13-0 -n awx
Name:          postgres-13-awx-demo-postgres-13-0
Namespace:     awx
StorageClass:
Status:        Pending
Volume:
Labels:        app.kubernetes.io/component=database
               app.kubernetes.io/instance=postgres-13-awx-demo
               app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=awx-operator
               app.kubernetes.io/name=postgres-13
Annotations:   <none>
Finalizers:    [kubernetes.io/pvc-protection]
Capacity:
Access Modes:
VolumeMode:    Filesystem
Used By:       awx-demo-postgres-13-0
Events:
  Type    Reason         Age                        From                         Message
  ----    ------         ----                       ----                         -------
  Normal  FailedBinding  3m17s (x14344 over 2d11h)  persistentvolume-controller  no persistent volumes available for this claim and no storage class is set

However I have a persistent volume.

$ kubectl get pv
NAME         CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   RECLAIM POLICY   STATUS      CLAIM   STORAGECLASS   REASON   AGE
storage-pv   100Gi      RWX            Retain           Available                                   165d

It took just a little digging but I figured out the problem.

$ kubectl get pvc postgres-13-awx-demo-postgres-13-0 -n awx -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2023-09-11T02:03:34Z"
  finalizers:
  - kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/component: database
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: postgres-13-awx-demo
    app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: awx-operator
    app.kubernetes.io/name: postgres-13
  name: postgres-13-awx-demo-postgres-13-0
  namespace: awx
  resourceVersion: "54733870"
  uid: 1574b79e-1e17-4825-bc25-d70ac4021af7
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 8Gi
  volumeMode: Filesystem
status:
  phase: Pending

Note the spec.accessModes setting is ReadWriteOnce however the storage-pv persistent volume is configured as ReadWriteMany (RWX). I created a new PV called registry-pv and configured the Access Mode as ReadWriteOnce.

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: registry-pv
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  capacity:
    storage: 20Gi
  nfs:
    path: /srv/nfs4/registry
    server: 192.168.101.170
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  volumeMode: Filesystem

And it worked. The PVC was allocated and the pods started.

$ kubectl get pods -n awx
NAME                                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
awx-demo-postgres-13-0                             1/1     Running   0          24m
awx-demo-task-857c895bf9-rt2h8                     4/4     Running   0          23m
awx-demo-web-6c4df77799-6mn9p                      3/3     Running   0          21m
awx-operator-controller-manager-6544864fcd-tbpbm   2/2     Running   0          2d13h

Postgres Database and Storage

The postgres container has a default configuration that uses attached storage (PV and PVC) for the database information. This is an 8g slice. The problem is it creates a [share]/data/pgdata directory with the postgres database. This means you have to ensure you have a unique PV for each postgres container.

Of course if you’re using an external postgres server, make sure you make the appropriate updates to the configmap.

Ingress Access

In addition to the pods, we need to create a DNS entry plus an ingress route.

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: awx-demo
  namespace: awx
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: haproxy
spec:
  rules:
  - host: awx.dev.internal.pri
    http:
      paths:
      - backend:
          service:
            name: awx-demo-service
            port:
              number: 80
        path: /
        pathType: Prefix
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - awx.dev.internal.pri

You’ll have to get the admin password, run the following command to retrieve it. Once retrieved, log in to https://awx.dev.internal.pri (or whatever you’re using) as admin and use the password. When you log in, the password is cleared so make sure you save it somewhere.

$ kubectl get secret awx-demo-admin-password -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" -n awx | base64 --decode; echo
G4XfwRsfk9MycbxnS9cE8CDfqSKIuNMW

Troubleshooting

If you forget the admin password or simply want to reset it, you would log into the web container and reset it there.

$ kubectl exec awx-demo-web-6c4df77799-6mn9p -n awx --stdin --tty -- /bin/bash
bash-5.1$ awx-manage changepassword admin
Changing password for user 'admin'
Password:
Password (again):
Password changed successfully for user 'admin'
bash-5.1$

Conclusion

When you get to the website and log in, you’re ready to add your projects!

References

• AWX Github Site
• https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator/blob/devel/docs/installation/basic-install.md